21st Century Totems
This project presents a series of hand-carved and painted wooden totems, each embodying a personal reflection on contemporary life.
In my exploration of native totems, I was struck by their narrative power—echoed in ancient painted vessels like those of classical Greece. Both traditions used form and imagery as a means of storytelling, a way to preserve and pass down knowledge across generations.
Inspired by this parallel, I created five unique totems, each symbolizing a modern-day theme: environmental crisis, overconsumption, the digital gaze of social media, and the quiet weight of loneliness and communication.
Together, these sculptural figures form a visual mythology—one that bridges the ancestral with the present.