TUNNEL

Tunnel
Artist Statement

There is a common belief that light saves us.

We are taught to move toward it, trust it, and find comfort in its presence. Yet human experience often reveals a more unsettling truth: sometimes light arrives, but healing does not.

Tunnel emerges from this paradox.

At the center of the work stands a solitary figure suspended between despair and possibility. Surrounded by an overwhelming radiance, the figure remains emotionally detached from it, carrying the weight of an internal struggle that the outside world cannot resolve. The light is not absent; it is present in abundance. Its presence, however, becomes ironic, exposing the painful distance between hope's existence and hope's experience.

The tunnel itself is a psychological space rather than a physical one—a passage formed from memory, expectation, disillusionment, and unanswered questions. The surrounding fragments and chaotic marks represent the noise of consciousness, the accumulation of invisible wounds, and the relentless complexity of being human.

This work is not about darkness overcoming light.

It is about the moment when a person stands directly before the possibility of meaning and still feels lost. It explores the fragile threshold where continuation and surrender coexist, where certainty dissolves, and where the human mind confronts itself without resolution.

Rather than offering an answer, Tunnel invites viewers to inhabit that suspended moment and reflect on a difficult question:

What happens when hope is present, yet no longer felt?

— Shorna Abedin