The Healing Box
- M. Asli Dukan
- Weitzman School of Design (PennDesign)
- Independent Creative Production Grant
"This project is important to me because it will be my entry point into creating a more personal, self-reflecting work. I have consistently created speculative, fictional projects that have been inspired by, but not necessarily about who I am as a person or about the communities that I am connected to in my life. I believe that by more closely exploring and celebrating my background, especially through the lens of the Black and queer and non-American and working class women in my family, that I may be able to create work that expands my capacities and reach as an artist." - M. Asli Dukan
M. Asli Dukan will work to develop The Healing Box, an interactive multimedia project through which the artist will continue to explore the speculative potential of science fiction, while critiquing it at the same time. The Healing Box takes its name from a device in the book and movie version of Dune by Frank Herbert. In the story, a matriarchal order uses “The Box” to cause the sensation of pain, as a method of teaching its followers. The Healing Box subverts this methodology by proposing an ancestral box that centers connection and healing to raise awareness. It does this by sharing various mementos and the experiences of five generations of women in the artist’s family.