Emma Rani Hodges' exhibition in Gallery 2, ‘I would kiss you on the cheek if you listened to me. I’m tired of pleading with you’ is a body of work that focuses on plural identities and feelings of cultural rootlessness. 

Having grown up between cultures, Hodges lives in the skin of a Thai-Chinese migrant and grew up on unceded Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri land. Land and country are important here; coming from a diasporic identity, there is a strong desire to find spaces that sit on the margins of white development. This space exists in the form of urban-bushland, backing the outer suburbs of Belconnen where Hodges moved between houses in a constant state of relocation and removal (though some things stayed constant, like the sound of cicadas every summer).

Hodges’ work constructs fictive spaces combining found natural objects such as banksia cones and cicada shells; manufactured objects such as fabric sent by their grandmother in Thailand (who was once a dress maker); poetic prose and traditional paintings. Their work responds to fear of ambiguity - Zarine Rocha theorises that mixed heritage people are historically pathologised by western culture as being caught between two worlds, destined to never belong in either. By creating work that relies on multiple modes of making, Hodges carves out space for plural identity to exist as a unified whole.