johari

Project Description

Johari is a multidisciplinary installation that was created at the Savannah Cultural Art Center during Winter 2025. It investigates the porous boundaries between self and other, memory and present moment, vulnerability and structure. Drawing its name and conceptual framework from the Johari Window, a psychological model for self-awareness, the work maps the complexities of interpersonal perception across material, space, and narrative.

Constructed from a constellation of tactile and symbolic elements—including paper, clear vinyl (visqueen), nylon strands, metal, plastic, concrete, glass, and a well-worn wood table—the installation creates an immersive, meditative environment. These materials, each with their own histories and associations, become agents in a conversation about transparency, memory, stability, and emotional exposure.

Conceptual Framework

The Johari Window model defines four quadrants of the self:

• The Open Area: what is known by the self and also seen by others

• The Blind Area: what is unseen by the self but visible to others

• The Hidden Area: what is known internally but concealed from others

• The Unknown Area: what remains undiscovered by both the self and others

Through this lens, Johari explores the dynamic tension between visibility and concealment, and between the weight of personal history and the present moment of encounter. Each viewer brings their own emotional architecture to the piece, becoming part of the relational field it activates.

Viewer Engagement

Visitors to Johari are invited to participate in the evolution of the installation by writing a haiku about something that inspires them. A supply is provided of clear visqeen sheets and black permanent markers.

Material Language & Symbolism

• Paper operates as a site of projection and transcription—a mutable ground where meaning is inscribed and reinscribed. It offers fragility, openness, and potential.

• Clear vinyl (visqueen) acts as both barrier and window. Its transparency becomes a metaphor for emotional exposure—offering a view while simultaneously distorting or protecting what lies behind. It evokes the discomfort and necessity of vulnerability.

• The wood table, handcrafted 14 years ago, carries deep personal history. Having traveled through California, Oregon, and Georgia, it bears the traces of communal life—meals, conversations, silences. It becomes a physical and emotional anchor: a relic of intimacy and repetition.

• Bricks, placed deliberately, serve to ground and weigh down the more ephemeral materials. They introduce a language of architecture and security, subtly echoing themes of containment, foundation, and permanence.

• Strands of nylon are suspended to mimic architectural columns, referencing the classical orders (base, shaft, capital). These vertical lines offer rhythm and orientation within the space, but their softness contrasts with the rigidity of traditional columns, suggesting a more pliable form of support.

Artist Statement

Johari is a personal and spatial exploration of how we reveal, conceal, and come to know ourselves—both independently and in relation to others. Rooted in the framework of the Johari Window, a psychological model used to map self-awareness across four domains (open, hidden, blind, and unknown), this installation creates a physical site where those boundaries can be seen, felt, and reconsidered.

The materials—clear vinyl, strands of nylon, paper, concrete, metal, a worn wood table, and light—are chosen not just for their textures and forms, but for their symbolic resonance. Each one reflects aspects of the self: transparent surfaces that reveal and distort, structural elements that support or weigh down, and artifacts from my own history that anchor the installation in lived experience.

Natural light enters the space through a nearby window, becoming an active participant in the work. Shifting throughout the day, it illuminates some areas while casting others into shadow—mirroring the themes of visibility, perception, and the fluid nature of self-awareness. This interplay between light and material echoes the emotional transparency at the heart of the piece.

At the center of Johari is a hand-built table I made 14 years ago, which has moved with me across states and life stages. It has witnessed quiet meals, joyful gatherings, and solitary moments of reflection. Surrounding it are suspended materials that evoke both architectural columns and delicate veils—structures that suggest containment, but also permeability.

This work asks how we hold our histories, how we share them, and how much of ourselves we truly make visible. It is about the fragility of knowing and being known. By inviting viewers into a space that feels both constructed and raw, Johari becomes a meditation on relational intimacy, emotional architecture, and the ever-shifting nature of personal transparency.

Johari invites reflection on what we reveal, what we protect, and what remains unknown—even to ourselves.