Triptych

Central to Rao’s garment-making practice is a story she wrote in 2019, in which a woman develops a condition of involuntary, spontaneous teleportation. Each time she teleports, a part of her body is left behind at the place of departure, leaving her fragmented. In response, the protagonist devises harness-like garments, contraptions intended to hold her together and tether her to her surroundings, preventing both disintegration and perpetual motion. Created in 2025, this work is composed of three such contraptions. Through this story, Rao addresses a fractured sense of belonging caused by global movement, gender dysphoria, and attentional dysregulation.