Forbidden Desire
Forbidden Desire — Blown Sugar Sculptures
Living Sculptural Installation, Timelapse Video, and Workshop Series | 2020-Present
Materials: Caster sugar, glucose syrup, water, food colouring
Sugar is a material of contrast. It is a desired treat. It is a forbidden indulgence.
Forbidden Desire explores the tension between beauty, sweetness, and the fleeting nature of life. Each sugar-blown vessel captures a single breath — acting as both a measure of time and a symbol of impermanence.
Created using traditional glassblowing techniques adapted to sugar, the delicate forms gradually collapse and dissolve, leaving behind a syrupy residue. This transformation reflects sugar’s own journey from a symbol of luxury and vitality to one of overconsumption and decline.
The work invites reflection on desire, decay, and the choices we make. What do we choose to consume? And what does it consume in return?
Featured in:
Currently Exhibiting at CALORIE exhibition at Science Gallery Bengaluru, India (2025-2026).
Residency at Arteles Creative Center, Finland (2022).
Museum of Me online exhibition at RMIT Gallery, Australia (2020-2021).
Timelapse of Melting Sugar
Forbidden Desire is a living sculpture - it changes over time.
Transformation and decay are a natural part of all life. Yet, society often prizes beauty and perfection, suggesting we should hide or conceal changes that occur naturally over time. Particularly as we age, and for women who don’t fit into the conventional aesthetic beauty standards.
Over 23 days the sugar sculptures slowly melt into hauntingly beautiful forms before pouring away. I hope Forbidden Desire will encourage us to appreciate beauty within the transformation process - of sugar, nature, others, and ourselves.
This time-lapse captures the transformation of sugar sculptures over 23 days, in a controlled environment at 23C. One photograph was taken every 4 minutes, totalling 8,471 photographs that combine into the film you see. Note: the melting of Forbidden Desire can vary from 1 to 120+ days by controlling their environment.
Music: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor. As we watch the sculptures melt, the accompanying piece echoes the emotional gravity of transformation.
How it’s Made:
Breathe into Sugar
This short film reveals the making process behind each blown sugar sculpture - a delicate act of breath, timing, and control. Using traditional glassblowing techniques adapted to molten sugar, each vessel is shaped in just 30 seconds while the material hovers on the edge of solidity and collapse. All breath thereafter is used to maintain the shape as it cools.
The process is as ephemeral as the final form itself, capturing a single breath made visible.