The “couple” in this work’s title questions if trees can be gendered. If so, how can that be determined within the gender binary construct imposed by us? In other words, how can gender be assigned in the natural world beyond the human species? The universal laws of creation point to an expansive and all-encompassing construct with regards to the philosophy of প্রাাণ ও প্রাকৃৃ তি / ‘life and nature,’ that are simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.

When trying to imagine something that is beyond the scope of our vision or imagination, how can we draw that distance? Alam visualizes such a scene – beyond the natural realm of our cognitive senses – by mapping a direction that helps him perceive distance, or the distant.

Alam reflects on our understanding of what is living and inanimate. Our way of differentiating between the two is underlined by ‘non-movement'. This knowledge guides our perception which in essence, is an internalized phenomenon. The turtle in this work carries this interpretation with it in a way that questions the process of drawing an inanimate turtle. How to discern an object that has rendered itself immobile is a phenomenon that repeats itself throughout this series of works.

The intrigue of this work lies, at least in part, in its title, which challenges our perception of red as the familiar signifier colour of blood. Depicted in this work are cuttlefish, octopus, and squid: creatures with blue blood. By recognizing the colour of their blood as blue, we are prompted to question our default perceptions and how we ascribe meaning to what appears in plain sight.

Alam highlights absence as an event within this work, where birds may either be waiting to be discovered, are completely non-attendant, or yet to arrive. Those that are present and seen may only be there to wait for their peers to join. The work questions the practical perception of birds, their varieties, and the meaning assigned to their being.

In a world where our perception and perspective, our sensory system and the associations we make take precedence, Alam inverts that gaze to imagine how the human being is perceived by the natural world. Just as an anthropologist searches for meaning upon finding a skeletal structure, in this work a bird discovers the remains of a human body. At first sight, the skeleton might seem familiar, but the skull being devoid of flesh and blood further defamiliarizes the familiar.

Alam attempts to represent the loss and retracing of memory through two owls unable to find their way to their home in the mountains. Whether they have fallen ill, lost their senses of perception or simply their memory remains unknown, as does the fate of the mountain and whether anyone will be able to return to it.