"Meow from the Back Seat" is part of my Condensation series, exploring defiant acts of joy by leaving marks on an unsuspecting surface. As a recent immigrant, I spent years stuck in the passenger seat, as an observer, not a driver. The other passengers I saw in the same space were usually children. We share something in the submissive quiet of the back seat, boredom builds up like a spring, bursting into creative mark-making. (It doesn't matter if the child is nine or ninety-one.) The scribbled cat is central. Like lions and bison in Lascaux caves, cats surround contemporary art-simple, familiar, and endlessly doodled. The finger-drawn "Meow" can be both name and sound. My Condensation series explore Southern identity through mark-making. Calligraphic traces act as containers of identity, witnessing the body for action rather than appearance. That allows inclusion of more bodies in conversation, making my work a safer, more inclusive exploratory space.