Protection can be armor, but it can also become a second skin. The haori, once worn by men during wartime as a shield against the cold, has now been reclaimed by women, a shift in gesture, meaning, and power. Its transformation echoes the changing nature of protection: something inherited, adapted, and redefined.

Arapaima takes its name from the fish with the strongest scales on earth, a living shield, ancient and impenetrable. This work explores self-protection: the instincts we grow, layer by layer, to survive what harms us, seen and unseen. These protective scales are not walls; they are witnesses, carriers of memory, resilience, and intuition.

With texture, form, and scale, Arapaima reflects a quiet power: shielding without disappearing, defending the self without losing it. Protection, re-imagined as a creature of strength, softness, and survival.