UNTITLED (DANH VO x NAFA x NGS)

UNTITLED, 2017

DIMENSION: VARYING SIZES

This was a collaborative project between Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and National Gallery Singapore to create a work that responds to the commissioned sculpture work by Danh Vo at the Ng Teng Fong rooftop garden. 

Referring to Danh Vo’s quiet, bold style and his artistic interest in the taking apart and reassembling of identities and cultures, inspired by life experiences and ready-made objects, four artists collaborated to present ideas on their identities and cultural background, as represented by collages of four distinct colours: white, copper, black, and brown.

The White Collage – By origami-letter-folding over 300 stories she authored, Lee Ju-Lyn queries the superficiality of perceived personal and Singaporean identity.

The Copper – Hyesu combines faded signages from her home country to trace her childhood memories up to the current point of being in Singapore.

The Black – Through intimate images, Nur Izzati Binte Haji Muhammad Faisal challenges the geographical definitions of identity by presenting personal moments and connections that span across physical distances.

The Brown – The strangely familiar images of Pulau Mutiara and Tidore from the discontinued 1000 rupiah bill express Yunita Rebekah Winata Chandra's disconnectedness with her national cultural identity.

Background
 

I was tasked to make a white collage responding to the concept of identity and the sculpture by Danh Vo at Ng Teng Fong Rooftop Garden National Gallery Singapore, as part of a collaborative work that was to become a collage of collages.

As I am studying Chinese ink painting at NAFA – I was inspired by the concept of 留白, whereby white is actively treated as part of the composition, and thus, to make whiteness itself a subject.

To do so, I refer to paper folding or origami, a very distinctly East Asian art form, and one that has personal meaning to me. For like Danh Vo, I too like to draw on upon my personal life for my work. So I combined my childhood love for paper folding and teenage obsession with writing and folding letters, with an old manuscript of over 400 stories I wrote but never had the chance to organise.

Viewers are encouraged to open the letters to discover the content for themselves. This communicates how I see myself as a multidimensional individual, and how my identity is different to different people depending on the extent of our interactions.

On AIR: 2nd Installation

A reprisal of the work was installed at On Air Gallery at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. The sequence is informed by our class schedules.

across space: 3rd installation

The third installation was requested in conjunction to the opening of Downtown Line Station at Bencoolen Street. It was installed in a window, in which there was a reflection of a building named Space.  This installation is designed for interaction with the viewer's reflection in the glass.