The Ground We Share 天地共享

Contemplating the Everyday, 4-8 July 2011

2011-10-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Following eight years of hard work and determination, I finally completed my PhD research in July 2011. The research is supervised by Professor Brian Falconbridge PPRBS (Emeritus Professor of London Metropolitan University and Past President of the Royal British Society of Sculptor and a former Head of Visual Arts at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London), Ian Roberson(Subject Leader Fine Art, London Metropolitan University), and David Skingle (Senior Lecturer of London Metropolitan University). It was assessed by Professor Nick de Ville (former Millard Chair and Director of the Postgraduate Research Programme in Fine Art, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London) and Professor Gerda Roper (Dean of The School of Art, Design and Media at the University of Northumbria).

Front/back of the invitation card

Contemplating the Everyday
An exhibition of practice-led PhD fine art research

Contemplating the Everyday is the result of my practice-led PhD fine art research based on the title The Mind of the Everyday in Contemporary Fine Art and Zen Buddhist Practice. It emerged from my personal experience and discoveries as an artist working from a Buddhist background. The core of the research is my studio practice with the theoretical framework operating in the intersection of personal and social perspectives. It seeks to develop an enhanced understanding of the everyday in contemporary fine art and Zen Buddhist practice in new and original ways, through bringing forward and integrating the physical and theoretical components of my studio practice as presented in this exhibition.

Devoting attentiveness to and contemplating the everyday is central to my art practice. The everyday that I refer to is contained within the trivial, ordinary and inconsequential objects and activities that people tend to take for granted such as found in the act of cooking and having a meal. Everyday objects there are such as the cutlery we use for eating, something we are so familiar with that we are unlikely to give them a second thought when we encounter them. Besides assembling everyday objects into sculptural forms and installations, part of my work involves using food and cooking to perform with and interact with people visiting my exhibition.

My studio practice operates within subjects, time and space using the everyday, and engages aspects of mindfulness, self, memories, social, cultural and symbolic form. My cultural upbringing and life experience are often revisited, examined and evidenced in my work. The work embraces ideas of as-it-is-ness, nothingness, the impermanent nature of things, and the interconnectedness of objects and people, all of which are relevant to Zen Buddhist discourses of the everyday.

At the entrance

The exhibition space had a purpose built wall on which

to hang work and to divide the space into two halves.

On the right hand side of the exhibition space (as view looking from the entrance)

On the right hand side of the exhibition space (as view looking towards the entrance)

On the left hand side of the exhibition space (as viewed looking from the entrance)

On the left hand side of the exhibition space (as viewed looking towards the entrance)

In the Spirit of Beginner’s Mind and Attentiveness

Making an effort to examine and contemplate what we are aware of is an attentive attitude which is opposed to ‘indifference’ and which I consider to be a hindrance to art-making. I try not to carry fixed views in my experience of the everyday. I make basic enquiries such as ‘what is that?’ in the art-making process. This is my way of dealing with the tendency of indifference, and it is comparable with the practicing of a Beginners’ Mind 初心 (shoshin in Japanese and chū xīn in Chinese) in Zen as suggested by Shunryu Suzuki when he said that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are a few.”

I consider the trivial to have the potential to be transmuted into something extra-ordinary and that what seems to be insignificant may be transformed into something significant and therefore able to be appreciated. When John Cage was asked by Henning Lohner about how he thought uninteresting things could become interesting, he replied, “When and if you pay attention to them.” This is comparable to Zen Buddhists practice of Mindfulness, where they pay attention to the most ordinary circumstances of everyday life such as cooking, washing the dishes and sweeping the floor.

The Circle

The circle derives from that part of Chinese culture that is closely associated with Taoism and Buddhist teaching. It signifies a sense of unity, harmony, infinity and perfection in Chinese culture and it is often evident in both their everyday life and arts.

Roundness signifies a sense of unity, harmony, infinity and perfection in Chinese culture. ‘圆’ (yuán) means ‘circle’ in Chinese and it is often associated with reunion 团圆 (tuán yuán), fullness 圆满 (yuán măn) and completeness 圆美 (yuán měi). As revealed in the format of the dining room, the Chinese place their own emphasis on family values. They prefer to use the round table because it represents those qualities of harmony, peace and completeness.

The Circle embodies a sense of Co-arising and Oneness as suggested by the Buddhist teaching in which they see everything is in everything else, one in all and all in one. This teaching is often revealed in their ensō (Zen circle) paintings where a simple circle is drawn on paper using brush and ink in one attempt or a single breath, to reveal a sense of one cyclic return and wholeness through a clear and focused mind.

Bǎo Yòu (Protectiveness), 2009

Materials: Used joss sticks and hot-melt glueSize: 3.5’ x 3.5’ approx.
(Remade due to the original piece was destroyed in Malaysia)

In the everyday life of my own family and some traditional Chinese families in Malaysia, before they leave home to work in the morning they present joss sticks to the ancestors and deities, to pay respect, and to entreat safety and prosperity. The piece corresponds to the idea of entreating and wish-making that shuttles between the time and spaces of now and the uncertain future. It makes reference to the light circle over the head of the images of their deities, and the used joss sticks represent consumed hopes and dreams that may or may not be or have been realised.

Assemblage of Used Disposable Chopsticks, 2000
Material: Disposable chopsticks and PVA
Dimension: 80cm (width) x 60cm (height)

The piece took three months to assemble, indicating time, and utilized all the chopsticks I collected with the help of my colleagues working in the dishwashing area indicating collaboration. The sculpture is made up of approximately 25,000 pairs of used disposable chopsticks and represents the same amount of meals being consumed, within which conversations were shared, friendships were celebrated, convivial moments were memorized, jobs were created, and trees were cut down. The piece devotes attentiveness, thought process and time consumed on a very humble material. The attitude, decision and the passing of time eventuate in form.

Action, Repetition and Meditation

Part of my work experiments with multiplying and repeating trivial objects in order to create striking visual solid and autonomous forms that indicate both motion as well as stillness. The action of repetition equates with time, and over time and through concentration a process is generated that guides the mind into the meditative state.

The lengthy, minimal intervention and repetitive process of constructing work of art may be compared to the way in which Zen Buddhists go through the ritual of chanting, with a chain of beads running repeatedly through their fingers, in order to eradicate random thoughts. Comparison can also be made with the way they repeatedly use breath-counting as a method in meditation to retrieve awareness back to the present moment and away from unrelated thoughts of the past and future.

Zen Buddhists consider sitting meditation and art-making processes themselves are a means of the practice of Mindfulness. They both serve the purpose of allowing the mind to attend to the action undertaken ‘Now’ at the present moment. Chögyam Trungpa the Buddhist teacher and artist claimed “Creating art is like meditating".

Assemblage of Ring-pulls, 2000
Material: Ring-pulls and staplesSize: 60cm (width) x 17cm (height)

The found ring-pulls are tied together using staples according to the shape of an inflated inner tube from a car tire. As a child, I used an inner tube as a float to swim in flooded abandoned tin mines and which context suggests prevention of drowning and the saving of life. The piece embraces a sense of the social, the environmental, memory and the meditative process of making. The actions of repetition and multiplying equate with time, and over time and through concentration a process is generated that guides me into the meditative state where the existence of the self is anchored.

6 Minute Performance of Smashing Bottles, 2001
Material: Empty alcohol bottles
(Documentation)

My initial intention was to experiment with a different working method - destroying the chosen objects in order to build. The piece embodies the concept of time, space, form and chance through spontaneous gestural play. It explores dualistic aspects of reality where an element of order can be embedded in chaos, with destruction as an act of building, and where a quality of calmness may be found in the frantic. The piece used actions that perform the bodily movements that are initiated by the mind, to interact with objects as matter, suggests a sense of awareness of and focuses on the present moment.

Circumrotation, 2009
Materials: Used shoesSize: 12’ diameter & 6.5’ height approx.

Circumrotation was first shown in The Affluenza Exhibition, inspired by Oliver James’ book Affluenza, to explore the effects that the recent financial crisis has on people’s emotional health. The exhibition took place in a former meat processing factory where different meats where hung and processed daily. The hanging of shoes refers to meat hanging thereby engaging with life and death. The piece explores the human living condition of being ‘trapped’, in a circle with no beginning and no end, with no sense of first and last It also portrays life revolves in causality, where what goes round comes around.

Every Corner of My Flat, 2009 and ongoing
Material: Dust and spray glueStarted in 2009 and ongoing

I use photography to document the process of removing the dust in my studio flat. Along the way I observe and become re-familiarised with myself as I recollect my life when going through my own physical personal belongings. Engaged with the distant, recent and immediate past, the piece is concerned with the relationship between objects, space, man and his behaviour and how they influence each other. It reflects the way a space can affect its inhabitant and how we arrange our living spaces to suit our needs.

Relativity of Things

We are a thing among other things therefore reality cannot exist without the relationship of accords and differences. Our life is merely a web of threads tangled together through relativity and causality, and our every action creates a chain reaction to this web of people and things that bind us together in a perpetual cycle. These undercurrents of the everyday are accessible only through utilizing attentiveness or, in Zen Buddhist terminology, Mindfulness.

Some of my sculptural and performance works explore this idea of relativity as they enter into dialogues with objects, people, and spaces rather than prioritizing projecting self-sentiment and expression. They investigate the interstices between everyday objects and people to make connections by bridging and revealing hidden threads and foreground the less attended space to be observed and contemplated.

In the Zen Buddhist teaching of ‘Truth’ and ‘Oneness’, objects and people are seen as they are, interconnected, with ‘co-conditioned origination’ or sharing ‘mutual arising’. They are interdependent and yet mutually conditioning. Everything is related to everything else under a condition of impermanence. Buddhists perceive that we exist because people are interconnected with us, and that our family, relatives, friends and Sangha sustain the ‘I’.

Nice to Meet You, 2008
Medium: audience interactive drawing and installation
(Documentation)

In March 2008, I took part in Paradise Stories, an exhibition in Liverpool in conjunction with the ‘08 European Capital of Culture’. The exhibition explored what ‘paradise’ meant to the artists taking part. Inspired by the Buddhist concept of Nirvana as a mental space as well as seeing that paradise exists in the everyday around us where people peacefully connect with each other, I proposed Nice to Meet You for Paradise Stories. I was interested in using people as the medium for the piece, where the idea was to experiment through drawing and installation and the interaction between the participants tracing each other’s shadows.

Cigarette Butts Formed Shadow, 2001
Material: Cigarette buttsSize: Life-size shadowThis was a site-specific work for the

‘Brew’ exhibition which took place at the Truman Brewery Company. The site relates to the production and supplying of alcohol. An overhead spotlight cast the shadows of the passerby to the conservatory area in dawn. Cigarette butts scattered around the building were collected and used as the material for the work. My intention was to link together smoking, drinking, the space and the shadows. I was fascinated by the action of putting out cigarettes, where cigarette butts are pushed and planted in the ashtray where the gesture suggested the act of killing off.

Shredded Airliners Stuck on Aquarium, 2003
Material: Polythene airliner and aquariumSize: 61cm x 31cm x 33cm

The piece came to me when I visited my wife in a hospital ward. An infusion bag was connected to a polythene airliner inserted to her hand after an operation to prevent dehydration. I relate the airliner to giving life in this instance, and extend its connection to the situation of an aquarium. By relating the airliner in the hospital to oxygenation in an aquarium, I found an ambiguous association between the two, and decided to stick the cut sections of airliner to a fish tank to suggest the relationships between air, airliner, life, liquid, bubbles and the fish tank.

Seeing Things as they are

An aspect of my studio practice is to see things as they are rather than projecting subjective meanings on the material used. The works study the material’s connection with other objects and people and do not depend solely on me as the creator but also rely in part on the world around me to be able to enter into dialogue.

Seeing things as they are can be linked to Zen Buddhist haiku poetry where it records no subjective aspect of the event and contains no less and no more than what was seen and experienced. It does not go beyond the phenomenon of what was witnessed, with no gap between both as the haiku has no self-projected narrative.

Prejudice in the mind is almost impossible to eradicate completely, and seeing things as there are in my work is an attempt to be honest to the materials I use. This corresponds to the objective way of embracing things in Zen Buddhist practice of Mindfulness known as Tathatā, a non-judgemental practice which seeks to understand the true nature of things that is freed from considerations of personal reactions, to then see things ‘as they are’.

By the River Thames at Windsor, 2004
Format: Dvd Duration: 10 minutes

Taking my camcorder with me on my walk, I chose a footbridge as my location and then set my camcorder on a tripod to record on a mini DV tape for an hour. The whole footage with its original sound was later shortened into about ten minutes. The piece may be seen as the result of spontaneous play due to the footage being unplanned, undirected and unrehearsed. It captured a chance happening without changing the angle or adjusting the equipment during the filming. It records no subjective aspect of the event, and does not go beyond the phenomenon of what I witnessed as it was.

A Single Leaf Trapped in Between Two Pieces of Paving Stone over a Period of Thirty Days, 2002
Medium: Photographs

The leaf was discovered by chance trapped in between two paving stones after windy rain, and curiosity led me to document this chance occurrence until it finally disappeared after 30 days. Without prearrangement and without imposing my own opinions on the leaf, each snapshot has a poetic quality in that it describes the leaf as it is, as it captures the present moment of transition of the leaf without intervention. It embodies a sense of the transitory and of the impermanence in which people and things are like visitors in our life, as they come and go.

Nothing Happens

Some of my works are deliberately presented as banal situations in everyday life that deceptively imply the lack of content or as if ‘nothing happens’. They embrace a sense of illusion or of the simulation of the everyday. The minimum presentation of these pieces blends into the subtle everyday, and it is as if nothing happened in the exhibition space that presented the art.

These pieces use very slight indications to reveal or draw attention to the insignificant within our everyday life. The as if ‘nothing happens’ in the mind of the viewer is produced as the result of the work of art simulating the everyday, does indeed register something in the mind of the viewer when they eventually discovered that the work equates ‘nothing-ness’ with ‘something-ness’. These pieces connect objects with space and indicate the interrelationship between perception, things and situations.

Nothingness is always accompanied by something else to create form, and the negative is always accompanied by the positive or vice-versa. They are inseparable, just as we are followed by our shadows. This is in accord with the famous saying in Chinese’s Chan Buddhism where “form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form.”

Labeling Tags Attached to Clothing, 2003
Material: Price tags and jumperSize: 80cm x 70cm approximately

The piece put clothing and labeling tags into interaction and suggests their permanent combination. It explores the ‘space’ between the real and unreal, the authentic and the illusionary that we may encounter in our daily life. It attempts to connect with the reality where negative aspects of things and human beings are manipulated or intentionally buried under a blanket of attractive appearance. Just as many products in the market are often ‘dressed up’ in an impressive and expensive packaging to lure the consumer.

Assemblage of Loosed Bristles from the Brush that Painted the Wall, 2003Material: emulsion paint, paint brush and clear glue

The inspiration for this piece came to me when I was decorating my flat and it was triggered by the frustration I felt when the bristles from the paintbrush kept falling out while I was painting. I began with painting the gallery wall with a wide brush and white emulsion paint and collecting the loose bristles along the way. The bristles were then stuck to the same wall using clear glue constructed into a realistic looking crack line. The piece combined the emotion (frustration), the materials (paint and paintbrush), the space (wall), and indicates the interrelationship between things and situations.

Condom Inflated with Helium, 2003
Material: condom and helium gas

Helium balloons stuck on the ceiling are often seen in public places. I have also seen people inflate condoms like balloons for fun. This sculpture frames and connects together these two everyday situations. Instead of a balloon, a condom is filled with helium gas and released onto the ceiling of the exhibition space. The condom gradually deflates and touches the ground several hours later. The physical reaction of expanding/contracting and rising/descending of the condom can be associated with the heightened human physical sensation during sexual activity - the rising and descending of feeling, emotion and body temperature.

Entanglement of Art and Life

I admire those artists who able to reveal their mastery of their art in the activities of day-to-day living, with their being and their art inextricably interwoven with no separation between the two.

Art in my practice, is found exactly where we are already and interacts with my surroundings, consisting of opening up to and affirming the situation we are already in. Life and art exist in a complementary partnership in my art practice, with my ideal art practice standing like an island between the two carriageways of art and life, observing attentively and allowing the trivial things and actions of everyday life to inform my art, and allowing art to permeate my everyday life in return.

It is crucial in my art practice to stand at the central point between two extremes to observe equally the positive and negative, sound and silence, something and nothingness, art and life. When we position ourselves in the middle we are more capable of seeing both sides of the dualistic world. This understanding can be compared to the teaching of Middle Way in Zen Buddhism, symbolized by the gesture of two palms held together at chest level.

Stir, 2004
Medium: Audience interactive performance
Collaborated with Yak Beow Seah
(Documentation)

Stir is my first collaboration project and the first interactive audience performance involving food, cooking and eating. The exhibition consisted of a kitchen, a communal table and a slide projection. Soup was prepared in the kitchen each day, which together with slices of bread at the side were served free to the visitors. Seah and I are interested in how dining is able to connect people. The project offers food as well as friendship, and I was interested in how we were able to connect people similar to the way in which I assemble the everyday objects for my sculptures.

P&S Recipe Shop, 2006
Collaborated with Yak Beow Seah
(Documentation)

In this second collaboration with Seah, IMT gallery was temporarily transformed into a ‘grocery shop-cum-café’ for a period of three weeks. The project foregrounded an aspect of our (Seah’s and mine) everyday life to share with the visitors. It presented a selection of our aesthetic experience and what we liked from our findings from living in the UK and travelling around Europe over the previous 11 years. The piece took its motivation from our common interests in ideas of serving and sharing and it elaborates on the aesthetic experience that can be found within food, in gastronomic and related activities.

Personal Album

This album presents the summary of my personal background, life journey and experience, all of which examined in my PhD thesis and indicated how they impacted on my studio practice. It includes images from my childhood, a life-changing backpacking trip to Europe for four months, my work as a chef in restaurants, and sharing pleasant moments with family and friends through cooking and eating. My former part-time jobs as a chef helped to sustain my living, complete my BA and MA education in fine art, and fulfill my ambition to become an artist.

A scene from the private view

Desk with information about my other exhibitions,

interviews and visitor comment book

'Ordinary Mind', artist talk at MIA, 11 Feb 2011

2011-03-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

On my trip back to Kuala Lumpur between Jan and Feb 2011, an artist talk entitled ‘Ordinary Mind’ was organised for the students and lecturers at Malaysian Institute of Art (my former art college). Attended by around 30 people, the talk discussed my studio practice that led to my PhD research. It presented a body of work that I produced in the UK since 2000 follows by an open discussion.

From left: Ms Lo Bee Eng (president) and Mr Liew Soo Wong (head of Fine Art)

Imagining Food Experience - 9 November 2010

2010-12-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

Venue: Room CR6-22a to CR6-22c, 6th Floor,

Commercial Road Building, London Metropolita University
Serving: 12.00pm – 1.30pm

Table setting Image by F. Zampollo

In July 2010, I was invited by Francesca Zampollo to create a special lunch event for the 1st International Symposium of Food Experience Design, a symposium she organised with Chris Smith as a result of her ongoing interest and research on food experience. “We don't want the lunch in this symposium to be boring... We want it to be nothing like the usual "conference food". This is a symposium that talks about food design and food experience, therefore we would like to do something special. Why not Art?” said Francesca.

Table Setting. Image by F. Zampollo

I respond with a proposal called ‘Bon Appetite!’ but later changed the title to ‘Imagining Food Experience’ that interacted with the title of the symposium. The event organised and conceptualized in responds to the symposium where it examines the “emerging discipline of Food Experience Design”. It seeks to connect two key features from the symposium: firstly, the manifestation of food designed for our eating experience. Secondly, a speaker panel and attendees from different nationalities and diverse cultural backgrounds that are interested in the development of food.

Table setting. Image by D. Plaxton

In advance to the symposium, the registered attendees were asked: ‘What is the food ingredient that you think most represents yourself and/or your culture?’ Using recipes from my own culture, creation and experience; a selection of the suggested food ingredients, as the result of the question, are cooked into a few experimental dishes to serve as the conference’s lunch. All the recipes for the lunch event were published in a leaflet folded into a chopstick envelope shape inserted with a pair of chopsticks. A long communal table is custom made for the attendees to enjoy their lunch together and exchange conversation. The chopstick together with the leaflet were on display on the dining table during the lunch event and available for the attendees take away. (The leaflet is now available to download here).

Setting up the event. Image by D. Plaxton

Apart from advance food design using modern technology, cultural crossover in food is becoming a prominent feature in contemporary everyday life. Imagining Food Experience engages the idea of globalization and cultural plurality in food, cooking and eating. The piece observes, blends and plays with food ingredients and recipes from different countries and cultures to create new forms. It provides an opportunity for the attendees to expand their conversation about this environment from the symposium room to the dining table. The piece also embraces the spirit of sharing and exchanging through engaging people to share a meal by sitting together in a communal table. It also allows them to enter and expand work of art by tasting it and taking it away to share with others. The lunch event was attended by approximately 90 people.

Attendees help themselves with food. Image by D. Plaxton

Ingredients suggested by the participants:

1. Tomato and bread - Marta Salvá 2. Pasta - Martyn Richmond 3. Spice paste (onion, coriander seed powder, chilli powder, Tamarind, Cumin seeds and Tomatoes) - Manuel Tim 4. Ouzo - Loannis Pantelidis 5. Kendal Mint Cake - Sophia Nicholson 6. Turmeric powder - Vikas Wadhwani 7. Fries - Chotima ag-ukrikul 8. Potato - Marie Kent 9. Apple - Irina Labeja 10. Rice - Will Longden 11. Fine Wine - Marianne Forrest 12. Field Mushroom - Brent Richards 13. Potato - John Edwards 14. Olive oil - Tiago Ferreira 15. Squared pasta - Fabio Parasecoli 16. Cinnamon & Salt - Dominique Lucas 17. Brain as part ofpork or veal - Martin Hablesreiter 18. Pasta and Pizza - Stefania Bilotta 19. Sugar – Mah Rana 20. Chocolate - Julie Beattie 21. Porridge – Danielle Inga 22. Barley - Karen Rumsey 23. Water – Prang L. 24. Soup – Suzie Norris 25. Barley - Neil Fergusion 26. Dark chocolate – Julie Jacoby 27. Potato – Cathy O’donnell 28. Onion – Marija Prytkova 29. Fish - Helga Björg Jónasardóttir 30. Soy sauce – Sawamurai 31. Rice - Synnøve Fredericks 32. Dumpling - Liao Tjhien 33. Milk chocolate with hazelnut - Julie Seutin 34. Milk and vanilla - Ingeborg Flornes 35. Cayenne pepper – James Campbell 36. Rice - Synnøve Fredericks 37. Marjoram and Rosemary - Jarka Hinksman 38. Rye flour - Theresa Digerfeldt-Mansson 39. Palm Kernel oil - Stanley Chukwukelu 40. Rainbow Chard and Matcha (Green Tea) - Rachel Ware 41. Salt – Anna Cerrocchi 42. Salt, meat & Flour - Lisa Pfannhauser 43. Flower water olive oil potatoes onions garlic and spices – Harvey Reehal 44. Olive - Inês Laranjeira

Special thanks to Dennis Plaxton for documenting the event.

Links:

ifooddesign home page

Imagining Food Experience page

Download recipes from the event

Attendees help themselves with the dessert. Images by D. Plaxton

About the Conference Organizer

International Food Design Society
The International Food Design Society aims to promote research, development, and education in the area of Food Design and to support inventive and creative techniques for the Food Design discipline.
In particular the International Food Design society aims to support and encourage the international exchange of information and experience between academics, practitioners, industrial companies, culinary enthusiasts, universities, and other organizations in the area of innovation, creation, and knowledge management.
www.ifooddesign.org

London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass Department of Art Media & Design
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/home.cfm

Images by D. Plaxton

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Event Co-ordination
Francesca Zampollo
Chris Smith

Special thanks
Loke Sim Loo
Lin Fatt Chan
Hock Seng Hui

Technicians
Peter Hufton
Andy Hills

Photography
Dennis Plaxton
Francesca Zampollo

Graphic Design
Francesca Zampollo

Barely Notice exhibition with Bommsoon Lee, 14 - 30 October 2010

2010-12-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Venue: RSP Planet Design Studios
Address: 17 Dorset Square, London NW1 6QB
Private view: 14 Oct 2010, 6pm – 9pm
Exhibition continues: 15 – 30 Oct 2010, 12pm – 6pm
Outdoor video projection: 6pm – 10pm

RSP Planet Design Studio

Sponsored by RSP Planet Design Studio and Chinese Designers’ Region (CDR),'Barely Notice' is a self-curated exhibition embarked on my interest and of South Koreo artist Bommsoon Lee. The exhibition examines the commonplace: objects, spaces and situations that most people take no notice or show their lack of interest. We respond to both positive and negative spaces of RSP Planet Design studios. The work operates within the concepts of time and space, and recalls a sense of ‘Nothingness'.

Helium Inflated Condom, 2003

Assemblage of Losse Bristles from the Brush that Painted the Wall, 2003

Attentiveness plays the central role in Bommsoon’s art practice, which to seemingly invalid fragments of objects, spaces and situations of everyday, and that enters selected tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. However the body of her work emphasises the indeterminacy or potentiality, often drawing from the line of the absurd and humour and remains within those moments where a decision or resolution has not yet been reached.

Love in 90 Degree, 2010

In the exhibition, Bommsoon presents narrative sound, site-specific installations and drawings inviting viewers to the less attended. She said, “Working in a range of media including drawing, object-making, installation, lens-based media and writing, my practice, at its heart, questions the relation between self-knowledge and knowledge of the world external to oneself.”

Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothing, 2003

Devoting attentiveness to the everyday is central to my studio practice. The everyday that I refer to is the commonplace and trivial: objects and activities that for most people, maintain no great significance. I am interested in the artefacts and processes neglected or taken for granted. I am interested in the as‐it‐is‐ness and impermanence of things: the interconnectedness between objects and people and how these things recall memories, mindfulness, and ideas surrounding the self. My work aims to reify the trivial and discarded, providing opportunities for the viewer to re‐approach these (often overlooked, and) reinvigorated contemporary cultural tomes.

A scene from the exhibition

The Trivia that keep the World Goes Round, 2010

In the exhibition, Bommsoon presented her 'She is Waiting for the Right Moment', 'Nothing Here Right Now' and a two parts sound and video projection piece 'Searching: a Girl at the End of Puberty'. I presented 2 pieces of new works include 'The Trivia that Keeps the World Goes Round' and 'Love in 90 Degree' and 3 pieces of my existing works include 'Condom Infalted with Helium', 'Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothing' and 'Assemblage of Loosed Bristles from the Brush that Painted the Wall'.

The Trivia that Keep the World Goes Round (close-up views)

Both our works inspired by and physically derived from the objects, spaces and situations that are evident in our immediate environment. They reclaim the potential of the less attended and transform them into artistic forms for re-examination and contemplation. The work interacts with and assimilates the things and the structure of the space that concealed in the horizon of the everyday most of us barely notice.

Please follow this link for further information: http://www.barelynotice.blogspot.com/

The Trivia that Keep the World Goes Round (close-up views)

Private/Public at Gallery 320, 20 - 25 Sep 2010

2010-10-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

The cover for the invitation card. Image by: Ting-Ting Cheng

In July 2010, I came across the information of ‘call for submission’ for Private/Public exhibition and met Ting-Ting Cheng, artist and the curator for the exhibition. Tingting works with photography, and use everyday objects as the subject for her images. For example, in her ‘Invisible’ piece, she picked up discarded objects from the streets, placed them on the plinth and photographed them. Her practice “focus[es] on the relationship between objects, places and people’s emotion toward them” and “celebrates the banality of everyday life”.

At the entrance of the gallery

Private/Public was a group exhibition “scrutinizes the idea of domestic place in our everyday life”, and explores the concept of private space in public gallery context. Twelve artists including Hannah Forbes Black, Ting-Ting Cheng, Yin-Hua Chu, Sarah Churlish, Gerard Cuartero, Milena Galli, Denise Hickey, Steve Hines, Sule Kemanci, Katherine Lubar, Clare Motte and myself, “using various mediums to turn the gallery space into domestic, oscillating between private and public” said Tingting. The exhibition encourages raising questions on: “How does the domestic place mean to us? And what is the relationship between them? How does it reflect our personal history and everyday routine? And, how do artists reveal the residents by exploring the space? Furthermore, when the private becomes public in the contemporary art exhibition, what has been changed?”

A scene from the private view

I presented ‘Every Corner of my Flat’ for the exhibition, the piece inspired by the dust accumulates in my living space. Started in 2009 and ongoing, I use photography to document the process when I clear the dust, they are being rolled into a ball shape and continue to grow. The process provides a chance for me to scrutiny more intensely about my own living space. Along the way I observe, familiarize and recollect myself when going through my belongings.

'Every Corner of my Flat' in the exhibition. Image by Tingting Cheng.

'Every Corner of the Flat' (Archived image from Strange/Familiar exhibition)

The piece motivated by the relationship between objects, spaces, man and his behaviour and examines how they influence each other, it reflects how a space affects its inhabitant and the way we arrange our inhabit spaces to suit our needs. It is one of many potentials to ‘draw a portrait’ of a person, or to describe the character in his habitant space. The endless repetitive and accumulative activities manifest a sense of infinity and meditative quality that reflects in some of my work. In a separate thought, dust reminds me of two Buddhist poems:

The body is the Bodhi Tree;
The mind is like a bright mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
Shen Hsiu

There never was a Bodhi Tree
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?
Hui Neng

I am Solitary I am an Army, 31 Aug – 11 Sep 2010

2010-10-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Image from the invitation card

“The approach for the exhibition was to remove expectancy away from work dealing with an exclusively figurative approach to the exhibition’s theme; as a result, the work in I Am Solitary encompasses a more conceptual and abstract understanding of ideas around ‘identity’ and ‘individuality’. The works included comment on the relation to the individualistic moment of creation, the solitary subject, the remote instance, or even the viewer’s relationship to the work.” Beer Lambert contemporary

Entrance to the exhibition

Invited by Surface gallery in Nottingham, Beers Lambert curated ‘I am Solitary I am an Army’, an exhibition of “emergent contemporary art”. The 20 artists features in the exhibition were from over 13 different countries including Turkey, Israel, Malaysia, Greece, Australia, South Africa, Canada, the US, and the UK. The exhibition, according to Beers Lambert, “explores current and progressive trends and pathways in international emergent art”, and “each of the artists’ work responds to questions of identity and individuality, and each artist can be seen as shaping the direction of international and contemporary painting, sculpture, video, and photography”.

A scene from the private view

My work ‘Circumratation' was selected for the exhibition, other artists in the exhibition are: Joshua Bilton ● Lindsey Bull ● Tom Butler ● Dionisis Christofilogiannis ● BJ & Richelle Formento ● Joshua Hagler ● Aaron Head ● David-Ashley Kerr ● Grace Kim ● Carla Liesching ● Tom Nolan ● Sarah Pager ● Charlie Penrose ● Andrew Salgado ● Yael Schmidt ● Lyndsey Searle ● Berndnaut Smilde ● David A Smith

My work'Circumrotation' in the exhibition

'Circumrotation' initially took part in ‘The Affluenza Exhibition’ in 2009; that responded to Oliver James’s book called ‘Affluenza’. James argued that the recent financial crisis is the consequence of materialism and people’s dogged pursuit of external gains. The piece explores a sense of ‘trapped’ in human living conditions. On one hand, it responds to the life of many who imprisoned themselves in persuading power, wealth, or possession unaware that they trapped in a circle which has no beginning and no end, and no sense of first and last. On the other hand, it portrays people and things are interconnected that life revolves in causality, what goes round comes around.

Another scene fom the private view

Beers Lambert Contemporary Art was founded in Vancouver, Canada with the intention of supporting and advancing the careers of exceptionally talented young artists. They currently operate out of Vancouver; London, England; and Berlin, Germany, representing some of the most talented emerging artists from around the world.

Works by other artists

A cataogue was published for the exhibition. The dsign of the cover.

Artsdepot Open 2010, 23 Jul - 5 Sep 2010

2010-10-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

Image by: Artdepot

artsdepot is at the heart of Tally Ho Corner in North Finchley, the art centre was conceived by the local community in 1996 through a conference called Barnet 2000. What emerged from that conference was an overwhelming need for more professional arts facilities in Barnet. The London Borough of Barnet then put the project in motion and teamed up with developers Taylor Woodrow and The Bull Arts Centre to develop plans for North Finchley’s regeneration and what was to become artsdepot. The art centre which includes a gallery called Arthorp Gallery, was opened to the public for the first time on Saturday 23 October 2004.

artsdepot Open is suggested as “a vibrant exhibition showcasing some of the best visual art talent around” and “an annual celebration of creativity”. It was in its sixth year returns to the Arthorp Gallery in 2010, and shortlisted artist include: Helen Maria Alveranga, Katja Angeli, Trevor Atwood, Patricia Bidi, Leszek Blyszczynski, Joo-hee Chun, Anthony Day, Jacob Eiseman-Renyard, Susan Eyre, Jamie Gordon, Veronica Grassi, Richard Greaves, Andrew Hladky, Jane Boyett Judd, Nick Judd, Myra Lawson, Paola Leonardi, Jane Lushy, Helen Michael, Sasha Morris, Alice Peillon, Paul Regan, Jacqueline Rudd, Flora Teh-Morris and David Waller, Celestine Thomas, Ian Thomson, Richard Treister, Taymaz Valley, Ben Walker, David T Waller, Christine Watson.

Initially my works ‘Circumrotation’ and ‘Whole, Semi and Skimmed’ were selected for the exhibition. However, due to space limitation and technical difficulties, the curator and her team decided to show the latter. ‘Whole, Semi and Skimmed’ was originally commissioned by Brent Artists Resources for Respect Art Festival 2009. It uses solely plastic milk bottles from one of the Brent’s recycling centre to construct into a flock of sheep. The piece took courage from remembering the toys I used to make when I was a child; it embraces mixed elements of build, play and time. It suggests a light-hearted aspect of art making and a meditative process of creation and recreation. It relates object with environment and demonstrates one of the many sustainable possibilities by rejuvenating the discarded into something ambiguous for appreciation.The following images are the documentation from the exhibition.

Image by: Chong Boon Pok Copyright: Chong Boon Pok

Minimalism Massimo, 14 Jan to 4 Feb 2010

2010-07-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

A scene from the private view

Took Place at The Gallery at Willesden Green, Minimalism Massimo was and exhibition curated by artist and curator Lorenzo Belenguer from Brent Artist Resources and The Gallery at Willesden Green. My work 'Swan Cigarrette Paper folded into a Crane' was presented in the exhibition alongside the work from prominent artists such as Joseph Beuys, Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Martin Creed, John Latham, Jenny Holzer and James Ireland.

A viewer took a closer look at 'Swan Cigarrete Paper Folded into a Crane'

Belenguer said that "Minimalism is back, and not just because of the recession. Artists are rediscovering the use of austere materials in a more elaborate way, but without missing the main point of Minimalism: the beauty of the material."

A closer view of 'Swan Cigarette paper Folded into a Crane', 2000

Dimension: 14 x 6 x 8 mm

Belenguer also quoted W.J.T. Mitchell that "Trivial objects - slipper, pencils, gloves, teapots - no longer seem like innocent, passive entitities, but have "lives of their own," with stories to tell, and voices to tell them; the venerable subdiscipline of "material culture" has news to report."

Front: 'Pure Beauty' by John Baldessari (material: lavender and ginger soap)
Back: 'A sheet of A4 Paper Grumped into a Ball, 1995' by Martin creed

In another statement for the exhibition, Mike Cox suggested that "Ever since Marcel Duchamp boldly exhibited a urinal as his now infamous 'Fountain' piece in 1917, artists have continued to comment on the relationship between people and material obects. Through the erosion of bourgeois artistic values, movements such as Dada, Arte Povera, as well as groups like the Conceptualists and the Minimalists, have all extolled the values of ready-made found objects. It is the democratisation of art for all that strongly influences current British artists. After all of these art movements, artists seem to use found or ready-made objects in a more subtle way. Perhaps the current socio-economic situation allows them to take it to the next step. We have selected a group of artists that work in a minimalist approach to materials but not so minimally, push it to the maximum."

Front: 'Money Creates Taste' by Jenny Holzer (wooden postcard multiple)

Back: 'Filzpostkarte, 1985' by Joseph Beuys (silkscreen on felt)

Other artists selected for the exhibition includes:

Sarah Rose Allen, Lulu Allison, Vanya Balogh, Lorenzo Belengeur. Kiera Blakey, Elisabeth S. Clark, Lewis E. Fox, Myra Fricker, Helen Grundy, Irene Perez Hernandez, Jessica Longmore, Oliver Palmer, Kate Keara Pelen, Dawn Stringer, Andrew Sunderland and Christine Warrington.

Links:

http://www.flicr.com/photos/45684920@No4/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVN1E1-8p2o

Strange/Familiar - Debut Solo Exhibition, November 2009

2010-01-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

"離開國土多年，雖然每年都回來探親，但這個城巿急速變化，令他既覺熟悉，又感陌生。究竟他對出生地吉隆坡，或居住地倫敦更有認同感呢？他想了想，回答說兩者皆有，都是徘徊在熟悉與陌生之間。”
谭若瑜，马来西亚中国报，2009 年11月 21 日

“Left the homeland for many years, although he comes home to visit his family all these years but the rapid transformation of the city gave him a familiar as well as strange feeling. Does he feel more at home in his birthplace Kuala Lumpur or London? He thought for a moment and said that he was wandering the spaces between familiar and strange in both cities.” Tham YooYee, China Press Malaysia, 21 November 2009.

Setting up the exhibition

Strange/Familiar is my debut solo exhibition and major exhibition in Malaysia. The exhibition took place at Dasein Academy of Art between 10 and 21 November 2009 during my trip to Kuala Lumpur visiting my families. Thanks to the kind support from Dasein Academy of Art, Mouse Creative, Artprint, and YW Hardware Trading. Also, a big thank to my friend Kim Ng who is also an artist and lecturer at Dasein Academy of Art, offered his help, support and coordination throughout the exhibition on top of his busy schedule. Thanks should also go to Dasein’s student volunteers who offered their time and effort to make the exhibition possible.

Student volenteers, Kim and my wife help setting up the exhibition

Strange /familiar presents a mixture of my new works and a selection of works that I produced since 1999, it includes a body of cross disciplinary pieces consists of sculptures, photographs, and audience interactive performance. The work use familiar objects and mundane activities that people normally uninterested in and will not devote a second thought, they suggest the other side of the insignificant familiarity that potentially greet the viewers with strangeness.

Refreshment was served during the private view

Fried Italian fusilli Malaysian style, a cooking performance on the private view evening

The exhibition attracted interest from China Press, one of the leading Chinese newspapers in Malaysia, who published an article and interview on their paper on 21 November 2009 (Please click on this link to the article)

I also produced a piece of text for the exhibition that is published in the Strange/Familiar’s exhibition catalogue. The text is also published in an art magazine from Singapore called Nanyang Arts magazine (南洋艺术) later, alongside a special interview in their December 2009, issue 29 magazine. This is the text for the exhibition, and it was also being translated into Chinese:

Exhibition catalogue and guide

A life lived in hurry does not allow us to appreciate the many things around us; I choose to slow down my path and take a second look at things. I see devoting attentiveness to the everyday as the basis of my work; they reveal significance within what seems to be insignificant everyday objects and situations.

The seemingly extraordinary of our life can come from something quite ordinary. Therefore the strange can come from things that we are familiar with; they come along hand-in-hand, and exist in a contradictory structure that is simultaneously familiar and strange.

Visitors looking at the sculpture makes out of plastic mineral water bottles

Strange/Familiar is a self-curated exhibition, it is my first solo exhibition where I present a selection of my existing works as well as new works produced specifically for this exhibition. The exhibition contains cross disciplinary pieces including sculptures, installation, photographs, short film and audience interactive performance. The work chosen for the exhibition uses mundane objects and familiar situations that people are unlikely to devote a second thought to. Nevertheless, these pieces potentially greet the viewers with strange familiarity.

'Circumrotation' is another piece of work in the exhibition

My work is about devoting attentiveness to the everyday. The everyday is something ordinary, commonplace and familiar that surrounds us day in day out. Investigating the everyday compels us to confront the things and the totality of the world because the everyday is immanence, ever shifting, endlessly recurring and being. The everyday occurs in a cycle and interpenetrates; it is the beginning as well as the ending of each occurrence. It is endlessly building, deforming and reestablishing. The everyday includes everything, it is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously and one can never successfully draw a line where it starts and where it ends. It is everywhere when one looks at things and sees them, it is nowhere when one looks but sees nothing or trying to ignore. The everyday is present moment, it is right here, right now, and right in front when we are regardful and contemplating it, when our mind wander away the everyday treads past unnoticed.

'Every Corner of My Flat' consists a dust ball and a series of photograph

When we are trying to see something we are being attentive. We are being ignorance when we look but have no interest to see. The everyday in my work is the things that we often overlooked or have no interest to give a second thought.

Some visitors choose to interact with a floor projection piece called 'by the River of Windsor'

My art magnifies quotidian and shares living experience; these may be seen as the result of my interest on the matters of the everyday and Eastern thoughts. Exploring the as-it-is-ness of things, and interconnectedness between objects and people is fundamental to my work; my own cultural background and life experience are often revisited, examined, and evidenced in the work within this journey of exploration. They are not the representation of my life but the essence of my experience instead.

'Swan Cigarrete Folded into a Crane' is a tiny little sculpture

Socrates said that an unconsidered life is not worth living, what he meant is that we must observe important things in life that could enrich our life. I found simple pleasure in art making, like some people enjoy gardening, it enriches my life through observing and contemplating the everyday that is considered trivial rather than focusing solely on the important as suggested by Socrates. This is how my art became a form that relates to a space i.e. a space of self-development rather than self-complacence.

This is a less obvious piece stucks on the ceiling called 'Featherlite condom inflated with Helium'

This is a new piece makes out of used incense called 'BaoYou' (protectiveness)

节奏紧张的生活让人无法真正的去体验生活的周遭。而我却选择了放慢我的步伐往身边的事物多看一眼。我把对日常生活的无限关注视为我的作品的最基本要素，它们显示出了平凡事物的背后不平凡的一面。

A photograph piece called 'A single leaf trapped in Between Two pieces of Paving Stone over a Period of Thirty Days'

不平凡的事物很多时候会在极琐碎的事物内涌现。同样的,陌生感也会在我们非常熟悉的事物中产生。它们是处于一个矛盾的结构之中，陌生与熟悉其实就是一个共同体。

Visitors looking at the piece called 'Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothe'

陌生/熟悉是我亲自制作的展览，它也是我第一次个展。这项展览不但展示了我一些现存的作品，同时它也包括了我特为此展览准备的新作品。这一系列跨领域的作品例如雕塑，摄影, 短片以及观众参与的装置艺术应用了一些司空见惯的事与物作为媒介。一般而言这些事物都是甚少人会给予关注的。总而言之这些作品或许会使观者处于陌生与熟悉的感觉之间。

A visitor spotted another less obvious piece called 'Assemblage of loosed Bristles from the Brush painted the Wall'

我的作品就是关注日常琐碎的事物。司空见惯的日常事物感觉是平凡，寻常和熟悉的，而且它们每天都环绕着我们。当我们想要对这些日常的事物作出研究时，我们会发现它迫使我们面对几乎身边所有事物。这是因为日常的事物是无处不在，不断变更和无尽再生的。日常的事物是循环性发生和互相渗透的，它同时存在于每一件事物的开始和终结，而且它也无休止的在建立，变形与重建。日常的事物包罗一切，它可以无处不在，同时也可以无处可寻。当我们注意到且关注它，日常事物便是无处不在的。但是如果我们视而不觉或者试图忽略，它便无迹可寻。日常事物指的是我们的当下，存在于此时此地，当我们意识到并思索它们时，它们就存在于我们眼前。而当我们不留意时，它们就悄悄的溜开。

Delivering the artist talk

当我们留意去看一切事物，我们使用一颗关注之心。当我们对所见毫无兴趣，我们可以说是作出忽视的态度。我的作品所提示的日常事物就是我们经常视而不见，不给予机会去思考的。

我的艺术作品显示司空见惯的事物以及分享生活上的一些经历。这归根于我对日常事物的关注以及对东方思想的兴趣。基本上我的作品是在探讨物之间的原本性以及人与物之间的关联性。我本身的文化和一些生活的体验都在这些作品内呈现。因为在创作的过程中，我经常重访和探讨我本身的文化背景和生命中的一些经历。它们并不能代表我生活经历的一切，但却是我生活经历的一些精髓。

Another scene during the artist talk

苏格拉底曾说忽视或不思考的生活是毫无意义的，指的便是说我们必须观察生活中重要的并且能丰富生命的一些事物。我在艺术创作中作乐，就像有的人享受园艺所带来的乐趣一样，这乐趣是来自观察和思考琐碎的事物而不只限于,如苏格拉底所指出,去严肃的思考极重要的事物。这种种原因把我的作品形成某个格式同时也把它带到某个空间，它是一个不断自我寻求进步而非自满的空间。

'Whole, Semi and Skimmed' in Brent's Respect Festival 2009

2009-07-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

My project ‘Whole, Semi and Skimmed’ was selected and commissioned by the Brent Artists Resources to be shown at the Brent’s Respect Festival 2009 on 5 July. In responding to the green theme of the festival, the project was to create an awareness of environmental issues rather than offering solutions. It demonstrates one of the many sustainable possibilities for the discarded.

Overall view of the installation

My aim was to deliver a light-hearted idea - to provide a temporary ‘English countryside experience’ to Roundwood Park. From a wider perspective, the project subtly indicates that things are interconnected and how a chain reaction started by a milk bottle can affect our living environment.

Brent Artists resources was calling for submission

The project solely uses plastic milk bottles in various sizes, allowing the viewer to take a new look at how the mundane can be turned into something extra-ordinary, and the familiar can be transformed and appreciated as something new or ambiguous.

The project makes up of a total of 48 sheep uses approximately 960 bottles to construct the body, and 1,300 of the bottle handles to construct the legs. The bottles are mainly collected from Brent’s Reuse and Recycling Centre in Park Royal (at least once) in a weekly basis from 5th May 2009 onward, but also through contributions from friends and colleagues.

The plastic milk bottles were mainly collected from Brent's Reuse and Recycling Centre

I visited the centre at least once a week to dip into their bin to find the bottles

My friend Leslie helped me to transport the work to the site

At the site, hot melt glue was used to assemble the legs together

The festival crew gave a helping hand to transport the work in the park

Using bamboo sticks to stabilize the sheep

It took around 2 hours to install a total of 48 sheep

Some of the sheep were requested to be installed at the Green market

The views from the higher ground where people relaxing, taking picture and having a closer look

A couple of views from the lower ground by the flower bed

Some of the viewers choose to interact with the piece

My wife and some friends were helping me to de-install the work

Credit:

BAR (Brent Artists Resources): Lorenzo Belengeur.
Brent Council: Sophie Rigg, Vashti Waite, Radhika Silvapulle
Brent Reuse and Recycling Centre: Mr Brean and the team
Respect Festival 09: Crews and Security team

Soho Cafe (in Hendon Library): Monica
Hendon Library: Georgia, Maria, Ann Messere and others who contributed the bottles
Royal Free Hospital: to all staff who brought me the bottles
Friends & Relative: Leslie Ngu, Adam Tipple, Dong Won, Lai & Ti, Mui & Jack, and Estee & Kevin, and my Wife.

The Affluenza Exhibition, 19 - 28 March 2009

2009-03-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

The Affluenza Exhibition publicity material

Oliver James' book 'Affluenza'

In March 2009, I took part in an art exhibition called ‘The Affluenza Exhibition’; the name of the exhibition is taken from the book ‘Affluenza’ by Oliver James who uses the term to describe the ‘painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.’ The exhibition aims to illuminate the effects that current consumer values have on people’s emotional health and to create a platform for open debate.

An artist impression of 'circumrotation' from my proposal to
The Affluenza Exhibition selection panel

‘The Affluenza Exhibition’ includes the work of 38 artists spanning a variety of artistic disciplines. Both established and young, up-and-coming artists present their works at the 10,000 square feet former meat packing factory, which accommodate everything from performance events to large-scale installation works. All the artists have been selected by a panel of art professionals: Jonathan Barnbrook (Barnbrook Design), Silvia Sgualdini (Lisson Gallery), Michael Zerwinski (Design Museum) and Hege Sæbjørnsen (Project Manager). I have two pieces of work being selected for the exhibition, there are ‘Circumrotation, 2009’ and ‘Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothe, 2003’.

Installing Circumrotation

Circumrotation, 2009

‘Circumrotation’ consists a constellation of shoes hanging overhead in a large circle to explore a sense of ‘trapped’ in human living conditions. The idea of a circle has a meaning of infinite in an Eastern context. In the West, it can be related to religious paintings in Byzantium and Middle Ages periods that depict spirituality. The piece is hung approximately six-and-a-half foots above the floor where it provides a rare moment for the viewer to observe the bottoms of the shoes. The worn areas under the shoes suggest the trace of footwork and a journey of our life that indicates time. On one hand, the piece embodies the life of many who live in endless pursuit of power, wealth, or possession. They suffer from imprisoning themselves in competitions, making comparison, and in fear of falling behind; unaware that they trapped in the circle of no beginning and no end, no sense of first and last. On the other hand, it may also be seen as portraying life revolves in causality, what goes round comes around. People and things are interconnected and co-arising as suggested in the teaching of ‘Oneness’ in Eastern philosophy.

Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothe, 2003

‘Labelling Tags Attached to a Clothe’ put our external world, clothing, and labelling tag into interaction and married their long term relationship to explore a sense of ‘attachment’ that submerges within our inner world. The intention was to allow the physical appearance of the piece to bewilder or mislead the viewer with the paradox of real and unreal, it interacts with the exhibition space in an attempt to present the sculpture close to the everyday. The piece also makes connection to a reality of life where negative aspects of things and human being could be intentionally buried under a blanket of attractive appearance.

Closed up view

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Leslie Ngu for offering his kindness help to install the work. My thanks also goes to the Affluenza exhibition team, Chelsey, Hege and the rest of the members for their kindness support during the installation and the show. I would also like to say thank you to those who kindly offered their shoes for this project: Debbie (Cancer Research Charity Shop, Finchley), Sue and Linda (Oxfam Charity Shop, Burnt Oak), and Staffs from Cancer Research Mill Hill Broadway. Also, to my friends working in Royal Free Hospital PJ, Ebru, Germaine, Sandra, Shaim, Hanna, and Julia; Friends from London Metropolitan University Mika, Won, and Maurizio; colleague from Church End Library Chairmaine, Heather, Eileen; my friends William Chen, Hua Kuan, and Ruo Bing, my relative Estee and Kevin. Love and special thanks also go to my wife Yvonne Wong who suffered from illness and admitted to the hospital during the exhibition.

Private view evening, 19 Mar 09

The Affluenza Exhibition
20 – 28 March 2009, 10am to 6pm

187-211, St. John Street Clerkenwell,
London EC1

Nearest tube: Angel (Approx. 12 minutes walk)

P.s. My involvement in The Affluenza Exhibition also reports in the Chinese Designers' Region blog. Please follow this link:

http://www.cdregion.com/blog/2009/03/chong-boon-pok-at-the-affluenza-exhibition/

‘Vacanza 度假’ project in Toffia, Italy

2008-09-03T07:48:00.001-07:00

‘Vacanza’ meaning holiday or vacation in English was an exhibition took place in Toffia's art festival between 13th and 17th August 2008. The result of the collaboration between Ruobing Wang and members of '33 Officina Creativa' from Toffia brought together six artists of Chinese descend to explore a light-hearted theme based on holiday. When translated into Chinese, the title for the exhibition is ‘度假’ (du jia).

Artists took part were Yak Beow Seah, Poh Mui Tan, Thau Yin Lee (Jeffrey), Hua Kuan Sai, the curator Ruo Bing Wang, myself and with voluntary help from my wife Cheng Heong Wong. We are a group of Chinese artists came from China, Malaysia and Singapore respectively and studied fine art in the UK.

A view of Toffia. Image by Ruobing

With a population of approximately 1000, Toffia is a village with Medieval and Roman history. On describing Toffia, the curator Ruobing Wang said, “Searching through Internet, it is not difficult to find Toffia described as a charming ancient medieval village, offering tourists not only incredible visual pleasure such as the untouched landscape of rolling hills, olive trees and wine groves, but also spoiling them with locally produced healthy vegetables, oil and delicious Italian cuisine. Only 30 miles north of Rome, Toffia was built on a wedge-shaped spur of rock with an obvious defensive purpose during the medieval period. The extraordinary position at the hilltop also bestows on Toffia a contemporary value. Today Toffia has less purpose as a place of residency than a suburban holiday resort supplying cultural and natural needs for the city dwellers nearby. Nor is this an isolated case: there are many such villages nearby experiencing similar circumstances, for example Farfa and Fara in Sabina. And this is precisely the reason why the appearance of Toffia struck us collectively a temptingly like a holiday, even though we come from various social and political backgrounds.”

A street scene of Toffia. Image by C. B. Pok

Wang sees ‘Vacanza’ as “an experimental and controversial attempt in fusing the two rich and enduring civilizations of Chinese and Medieval European culture. Art by Chinese artists has gathered great momentum in recent years, appearing throughout the international art scene since the 1990s, most frequently in the sophisticated big cities such as Roma, Berlin, London and New York. In this sense, an exhibition of Chinese artists in the remote medieval village of Toffia is worthy of exploration… ‘Holiday [Vacanza exhibition]’, therefore, brings with it a multinational, multicultural and yet globalized context to Toffia’s local residents, and, of course, the large number of summer holiday tourists too.”

Entrance to the gallery and publicity poster. Image by Ruobing

Another publicity material. Image by Ruobing

My wife and I arrived late in Toffia on 15th August (the exhibition started on 13th August) due to a pre-booked holiday to Istanbul before I was informed about the project. Unfortunately, we also arrived in Toffia with food poisoning on us; and I recovered a few days after I came back to London.

However, with the help of the rest of the artists in the group, I managed to present two pieces of work for the exhibition. ‘Free Sample’ was an eatable sculpture uses olive oil, a cooking ingredient that every Italian family uses for their cooking and at the same time a local produce in Toffia, to mix with the Chinese’s sesame oil. The mixture was then filled in small sampling bottles and displayed on a small table for the visitors to take away free for their cooking or mix with their salads.

My 'Free Sample' work. Image by C. B. Pok

A closed-up view of 'Free Sample'. Image by Sarah L'Epée

Another piece was a cooking performance with the rest of the exhibiting artists, it uses ‘fusilli’, one of the most commonly used ingredients in Italian cooking to stir fried Malaysian style. All the food in our culinary performance was served free to the visitors.

A scene from my fusilli stir-fried Malaysian style cooking performance. Image by Ruobing

A closed-up view of my cooking performance. Image by Ruobing

My works for the ‘Vacanza’ exhibition choose the most commonly used food ingredients and cooking method in both Italian and Chinese’s everyday life to engage with the gallery space and the people of Toffia. It interprets my personal experience while I am away on holiday or lived in foreign land; it is a celebration of the culture where I come from and the culture of the holiday destination. Or, in much general term, the works revolve around the notion of celebration of cultural hybridization; as well as embody a sense of connecting, exchanging, and conviviality. For 'Free Sample', the idea of work of art can be sampled free and come back for more later is ambiguos and debatable.

Mui and Seah's Curry-puff performance, Jeffery and Ruobing were helping. Image by Ruobing

(From left) Mui, Hua Kuan, Yvonne and Jeff in the 'Kui Kar Pek' or 'Love letters' making. Image by Ruobing

'Mama' is preparing a homemade pasta for the hard working volunteers and artists. Image by Ruobing

Mui and Seah's 'Hum Chim Pen' performance. Image by Ruobing

Mui's paper aeroplanes installation using papers from travel guide book. Image by Ruobing

Seah's Untitled, lemons and chopsticks installation. Image by Ruobing

Jeffery Lee and Ruobing's collaborative projection (left) and Hui Kuan's photograph interacts with an existing bell in the space. Image by Ruobing

Another of Hua Kuan's photograph installation. Image by Ruobing

Ruobing's installation using sound recorded in Toffia and old documents found in the space. Image by Ruobing

A closed-up view of Ruobing's installation. Image by Ruobing

The recipe for my stir-fried fusilli piece (suitable for vegetarian):

Ingredients one:
Oil
Garlic (Chopped)
Bean sprout
Onion (sliced)
Green and red pepper (sliced)
Carrot (sliced)

Ingredient two:
Fusilli (boiled according to the instruction on the packaging)

Ingredients three:
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Salt and white pepper
Sesame oil
Sugar
Water

Ingredient four:
Egg

Methods:
1. Heat up a wok to a right cooking temperature.
2. Pour some oil and place the garlic in the wok.
3. Put the rest of the ‘ingredients one’ in the wok and follows by ‘ingredient two’
4. Put all the ‘ingredients three’ in the wok, stir fry and well mix them for about a minute.
5. Put the egg inside the mixture; stir fry for about another 30 seconds and serve.

For further reading about the ‘Vacanza’ project please follow these links to Italian art writer and curator Emanuele Sbardella’s blog:

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/vacanzaproject_toffia2008/

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/progettovacanza_da-stir-a-vacanza/

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/vacanzaproject_untitled/#comment-40

For information about Toffia please follow this link:

http://www.sabina.it/comuni-i/toffia-i.html

'Cutting Edge' event at the V&A Museum's Friday Late

2008-09-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

‘Cutting Edge’ was one of the side events for the ‘China Design Now’ exhibition at the V&A Museum, the event took place on 26 June 2008 was commission by V&A and supported by French Connection.

Cutting Edge publicity material

The CD-R (Chinese Designers’ Region) group was invited to organize this event. William Hailiang Chen, one of the CD-R directors and also the curator of the event mentioned that he inspired by the mosaic floor ornament design on V&A’s flooring and relate it to traditional Chinese paper cutting. He decided to invite members of public visiting the event to pick up a pair of scissors and join the CD-R members to create a paper-cutting installation in ‘Cutting Edge’. The installation then ran along the floor of the museum like a carpet strip. At the end of the night, the visitors were also allowed to take a piece home.

Another event alongside the ‘Cutting Edge’ event was the ‘Sound Message Board’ which was organized by the CD-R members. Devised by sound artist Zhu Tiantian, the installation creates ‘live sound-scape’ in response to people’s aural messages. Members of public were invited to write their message on their textured message boards with improvised writing instruments to hear their ideas resonant.

Participant designers and artists:

Yue Bei, William Hailiang Chen, Stephanie Foy, Beidi Guo, Chloe Liu, Lei Liu, Yan Pan, Chong Boon Pok(Andrew), Kar Paik Soon, Mei Fong Tam, Tom Tong, Zhe Wang, Susu Xu, Yan Yan, Can Can Yang, Ann Xiao and Jing Zhang

About CD-R

CDR is a non-profit organisation embarked from the first meeting with Get It Louder curator Ou Ning in April 2006 and later also ‘Post Awakening’ party at William Hailiang Chen’s flat on 8th October 2006. The group has been holding a number of meetings and tried to curate a collective exhibition for almost 2 years now. For further information about CD-R please visit visit www.cdregion.com

I designed and pre-prepared a 2-D Chinese ornament pattern that has butterflies and flowers motif for the event. The design was then cut out from a piece of designated colour paper and laid on the museum floor, it was meant to be fixed in one of the boxes of the museum floor’s ornamental design. At the event, I invited members of public to have a hand on experience on paper butterflies cutting using old magazines’ papers that can be then transformed into 3-D butterfly. Their cut-outs matched my design in an evolutional manner (from monotone 2-D to colorful 3-D), and displayed on the floor up to the pillar next to my design.

Drawing for my idea

Experiments of the butterfly cutting

The cutting technique demonstration

Members of the public took part in the paper cutting

Some of the paper buttleflies displayed on the pillar

China Earthquake Charity Fundraising Exhibition

2008-09-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

The 7.9 magnitude Earthquake that shook the China’s Szechuan province recently has taken more than 68,000 lives and injured more than 300,000 people.

Publicity image for the exhibition

Ruo Bing Wang is an artist from the Szechuan province area; and also the curator for the China Earthquake Charity Fundraising Exhibition that took place at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art on 25 and 26 June 2008. Wang said, “As an artist from the disaster-affected area, I hope to help [the victims] through the way I know best: through art."

Entrance to the exhibition

She organised the charity exhibition which was supported by 26 artists that includes herself, Chay TuckMeng, Mohamed Bushara, Juliana Amaral Leite, Richard Wentworth, Maria Glyka, Madhushree Acharya-Baskerville, Daria Martin, Vassillis Viastaras, Jim Hobbs, Emma Kwan, Carali McCall, Marie Roux, Niyi Olagunju, Aaron Marcovy, Michael James Jones and Henningham Family Press, Yvonne Kyriakides, He Weimin, Metod Blejec, Zanchary Gvirtzman, Brano Gnastalla, Hua Kuan Sai, Jeffery Lee, Poh Mui Tan, Yak Beow Seah, Bie Tu, Ler Tu and myself.

Chinese tea, cookies and T-shirt were sold to raise extra money

The exhibition which was later extended to 29 June managed to raise a total of £1,377.39. Works of art, Earthquake T-shirt, Chinese tea and cookies were sold during the exhibition and all money received went to the Red Cross Society of China.

A scene at the exhibition

Another corner of the exhibition

Richard Wentworth's photograph work (top right)

One of my cranes work: Swan Cigarette Paper Folded into Cranes, 2000

Two original prints I found in a car boot sale by an unknow artist were sold

Another original print bought in the same car boot sale was also sold

'Nice to Meet You' in 'Paradise Stories' exhibition

2008-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

My shadow tracing project called ‘Nice to Meet You’ was in an exhibition entitled ‘Paradise Stories’, the exhibition was organised by Kai-Oi Jay Yung in the quest of what constitute the notion of paradise. It took place in the International Gallery, Liverpool between 4th and 21^st March 2008.

Brushes and different tones of grey paints were prepared for the event

What is paradise? There are three interpretations to this in Oxford English Dictionary: 1. (In some religions) heaven as the place wher the good live after death. 2. The Garden of Eden. 3. An ideal or idyllic place or state. Personally, I see paradise exists in our mental space, it is when a person letting go of all things, being free and living in a calm state of mind.

Audiences were tracing each other's shadow during the exhibition

In ‘Nice to Meet You’, I wanted to experiment a drawing and installation through the interaction between audiences tracing each other’s shadows. It sets up in a room with a single light bulb hanging down from the middle of the ceiling. The shadows of the audiences were cast on the wall as they entered the room, to allow them to interact and trace the shadows of the people next to them with the brushes and paint provided.

Audiences were tracing each other's shadow during the exhibition

In drawing, when we make marks we situate ourselves within a drawing in relation to what we see. Hence in ‘Nice to Meet You’, when the audiences trace a human shadow they situate themselves in relation to the person they were tracing that constitute what is present to us as we are – a web of transient and fluxional interrelationship. Paradise may be found in a web of interconnection that is made up of calm, peaceful and friendly individual.

A scene in the room where audiences left their marks

A closer scene

Nice to Meet You in Paradise

2007-12-04T07:44:00.001-08:00

Nice to Meet You is an audience participating interactive drawing project created for an exhibition called Paradise Stories. The exhibition is organised and curate by Jay Yung; and it is going to take place in March 2008 in Liverpool in conjunction with the 08 European Capital of Culture.

In Nice to Meet You, I wanted to experiment a drawing and installation through the interaction between audiences tracing each other’s shadows. It will set up in a room with a single light bulb hanging down from the middle of the ceiling. The shadows of the audiences will be cast on the wall as they entered the room, they will be asked to interact and trace the shadows of the people next to them in that room with the brushes and paint provided.

The rationale of the piece is that in drawing, when we make marks we situate ourselves within a drawing in relation to what we see. Hence in Nice to Meet You, when they trace a human shadow they situate themselves in relation to the person they are tracing that constitute what is present to us as we are – a web of transient and fluxional interrelationship. Paradise may be found in a web of interconnections that is made up of calm and peaceful individuals.

From Blind Light to Inner Light

2007-08-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Antony Gormley's Event Horizon, 2007

“You could say that there are two very discrete and almost oppositional places where a sculpture belongs. One is physical: in a landscape or a room, and the other is in the imagination of the viewer, in his/her experience and memory. They are equally important and in many senses the work is there waiting – almost like a trap for the life of the viewer to come and fill it, or inhabit it. And then once “captured” the art – or its arising – inhabits him or her.”[1]

Antony Gormley’s Blind Light (17 May-19 Aug 2007) at the Hayward Gallery presents a new series of installations accompanied by earlier sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs.

Other than featuring a series of brand new monumental works specially conceived for The Hayward’s distinctive spaces; the exhibition includes one of the largest ever urban public art commissions called Event Horizon, which features sculptural casts of the artist’s body on rooftops and public walkways across central London. The life-size figures casts out of the artist’s body spreads outwards from The Hayward in all directions over a 1.5 sq km area, dramatically transforming the city skyline.

The Blind Light installation is one of the focal pieces of the exhibition. It has a large white glass box using ultrasonic humidifiers to create a thick fog like atmosphere with very limited visibility; the viewers can only see each other within inches. This powerful piece exposes our feeling of uncertainty; I strangely experience the feeling of submitting myself to an endless ground upon entering the installation. I felt almost blanked and being cut off from the external space when trapped and lost in the bright white light. It is close to meditation process where one redirecting himself to focus and aware of his inner space, but adding a chance taking element relies on the instinct. The piece makes us aware of the space our bodies inhabit but somehow take for granted.

Blind Light, 2007

In one of the exhibition room displays a spectacular series of suspended figures created in light-infused webs of steel, are shown alongside a selection of works from the last three decades. In this, Gormley described, “The bundles of nothing are the most dematerialised works I have ever made… is the closet I get to Brancusi’s notion that you can turn an object into light. He did it by polishing sculptures, whereas I have tried to do it by abandoning weight and mass and dissolving surface.”[2]

Antony Mark David Gormley OBE (born 30 August 1950) is an English sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in Gateshead and Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool. Born the youngest of seven children, Gormley grew up in a well off family in Hampstead. “After taking a degree in archaeology, anthropology and art history at trinity college, Cambridge, he went to India, where he became interested in Buddhism and studied Vipassana meditation. Three years later he returned to England to study at the Central School of Art, Goldsmith College and the Slade School of Fine Art”.[3] His career was said “given early support by Nicholas Serota who had been a near contemporary of Gormley's at Cambridge giving him a solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in1981”.[4] Gormley said: “The body is our first habitation, the building our second. I wanted to use the form of this second body, architecture, to make concentrated volumes out of a personal space that carries the memory of an absent self …”[5]

He began making moulds of his own body in 1980. Almost all of his work takes the human body as its subject, with his own body used as the basis for metal casts. He describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live."[6] Many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, or as he described, "the only part of the material world that I live inside."[7] His work attempts to treat the body not as a thing but a place to identify common conditions experience by human beings. The non-symbolic quality of his work is indexical traces of real event of real body in time. “His belief that the spiritual and physical selves are inseparable is reflected in works such as Land, Sea and Air II (1982). Three figures, crouching, kneeling and standing, were placed on the seashore, embodying the process of Buddhist spiritual awareness. The work also referred to the earthly condition of the body and man's relationship with his surroundings.”[8]

In regard to his experience on Buddhism, Gormley revealed in the BBC Radio 3 interview with John Tusa, he said, “I was very fortunate to meet S N Goenka in India when I did, and to learn you know a form of meditation that, that was completely direct. There was no, there were no mantras. There was no mysticism. It was simply about learning how to sit still and watch what happens, very similar to Zen Buddhists...” Tusa then asked, “do you still do that? Can you still do those disciplines?” “Yes I, I still do, I, I think that the majority of my work comes out of exactly that discipline. The process of being moulded for me has become a meditative process. It's a time in which you use your will actually to defeat your will, and that, that in a way is evoked in the moulding process where you have to maintain your stillness but then up to a certain point, and then after that point your freedom of choice is determined by that act of will that preceded it, so you can't move because you're actually completely imprisoned in this mould.”[9]

During the interview Tusa again asked: “When you had your conversation with Ernst Gombrich there was one remark he made which I want to raise with you now, he said, ‘art is a game with only one rule, and the rule is that so long as you think that you can do better you must do it even if it means starting again’. Do you accept that and do you live up to that challenge yourself?” Gormley remarked:

”It's absolutely the only way of living I think. If there is any way in which something can be improved and you don't follow that way, you've failed yourself.”

Over the years, I discover that Buddhism practice is the closest things to art practice, both through a gradual process of cultivate your self to push the thought and accomplishment from one level to another higher level, and keep transcending and overcoming the thinker-self. Towards the end, the oeuvres that reveal the artist’s physical line of thought is secondary compares to the artist himself has in fact upgraded his thought and layered his wisdom. Therefore, eventually, the artist is the work.

[1] Gormley, Antony. Antony Gormley: Blind Light (The Hayward exhibition booklet), 2007. Page 4.

[2] Ibid. Page 14.

[3] Ibid. Page 20.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Gormley

[5] Gormley, Antony. Antony Gormley: Blind Light (The Hayward exhibition booklet), 2007. Page 5.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Gormley

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Gormley

[8] www.groveart.com

[9] Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with the sculptor Anthony Gormley. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/gormley_transcript.shtml

Coming exhibition: "Notthatbalai 2007" Art Festival, 21 Jul - 5 Aug 07

2007-07-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Between 21 July - 5 Aug 07, I will be showing my work in an art festival called "Notthatbalai 2007 " in kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The art festival is organized by a group of individual who was said from "diverse art disciplines and social background who are passionate about art, embodying the spirit of sharing and giving".

One of the Notthatbalai 2007 art festival publicity materials

According to the organisers ""Balai" refers to a space, place or institution that organizes programme". They believe that artists should organize their own event and exhibition to convey their theme and what they concern. This may be penetrate our everyday life in which it "can be done anywhere at anytime for anyone".

The theme for the festival this year is "Sama-sama", this is also a Malay word which embraces the meanings: same, altogether, synchronize, mutual, participation, neutral, equality etc. Over a period of two weeks, the festival will present activities of arts include: visual art exhibition, musical performance, drama, dance, independent movies and short films projection. Various workshops, discussions and forums are also in their plan.

China trip: Get it Louder 07 exhibition, GuangZhou, June 2007

2007-07-01T02:33:00.000-07:00

On 17 Jun 07, William Hailiang Chen and I went to GuangZhou, China to execute a project called As Much As You Like (Click here to link to our official website) for Get it Louder 2007 exhibition. This is my first collaboration with Chen who was graduated from London AA school of architectural and currently working with Wilkinson Eyre architectural firm.

It was an intense six working days because we have to built the sculpture from scratch in China that requires estimated 10,000 pair of disposable chopsticks and immense amount of assemble work. We were negotiating a sponsor from London Metropolitan University for this project to promote the University unfortunately it did not work out. However, the university has kindly promoted As Much As you Like on their website instead.

As Much As You Like 韧用 developed from my work Assemblage of Used Disposable Chopsticks, 2000. For the Chinese title ‘韧用‘: the word ’韧’ has two meanings. Firstly, it’s pronunciation is the same as ‘任‘ which has the meaning of no tie. Secondly,’ 韧’ also means durable or long lasting. While in English, ‘As Much As You Like’ refers to eating, it makes a connection to the buffet style serves in some of the restaurants in the

where diners pay a fixed price to “eat as much as you like”.

The initial proposal of this sculpture involves public participation in which, we would invite the public to withdraw the chopsticks from a pre-made lantern shape sculpture to use for their meals in the food court next to the exhibition space. The public will then make use of the used-chopsticks to form a pie shape furniture. Due to the time limit and financial difficulties, this process has to be abundant.

This experimental sculpture portrays the China today after the ‘reform’ and ‘open to the world’ under the late chairman Deng, his policies has brought China enter a new era that influence the world. It also combines both Chen and my interests, where we observe the relationship of the materials with us within a temporal consume environment or time frame, searching ways to make connection and expand the life span of the chopstick and its paper pocket accompanied.

Sincere thanks from me and Chen to everyone who helped to execute the project: friends, Get it Louder 2007 and the volunteers.

Checking the exhibition space with Chen (right)

Getting on with the work in a small room we hired from the GuangZhou Academy of Art

Table relates to dinning, we use it as a base for our sculpture

Cardboard is the packaging for the chopsticks, we use it as a base to insert the chopsticks

Holding tight

Some of the volunteers working on the sculpture at the exhibition space

Chen is briefing the volunteers

The volunteers stayed awake whole night to finish the piece, we were working under dimmed light and very hot and humid condition

Finding the right hanging angle

Getitlouder 07 opening ceremony, 23 June 07

Getitlouder 07 visited by thousand of visitors everyday

Closed up view of the two pieces sculpture

There are more images and texts archive on our designated site for this project, please visit: http://www.asmuchasyoulike.org/

Malaysia Trip: Artist talk at Lost Generation Space, 6 June 2007

2007-06-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Another artist talk was organized during my trip in Malaysia based on the title The Ground We Share, it was approximately 20 people attended the talk. Again, thanks to Kim Peow Ng and also Lian Heng Yeo, curator of Lost Generation Space whose helped with the coordination work. Lost Generation Space is an exciting alternative gallery space situated in Taman Seputeh, the heart of Kuala Lumpur and a stone throw from Mid-Valley, the biggest shopping mall in Malaysia. This year, they organized Notthatbalai Art Festival 07 based on the theme Sama-sama, which is going to take place between 20 July and 5 August. It is "an art event organized by a group of individuals from diverse art disciplines and social backgrounds who are passionate about art, embodying the spirit of sharing and giving."

Outside Lost Generation Space, Lian Heng Yeoh (in the middle) and Kim Peow Ng (in white).

A discussion after the presentation

Another scene during the discussion

Malaysia trip: Artist talk at the Dasein Academy of Art, 10.05.2007

2007-06-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

An artist talk was organized in Dasein Academy of Art while I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Special thanks go to Kim Peow Ng (An artist and fine art lecturer in the Academy) helped to organised this. The talk (about an hour and 45 minutes) based on the title The Ground We Share was attended by about 50 students, it presents my work from 1998 to date. The student raised questions on my work based on the presentation and discussed studying art abroad.

Outside Dasein Academy of Art

A scene from the talk

Answering students' questions over a light refreshment

IRHH's "What is Karma ?" seminar on 25 March 2007

2007-06-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

IRHH Europe organised a seminar on "What is Karma?", it took place at the University of Westminster on 25 March 2007. What is IRHH ? IRHH Europe (The Institute for Research in Human Happiness) is a charity organisation made up of people who aim to refine their souls and deepen their wisdom, the center spreads the light of Truth, with the aim of enlightening people in the principles and practices of Buddhism. Besides book and electronic materials, IRHH is one of the resources for my knowledge on Zen Buddhism.

Mr George Noguchi (director of IRHH Europe) delivers a talk on "What is Karma?"

Visitors to the seminar browse through the books written by the founder
of IRHH Master Ryuho OKawa during the tea break

A simple ceremony to join the new members

Coming exhibition in Get it Louder 2007, China

2007-05-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

Working title: As Much As You Like韧用

Date and venue:

23 Jun – 7 Jul Guangzhou

21 Jul – 4 Aug Shanghai

16 Aug – 1 Sept Beijing

To be confirmed Chengdu

This is a collaborate project between me and William Hailiang Chen, it will be exhibited in Get it Louder 2007 in China. Chen from China is an architectural graduate from the Architectural Association School and currently working in an architectural firm in London. He is interested in environmental sustainability issues in relate to transformation of object and materiality.

The concept developed from my sculpture piece Assemblage of Used Disposable Chopsticks, 2000. The working title ‘As Much As You Like’ refers to eating. It makes connection to a buffet style serves in some of the restaurants in the UK where diners pay a fixed price to “eat as much as you like”. The title translated into韧用 in Chinese, 韧 same pronunciation as任 has the meaning of using what ever amount you like, 韧 also means thing can be used as many times as possible.

Disposable chopsticks have very short life span; we threw them away almost immediately we finished our meal. This project combines both Chen and my interests, where we observe the relationship of this object with us within this temporal environmental and time frame, searching ways to make connection and expand the life span of the chopstick and its paper pocket accompanied. Trapped between controllable and uncontrollable, applicable and non-applicable, we are trying to allow dialogs to expand among the chosen materials and with the viewers. The work may be seen as a cross between architectural form and sculptural form.

2007-04-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

John Cage (Picture from www.culturevulture.net)

The Contemporary comparative Euro-Asian Studies Research Group
Sir John Cass department of Art, Media and Design, London Metropolitan University
Comment on the discussion of John Cage’s lecture on nothing, 5 March 2007
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothingness is a key concept in the ontology of Mahayana Buddhism; the teaching can be traced from the Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra, commonly known as Heart Sutra, which contains about 600 scrolls that make up the Maha Prajna Paramita. Presumably this is the oldest Mahayana texts that originated from India around the time of Christ.

This is an extract from the Heart Sutra translated into English by Edward Conze, it goes like this:

Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Many Chinese Buddhism writings claim that, 色se即ji是shi空kong，空kong即ji是shi色se，色se不bu异yi空kong，空kong不bu异yi色se, (in English which means form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form) is also came from the Heart Sutra. This sentence often being misinterpreted not only by the West but also a large proportion of Chinese speaking society. The West likes to interpret emptiness as void and see the doctrine as a form of nihilism. And, the East often relates it to sexuality because the word 色 can also mean wanton.

Emptiness which translated from the Sanskrit word Sunyata (Sunnata in Pali) does not mean void, there are neither two separate individual nor the opponent. In fact, emptiness and form is like both sides of the same coin, there are in one. What is the sound of one hand clapping? We need both left and right hands, or clapped on a surface to produce sound. D.T Suzuki once said:

“As long as man is the work of nature and the even the work of God, what he does, what he makes, can not altogether be despised as material and contrasted to the so-called spiritual. Somehow it must be material-spiritual or spiritual-material, with the hyphen between these two terms – spiritual not divided from material, material not severed from spiritual but both combined, as we read, with a hyphen.”

Does this mirrors the phrase emptiness is form, form is emptiness? Shall we say form – emptiness or emptiness – form like Suzuki’s description above? Can we accept that the idea of emptiness and form, spiritual and material, positive and negative are comparable examples of “oneness”? Somehow, these exist interdependently like the interconnection between people and materials; everything is part of something else.

Thanks to Professor Brian Falconbridge taking nearly 30 minutes of his concentration to read through the whole of Cage text from Lecture on Nothing (5 March 2007). Cage attended D.T Suzuki’s lectures at the Columbia University and had several private talks with him. His interest in nothingness or emptiness may be stemmed from his long interest in Zen Buddhism, Cage said in his autobiographical statement:

“It was also at the Cornish School that I became aware of Zen Buddhism, which later, as part of oriental philosophy, took the place for me of psychoanalysis. (…) In the late thirties I heard a lecture by Nancy Wilson Ross on Dada and Zen. I mentioned this in my forward to Silence then adding that I did not want my work blamed on Zen, though I felt that Zen changes in different times and places and what it has become here and now, I am not certain. Whatever it is it gives me delight and most recently by means of Stephen Addiss’ book The Art of Zen. I had the good fortune to attend Daisetz Suzuki’s classes in the philosophy of Zen Buddhism at Columbia University in the late forties. And I visited him twice in Japan.”

In my opinion, Cage’s lecture on nothing works like a modern day apocalypse. He grabbed and pulls down our veils to reveal our nervousness when thing falling in silent or when we stop for a moment just doing nothing, for instant going for a purposeless walk. In the world of needs, production and consumption where time is often being seen as money, almost everything we do must be justified and purpose fulfilling. The uncomfortable repetition of words like “nothing to say” and going no where of the lyric make the pulse of the listeners grow quicker and they begin to hear the sound of their blood stream. It is like Cage described he notice that silence was not the absence of sound but was the unintended operation of his nervous system and the circulation of his blood that led him to compose 4’33’’. Fortunately for Cage, he was able to understand nothingness in which a space of silence is needed in order for our mind to cast the rhythm of the ignored commonplace sound. Thus, Cage also saw the point of Rauschenberg’s White Painting in which it allows dust, shadows, insects etc to land on it to take its form; Cage also claimed that White painting inspired 4’33’’.

Listened to Cage’s Lecture on Nothing reminded me Suzuki’s lecture in London for the World Congress of Faiths, 9 July 1936. He was asked to contribute a topic on The Supreme Spiritual ideal. Instead of going on talking about the supreme spiritual ideal, Suzuki humbly said in his lecture:

“When I was first asked to talk about the Supreme Spiritual Ideal I did not exactly know what to answer. Firstly, I am just a simple-minded country-man from a far corner of the world suddenly thrust into the midst of this hustling city of London, and I am bewildered and my mind refuses to work in the same way that it does when I am in my own land. Secondly, how can a humble person like myself talk about such a grand assembly of people, everyone of whom looks to me to be wise and intelligent, knowing everything that is under the sun? I am ashamed that I have somehow been made to stand here. The first mistake was committed when I left Japan.”[1]

Instead of going on talking about the supreme ideal of spirituality for hour, he went on to talk about common things in everyday life. However as he was talking through the almost nothing, but just everyday trivial, there was supreme spiritual to be grasped. The listeners have to be capable to understand it was something in Suzuki’s nothingness speech in order to learn the “Supreme Spiritual ideal”.Lecture on Nothing too. Cage’s lecture also reminded me when the Buddhist monks holding and repeatedly going through a bead chain in one hand and chanting the phase 南無阿彌陀佛 (the pronunciation in English is Namo a mi tuo fo)[2]. The chanting going no where but the chanter sitting still and patiently repeat the same phrase over and over again.
And, this is reflected in Cage’s

I also recognise that there is a connection between 2001 Tuner prize winner Martin Creed’s work about nothingness and Cage’s nothingness. Creed made these comments on his 1993 Blu-Tack-piece:

“I was taken with the idea of using the sticky substance, but had nothing to actually put up with it - so I just displayed the Blu-Tack. (…) I have nothing in particular to say. (...) I find it a lot easier if it [the work] negates itself at the same time as pushing itself forward--so there's an equal positive and negative which adds up to nothing, but at the same time is something too."

Odawa is a three piece band features Martin Creed (guitar, voice), Keiko Owada (bass, voice) and Adam Mcewen (drums). They produced their debut CD album Nothing which contains 23 tracks representative of their live set. It is said that Nothing “long on songs and short on shit. (…) without using too many notes and with hardly any superfluous words, Owada break music down and build it up to make funny and straight, sad and happy songs. The album has its low and its high, and through thick and thin, big songs and small, it takes the rough with the smooth heavy-handedly and with a lightness of touch.” I think I am going no where without ending my text with the lyrics of these 23 tracks in their album:

hello (0:45)

hello
hello
hello
hello
hello
hello
hello
hello

1234 (0:15)

one two three four
one two three four
one two three four
one two three four
one two three four

thirty thirty (2:20)

one two three four five six seven
eight nine ten eleven twelve thir-
teen fourteen fifteen sixteen se-
venteen eighteen nineteen twenty
twenty-one twenty-two twenty-
three twenty-four twenty-five twen-
ty-six twenty-seven twenty-
eight twenty-nine thirty thirty

three four eight nine leven twelve thir
one twen three twen twenty-five twen
twenty eight twen thirty thirty
teen fif venteen nineteen twenty

one twen three twen twenty-five twen
three four eight nine leven twelve thir
teen fif venteen nineteen twenty
twenty eight twen thirty thirty

the new instrumental one (1:53)

no words

short g (0:08)

feeling blue (3:02)

I'm feeling low
I'm feeling down
I'm feeling blue
I'm feeling brown

I'm feeling orange
I'm feeling green
I'm feeling purple
I'm feeling cream

I'm feeling scarlet
I'm feeling loose
I'm feeling maroon
I'm feeling puce

I'm feeling black
I'm feeling dead
I'm feeling yellow
I'm feeling red

I'm feeling pink
I'm feeling light
I'm feeling buff
I'm feeling white

I'm feeling up
I'm feeling bright
I'm feeling clear
I'm feeling alright

I'm feeling off-white
I'm feeling grey
I'm feeling mixed-up
I'm feeling okay

up + down (0:48)

short g (0:05)

not yours (4:38)

and here and there and when
here and there and when and

and where and now and then
where and now and then and

not mine not yours not ours
mine not yours not ours not

not theirs not always not never
theirs not always not never not

but who but what but how
who but what but how but

but why but yes but no
why but yes but no but

or me or you or us
me or you or us or

or them or all or none
them or all or none or

up yours up mine up ours
yours up mine up ours up

up theirs up now up then
theirs up now up then up

circle (2:45)

Stephen Willats thought that
Art & Language were ripping him off
Art & Language thought that
Joseph Kosuth was ripping them off
Joseth Kosuth thought that
Lawrence Wiener was ripping him off
on a recent trip to London
Lawrence Wiener saw a show by Stephen Willats
he said
fuck me this guy's ripping me off

30 seconds with the lights off (0:31)

1-100 (1:22)

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nineteen
twenty
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twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
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forty
forty-one
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seventy
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eighty
eighty-one
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eighty-nine
ninety
ninety-one
ninety-two
ninety-three
ninety-four
ninety-five
ninety-six
ninety-seven
ninety-eight
ninety-nine
one hundred

short g (0:06)

101-200 (1:25)

one hundred and one
one hundred and two
one hundred and three
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one hundred and thirty-three
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one hundred and sixty-five
one hundred and sixty-six
one hundred and sixty-seven
one hundred and sixty-eight
one hundred and sixty-nine
one hundred and seventy
one hundred and seventy-one
one hundred and seventy-two
one hundred and seventy-three
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one hundred and eighty-one
one hundred and eighty-two
one hundred and eighty-three
one hundred and eighty-four
one hundred and eighty-five
one hundred and eighty-six
one hundred and eighty-seven
one hundred and eighty-eight
one hundred and eighty-nine
one hundred and ninety
one hundred and ninety-one
one hundred and ninety-two
one hundred and ninety-three
one hundred and ninety-four
one hundred and ninety-five
one hundred and ninety-six
one hundred and ninety-seven
one hundred and ninety-eight
one hundred and ninety-nine
two hundred

low (0:29)

high (0:30)

long g (1:31)

one whole song (2:20)

one whole to go
seven eighths to go
three quarters to go
five eighths to go
one half to go
three eighths to go
one quarter to go
one eighth to go
nothing to go

x (2:50)

a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z

the usual first one (1:45)

1234 (0:14)

one two three four
one two three four
one two three four
one two three four
one two three four

nothing (5:01)

nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing

start middle end (0:31)

start
middle
end

[1] Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro (edited by Christmas Humphreys). "The Awakening of Zen (Shambala Dragon Edition)." Ed. Christmas Humphreys Shambala, 1980. Page107-112

[2] The phrase literally "mindfulness of the Buddha" is a term commonly seen in the Pure Land school of Mahayana Buddhism. It refers to praise offered to Amitabha Buddha as a devotional act. The original Sanskrit phrase was Namo Amitabha Buddha, which can mean either "I entrust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Eternal Life" or simply "Hail to the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Eternal Life".