Reconfigure(d)
24.05.19-24.07.19
Artist residency (May 2019) and solo exhibition
Making Space, Guangzhou, China
At the residency, I created two fabric works and a video. For the exhibition, I presented the fabric works with a dual-channel video: one screen is playing the sunset coastal scene of my hometown in Aceh, Indonesia and the other screen is playing the sunset scene of Pearl river where the Residency is located. As the two screens meet, the two horizons (of Indonesia and China) converge as one continuous line, connecting the two countries together. Guangdong is the province where my ancestors and the first recorded Chinese New Zealanders immigrated from (mid-1800s). Located along the South China sea, Guangzhou was an important hub for maritime transportation and trades connecting China and the West from the early Tang Dynasty until the 17th and 18th centuries where textiles, tea, and ceramics were brought into Europe as luxurious items.
For the drawing on the fabrics, I used a mixture of bees’ wax sourced from Indonesia and China. Using Tjanting, a 12th century pen-like tool for Indonesian Batik drawing, each repetition of the pattern contains small differences or displacements. It points to a temporality of the ‘in-between’. This in-between condition allows 'newness' to come into the world.
*An article by Xiang, artist in residence at Making Space, about my work and our walk around my ancestor's hometown in Huiyang, Houzhou:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/embujjH9GnOVu5_-hX3w6A
24.05.19-24.07.19
Artist residency (May 2019) and solo exhibition
Making Space, Guangzhou, China
At the residency, I created two fabric works and a video. For the exhibition, I presented the fabric works with a dual-channel video: one screen is playing the sunset coastal scene of my hometown in Aceh, Indonesia and the other screen is playing the sunset scene of Pearl river where the Residency is located. As the two screens meet, the two horizons (of Indonesia and China) converge as one continuous line, connecting the two countries together. Guangdong is the province where my ancestors and the first recorded Chinese New Zealanders immigrated from (mid-1800s). Located along the South China sea, Guangzhou was an important hub for maritime transportation and trades connecting China and the West from the early Tang Dynasty until the 17th and 18th centuries where textiles, tea, and ceramics were brought into Europe as luxurious items.
For the drawing on the fabrics, I used a mixture of bees’ wax sourced from Indonesia and China. Using Tjanting, a 12th century pen-like tool for Indonesian Batik drawing, each repetition of the pattern contains small differences or displacements. It points to a temporality of the ‘in-between’. This in-between condition allows 'newness' to come into the world.
*An article by Xiang, artist in residence at Making Space, about my work and our walk around my ancestor's hometown in Huiyang, Houzhou:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/embujjH9GnOVu5_-hX3w6A
