Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Nice to Meet You in Paradise


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.


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Welcome to the ground

Thank you for stopping over. The Ground We Share evolves from my research study where I make a comparative study between the concepts of the everyday in art practice and Zen.

My art practice may be seen as the result of my interest on the matters of the everyday and Eastern thoughts. Over the years, I have produced a body of cross-disciplinary work that explores the as-it-is-ness of things, and interconnectedness between objects and people. My own cultural background and life experience are often revisited, examined and evidenced in the work within this journey of exploration.

In Zen tradition, mindfulness to everyday trivial is important in their spiritual pratice, my research relates this notion of attentiveness from my work to this tradition. Historically, many important twentieth century artists and art groups who expanded Duchamp’s theory of the ready-made and the everyday were also influenced by Zen teaching from D.T. Suzuki and Shunryu Suzuki that can also be related to this research.

In contrast to the Western sociological perspective on the study of the everyday from important thinkers like Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau; I look at it from a different perspective - through the prism of a contemporary artist that comes from an Eastern background.

This blog provides a space to share my activities and information arising from my work and research. You are welcome to be part of this interconnection by posting your valuable experience, thoughts and comments.