The River of Ink
2008
shown at
MAFA Graduating show, Earl Lu Gallery, 2008
Breathe, Jendela Gallery, the Esplanade, Singapore, 2008
{rtf(X)}, Light Editions Gallery, Singapore, 2011
Urban:ness, DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE, 2015
We're Young Once, Art Agenda SEA, Singapore Art Week, Singapore, 2021
The River of Ink work is an exercise that emphasises the futility of preservation in the face of cultural genocide. By soaking a hundred hand-drawn and hand-lettered books in the same fountain-pen ink used to create said drawing and lettering, the books undergo dissolution, some ‘pulped’ beyond salvage; they collapse under the weight of their own accumulation. Decaled letters come adrift in the bath, and stick to other books, some writing/drawing survives, and a lot disappears.
The writing in the books are comments ranging from the dangers of nationalism (‘The Last Refuge of Scoundrels’, ‘A Tapestry of Lies’), cultural genocide and war (‘Confetti’, ‘To Silence a City’, ‘To Silence Two Cities’, ‘Dead Tongues’), on conformity (‘Please be Cut Along the Dotted Line’), rights of speech and expression (‘White Lies’, ‘Truth and Privilege’, ‘Privacy’), to mindless consumerism (‘Primordial Soufflé’ which is the story of an upwardly-mobile protozoan).
(click to enlarge thumbnails)
The writing in the books are comments ranging from the dangers of nationalism (‘The Last Refuge of Scoundrels’, ‘A Tapestry of Lies’), cultural genocide and war (‘Confetti’, ‘To Silence a City’, ‘To Silence Two Cities’, ‘Dead Tongues’), on conformity (‘Please be Cut Along the Dotted Line’), rights of speech and expression (‘White Lies’, ‘Truth and Privilege’, ‘Privacy’), to mindless consumerism (‘Primordial Soufflé’ which is the story of an upwardly-mobile protozoan).
(click to enlarge thumbnails)
