day 1

"sisters"

as part of my new year's resolution

to do a piece of 'art' each day

2010

happy new year! i don't think anyone reads this space, but it doesn't matter. happy new year, nonetheless!

resolutions.
photo projects coming up. will be working on my Visual Taboo series, along with The Classroom photo series. and will be helping a friend shoot for her NGO in Malaysia. so loads to do.
at the same time, THE THESIS is over! finally. dragged my legless being across the line.

going to get a job. play the 'adult'. plan trip to India!
and find a new way to sign my name with the '10' at the back.
hmm...

Happy New Year all!

mapping constellations in my dreams

portraits

by Racheal Anilyse


was watching a TED Talk about The Art of the Interview and something interesting was said, "people don't get their portraits painted anymore," and how true. because i guess to a certain extent, photography makes it more convenient to capture one's portrait now. i'm not demeaning the value of portrait photography, but drawn/painted portraits are certainly something to 'wow' over.

it is not easy to capture someone, as photos or paintings, and make it look like them, and yet, not. because to a certain extent, portraits do not necessarily capture the person, but more of his or her persona. a fragment of who they are, their inner states of mind. the emotion that they're emoting. the translated thought. the conditions. a non-face. a permutation. essentially, what makes a portrait powerful is what it says. the face is a canvas to the greater conversations between cosmos.

artist feature | David Michael Bowers | site

girl growing in a tree | 09'

stereotyping slaps ye in the face

i hop into a cab from uni and the taxi driver engages in a conversation, as usual.

taxi driver: so you study in NUS. smart huh.
me: no lah. it's just NUS.
taxi driver: you're Malaysian right?
me: huh? no i'm Singaporean. 
taxi driver: really? oh. cos usually Malays in Singapore aren't that smart. they don't go to uni.
me: what? you're wrong. there are loads of Malays in NUS. 
taxi driver: really? seldom see them.
me: that's because the majority of the people in this country are Chinese. so of cos it's hard to see a lot of us 'minorities'. besides, i'm Indian. not Malay.
taxi driver: huh? you're Indian. then how come you're wearing the scarf thing?
me: that's cos i'm Muslim. Indian Muslim.
taxi driver: ooh! but you're quite fair also, huh? and no wonder you're smart. Indians are very smart.
me: how do you know? you see a lot of Indians in NUS, is it?
taxi driver: not really. (pause) i'm very confusing ah. (laughs).
me: yeah you are. 

stereotypes confuse. don't buy into them.

the mermaid from nuruL H. on Vimeo.

The 4th Affordable Photo Fair

i can't believe i've not written on this.

the photo fair went well. learnt a lot of things. the most important being how i never seem to ask for help whenever i need it. bad habit. ought to be changed. new year resolution. noted. also learnt how to actually talk about my photographs. not an easy thing to do, despite my love for talking. also happy to have met new people and other photographers. had a lovely time talking to dennis about photography as art. but that's a different post altogether. note to self.

also feel blessed by the number of support bras that i have. my friends. they constantly keep me lifted, despite gravity. love them, laces and all.

interesting conversations. categories. commercial photography. fine art. questions. did you go to art school? what's your philosophy? some easy to answer. others, a tad hard to verbally express. that's why i have my photographs, right?

end of the day. got a tad sick. gastric. typical. but had fun and am looking forward to new projects and collaborations. hell yeah!

gut the court jesters

why is the idea of the individual, alone usually depicted as an abnormality? a state of being awaiting some sort of reconciliation, a resolution. an unfinished story. in movies, such characters are introduced as weird and eccentric, and we laugh or sympathize with them. it is depicted as incomplete in its worldly experiences. lulled in a state of void because its private parts have never been touched. the story will then end with it skipping off into a pixelated rainbow with someone it has encountered who completes it. you complete me. what an irritating concept: needing someone to complete your sense of self.

nevermore. nevermore.

it is important to have people in our lives. but people should not complete us. our attitude towards people should be akin to that of ghosts. it's fun (or not) to see them, initially, but then it would be better in the long run to be rid of them. for those we encounter, they impact our lives, experiences, and emotions and in that moment, we change. for those we don't see, we don't. but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. they still do. spirits are everywhere! and we hear about them in stories and accounts by those who do see them. and they might or might not leave any marks in our lives but either way, they're still there. and then there are those who haunt us for long periods of time and perpetually keep us on our toes. and soon we begin to feel comfortable with having them around, no matter how grotesque they are. but soon, they'll leave too. because the dead must live as the dead. because everything is momentary. momentaries. and soon, everybody leaves. and because, perhaps the only resolution in life, is death. and i don't say this in a dark, cynical, and ironical manner, muttering displeasure into fingernails that then claw out mine eyes. rather, it is matter-of-fact, isn't it?

and because people are actually selfish beings and we need to recognize that not necessarily as a bad trait but as a normal one. because each person creates her own needs and wants and for some, these needs and wants do not reside within others. i don't need you. but i love you. this does not make it wrong or pathetic. in fact, if you find yourself constantly needing that someone, or the presence of others in your lives, you're abnormal or probably deformed in some way and should proceed to chew on some bones or flesh to complete your growth process as a human being.

i am reminded again of the novel Veronika Decides to Die. everyone is essentially insane. we fill ourselves up with idiosyncratic jewels that we then conveniently transform into mere stones just because the Grand Narratives deem it so. we cast aside our court jesters, stuff their bells into their mouths and silence them. and we hide. we make ourselves feel weird, alone.

searching for the revolutionary

perhaps it's because i've grown old-er, or because i've studied for too long. 19 years. 19 freaking years, straight! but lately, it feels like every argument i hear is one that i've heard before. ideas that have been argued before. recited. reused. arguments about life, love, religion, philosophies on things, anything and everything. all of it. i know them inside out, back and front. and so, certain discussions feel unnecessary, certain 'intellectual pursuits', boring, certain 'doctrines', irritating. feels like i've reached the top of a plateau, the flat surface that makes it easy to walk on, but isn't challenging at all. after all, we've learnt to walk very early in life. the rest of our lives should be spent on using the art of walking for some other purpose.

something more revolutionary.

the search begins.

pages of minds

the Penguin Warehouse Sale

Expo Hall 6

3rd- 6th Dec

10am- 9.30pm

be there!

i love Penguin books. the papers they use smell nice. i love smelling books. i also love going to warehouse sales because it's when you get un-cracked spines, smooth pages, & cheap books. cheap being $5 to $10 for hardcovers. how beautiful is that! i also love how there is very little eye contact between people. every eye, peeled onto books, titles, names, searching, searching. a sea of faceless faces, acknowledging only through the bodily presence of the other, caught at the corners of eyes. our bodies gyrate against the tables likes waves to the shore, to and fro, to and fro. pendulums. rhythmic. collect and deposit. awe. lust. picturesque covers. 1st editions. un-cracked spines. swoon.

ahh, book people. book people are beautiful people. yeah!

"half glimpses of life"

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

i've been wanting to read this novel ever since i watched/listened to Chimamanda speak on one of the TED talks | The Danger of a Single Story. she is such an eloquent speaker. resilient beauty. it made me desperate to read her. so, i did.

the first thing i did after borrowing this book from the library was to google the Nigerian-Biafran war. i had never heard of it. for shame. equipped with a mere wiki update on the war, i started. i was immediately intrigued by the characters. they were whole. described with lavish words. i fell in love. a biased love. turned them into heroes. the beacon of all that was good. this was however, shattered. but it was a disappointment so beautiful, it only added more whole-ness to their beings. humans. being and becoming who and what they can be, shaped by their ideals; changed by their circumstances for as goes the saying, what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger. this new-found strength can however be translated in both positive and pessimistic ways. half glimpses of life. not all that grow reach for the sky. some dig deeper into the ground, into darkness.

a thought. certain histories, calamities, genocides are constantly revisited, narrated, and thus their sacrifices, miseries, survivors repeatedly mourned, remembered through museums, memorials, movies. by those who can afford it.

but for those who can't, what become of them?

half glimpses of life

something to look out for!

oooh!!

a love letter

...your latest photos...I don't know. I don't know you. Of course not. But the world you inhabit, the spaces you move through. You breathe. Looking at your latest pictures makes me fall desperately in love with you, this person I don't know, and never will. What a crazy, stupid thing to say. Don't worry. It's nothing. Perhaps I've had too much wine. Nevertheless. Nevermind.

perhaps the sweetest, and only, love letter (of sorts) that i've ever gotten. i've been a romantic, a cynic, and then a romantic-in-denial. the evolution. the degeneration. but i guess i do believe in Love. especially in that of a stranger's. possibly because the distance makes it so surreal. and thus, easier to believe. the irony of it all. nevertheless. nevermind.

catalog | updated

the disembodied genius

my lovely friend, chand, recently linked me to this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of

Eat, Pray, Love. brilliant discussion.

the disembodied genius. the idea that our creative processes involve an other-ly intervention or contribution. that it is not fully our own. that we do not own it. that it comes from nowhere and everywhere. and would leave when the work is done. to be passed on to another. for another creation to be manifested. across time and space.

i've always believed in the idea of the cosmos and how inspirations, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and messages of the many exist within it. released. let loose. or sometimes lost. and i believe in the presence of the divine who artfully crafts opportune chances for the meeting between these floating specters and their medium, the artist. a collaboration, as Gilbert beautifully puts it. collaborations that can happen anytime. anywhere.

interestingly, i find my meetings with such specters mostly contained within the four walls of the toilet. restroom. bathroom. pee-pee place. whatever it is called. i never linger long in the loo. for good reason. but i would be in the midst of sorting out laundry for the week when, POOF! in the middle of a shower. POOF! in the middle of the blessed* act of shitting. POOF!

*i consider shitting a blessing as i believe the human body would not be able to contain itself had it not been given an outlet for release. as the saying goes, what goes in, must come out. so that more can come in. again. and out. again.*

hence, i consider myself lucky for being chosen for collaborations without having to wait it out for centuries in that one space. waiting to be hit by the apple in the head. or having to travel to the end and back. but then again, i have been told that some of my ideas are crappy. shitty. but i suppose, it's better to be crafted as a vessel than a plastic plateau that simply allows for everything or anything that wants to latch on, be wiped away. the important thing is, to become. to become a vessel for something. anything. and then to act with it. accordingly. poetically.

of fate, freckled pages, & an uncracked spine

i just finished reading Veronika decides to die by Coelho. i've been meaning to read it for a while now but didn't for i believe that my relationship with books, like love, exists and is run by fate. i read a book when i am fated to read it, even if the book is within my possession and i find my hours in the day sauntering away. each time i finally read a particular title is when, at that point in time i find myself searching for an answer, to something. answers that most amazingly grow in the pages of the book. as we are all permitted our idiosyncratic ways of reasoning, pray, leave me with mine as i sway a little into another story about fate.

i believe that i am fated to do 'art'. i took art classes when i was a youngling. an eager girl who spent her afternoons after school tracing pictures of flowers and animals from huge encyclopedias. words didn't interest me. i derived immense pleasure from holding a crayon in my hand. second skin. its somewhat hard clay-like texture felt normal against my rough skin. i also loved it when crayon got under my nails. as i was a nail-biter, i found myself on several occasions swallowing small deposits of crayon buried under my nails. i've since however, stopped.

art class. i won second prize for the school's art competition drawing dinosaurs (long necks). using crayons, i drew three long necks, a mom, a dad, and their child. the typical family unit. mother insisted that i not draw the 'm' birds -those that children would usually draw- as those were 'modern' birds which did not exist in the time of dinosaurs. in her eyes, my drawing would lose its authenticity. she specifically said that if i wanted to draw 'birds', they would have to be those 'dinosaur birds'. the pterodactyl. winged lizards. not birds after all. but i didn't know how to draw those 'dinosaur birds' and my sky in the drawing was looking too empty. and so i drew in the 'm' birds. the fake birds. a lot of them. i won the second prize. there was however a girl in my class who knew how to draw a real bird. she drew a parrot so perfectly shaped and colored for the competition. it was green and had a sharp beak. she won the first prize.

i'm sure it wasn't because i didn't win the first prize, but my parents soon reprimanded me whenever i decided to draw and trace. i should have been studying instead. and so i studied.

i took art for my 'O' levels and did very well in it. i got an A and with encouragement from my art teacher, was determined to head to the local art college. this didn't sit well with my parents, especially my mom. no future in being an artist. and so i headed to college to do my 'A' levels. and then university. and then had thoughts of doing a PhD, until finally, i reach this point in my life where i'm revisited by art yet again. through photography, tea bags, and ink, i've become addicted to art and it is something that i plan to start and finish, even if it means i'll have to learn to draw a 'real bird'. i've since recently purchased, after 14 years, a new box of crayons. pastels!

they're still delicious!

so yes. i believe that i am fated to do art. even though it took me many, many years to actualize and chart its path in my life. i believe it as much as i believe that i was fated to finally read Veronika decides to die, for, having refused to spend $26 on it at BORDERS, i finally got to it at a second-hand bookstore at Bras Basah complex two days ago. it was priced at $5.90. and even though the cover and pages have been freckled by time and the sun, its spine was still uncracked. i fell in love. instantly. and i got some answers.

condoms

it's fun coming up with titles

especially when it's funny

and slightly disturbing to some

some