Precarious Joy

Blood Poem – L Akhter, poetry on canvas with gauze, approx 36 x 60”, 2021

An accessible PDF version of the poem can be viewed here.

Even doves wear white to the funeral – Jana Ghalayini, textile, 2021

Even doves wear white to the funeral is an offering to the collective Palestinian community.

The woven tapestry is charged with textures, patterns, and colours that seek to acknowledge the multifaceted emotions that are deeply rooted within our spirit for home and belonging. There is a balance between hope and apathy and trying to process different stages of grief while also searching for joy through resistance and solidarity. The work is inspired by the unity found when we hold space for each other.

Furthermore, the texture and gestures and shapes are an abstract representation of our roots and the land we long to see. With the repetitive nature of the weaving process, these gestural marks and textures are amplified. The earth tones and soft shades of colors combined with the coiled string communicate with each other creating an abstracted landscape that tells a story about love, sadness, pain, prosperity and purpose.

at what time – Ramolen Laruan, pencil on paper, 9 x 10″, 2019 – ongoing

The incomplete and continuous work of remembrance is explored in at what time, a series of drawings and notes on paper depicting what I remember of the village that I grew up in in the Philippines. Some of the drawings were made before I visited the village in the summer of 2019, some a few months after the visit, some created a month ago, and some are copies and interpretations of my brother’s drawing as he participated in the same exercise. An amalgamation of remembered stories, sketches of streets and architecture, and even recalling dreams that took place by multiple people and multiple periods are depicted.

These drawings are evidence of incomplete recollections of a place by several people with varying experiences. The stories represented are fragmented in their accounts, blurring boundaries between biography, fiction, and multiple truths. The memories recorded in at what time are not only residuals of the liminal recollection of a place too far away in memory. They also undergo selection processes and reworkings, participating in a multiphase activity of excavation, falsification, and selection. Through layers of mediation, translation, and mistranslation, at what time does not offer a straightforward representation or an authentic testimonial voice of a subject as a way to articulate unfinished experiences.

June 3rd 2020 – Tommy Truong, 360 Single-channel video, 2020

June 3rd 2020 was meant to be a site-specific installation, initially inspired by the different stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). My practice as an artist has been fundamentally shaped by examining the questions and ideas surrounding the permanence and significance of memory using digital media. This work encourages reflection on themes of time, space, and precarity.

The title of the piece was named after the originally scheduled date of this exhibition, to have been held at Northern Contemporary Art Gallery. The piece was originally meant to be experienced in the gallery through a VR (virtual reality) headset, shown from the point of view in the 360-degree virtual space. Presenting the same environment virtually that the viewer is physically occupying, the work brings attention to the present time and space, toggling between immersion and breaking the 4th wall. The work was only to be shown at this exhibition, leaving only a brief window of time where the piece can only be experienced as an event-specific installation – letting it live and die with the exhibition.

Due to COVID-19, the piece was never shown on its scheduled date, and therefore the piece was renamed as June 3rd 2020. Northern Contemporary Art Gallery has since closed and June 3rd 2020 is now presented as documentation of a work that was never realized. The production of this piece was placed on hold in early 2020 shortly before its completion. This state of limbo added a new layer of meaning for me. So to transform an unrealized event-specific installation, I added digitally drawn components to the piece which serves as snippets of time that had passed between exhibition dates, redeveloping it into a time-based documentation of this piece’s purgatory.

habitual wear – Khanh Tudo, textiles (fabric, yarn, embroidery floss), 2021

For the black sock
24cm x 10cm x 1cm
“Weeda, birthday gift from 2016”

For the baby onesie
60cm x 70cm x 1cm
“Tito, purchased for him in 2000 when he was born. Has since been hand-me-downed to 7 babies”

For the frogs sock
31cm x 11cm x 1cm
“Adam, secret santa gift from 2012”

An ode to the precarity of clothing and love to the time spent living in them. The way we sit, bike, and fidget, generously reflected through threads unravelling. In lengthening the life of each item, the weave reflects on the garment’s life that came before the mend, that will continue afterwards. Corporations erase the labour and faces of those who have masterfully crafted these garments together. Yet, each repair shows respect to the earth we live on, recognizing stories of hand-me-downs and mending as ways of community care, sharing a part of the self.

Each piece will be returned to their previous owners, to be worn, torn and passed down again.

Are You Happy? – Fong Ki Wan, papercut series, 2018 – 2020

New Growth, papercut, 4.75 x 2.75”, 2019 [green background]
Peeled Oranges, papercut, 3 x 3.5”, 2018 [red background]
Flutter, papercut, 2.75 x 2.5”, 2020 [white background]
Helping Hands, papercut, 3.5 x 3”, 2019 [blue background]

My work stems from my interactions with the world around me and how I perceive them. In this series, I connected with other people’s experiences by reflecting on them through my artistic interpretation. I wanted to create a conversation with those who provided me with their small moments of joy that then can be joined by everyone who views the pieces. Through these interactions, the meanings and themes in each papercut are subject to change from the individuals who view them; however, the core feelings conveyed remain the same. Since I can never truly experience other people’s joy in the same way as they did, I try to remember the similar moments in my own experience. Each work represents other people’s joys that are made from happy moments in my life. Often it was things that were overlooked but through the act of creating, I can remember them and experience them all over again.

Are you Happy? takes little moments in people’s everyday lives where they feel joy and makes it a tangible representation for others to view and enjoy. So often, these little joyful moments can easily be overlooked in the day-to-day when people choose to focus on the big things. With this series, I hope people can spend a little bit longer enjoying the little things.

Sorting, Naming, Counting – Sanna Wani

Sorting, poetry, 10 x 14”, 2021
Naming, poetry, 10 x 14”, 2021
Counting, poetry, 10 x 14”, 2021

An accessible PDF version of the poems can be viewed here.

How to Be Satiated in the Dark – Qirou Yang, acrylic photo mount, 32 x 18”, 2021

“Ghost town” is a geographical phenomenon when houses and apartments of a developmental zone are being built more than demanded. With only a few families taking residence in a largely empty area, those “homes” no longer seem to fit the supposed warm, comforting idea of “home.” Developers keep building more and more apartments in order to attract people for investment. The empty buildings which exist in the area make the section where they were constructed gradually like a “ghost zone.”

I have always found my hometown, Donghai in southern China, is reminiscent of my childhood memories, until I noticed the “ghost zone” phenomenon there. In 2017, our family moved into one of the 48 houses in the villa section of Donghai. By the time we moved in, those villas were already empty for several years.

By tracing a religious dream that I once had, my deepest and fragmented subconscious memories of living experience at my childhood home, and my father’s villa dream, I aim to reveal my psychological belonging to my provenance. The 3D models in the animation are accomplished by Photogrammetry – a digital simulation process of reconstructing the object or landscape by assembling images for the Point Cloud. By photographing and constructing plenty of photographs from the villa zone, I created virtual replicas of the ghost zone. The process of virtually moving inside the abstract and pixelated computer-generated buildings is similar to the progress of searching for an uncertain longing: I am wandering in the detached space, yet it is the space in my provenance – an anchor in my life.

My ultimate goal is not seeking a solution for the mundane architecture that is a product of the complexity of greed. Although the project has rarely been discussed directly through a socio-political position, it focuses on delivering a story that provokes the viewers’ phenomenological contemplation between their self-perception and the living space.

The accompanying video for How to Be Satiated in the Dark can be viewed here. *Epilepsy warning.

Please Help Yourself – Rice Water Collective: Florence Yee and Arezu Salamzadeh, ceramic, 14 pieces – each 3 x 3 x 3”, 2020

Please Help Yourself is a collection of glazed ceramics that resemble tangerine peels. The offering of tangerines is reminiscent of the ways that our families often welcome guests in their homes and the simple food that is shared amongst friends on the side of the curb. As ceramic works, the inconspicuous leftovers of our shared gatherings become small monuments to those moments. They speak to cultures of hospitality that adapt to uncertainty. As an expansion upon this project, we have transformed it into a wider collaborative endeavour. During the pandemic, we mailed a small portion of clay with accompanying instructions to relatives and friends who we could not visit, for us to “share a tangerine” through the process of collective artmaking. As we received them back through the mail, they were fired in a kiln. Seeing as the material of clay bares all the traces of the maker’s hands, this process of exchange retains an intimate connection of touch and care to carry on during a time of isolation.