Sharon Chin

The first half of this post is written by me. The second half by my collaborator on this project, Maryann Tan.

Sharon:

In April, a curator invited me to be part of a new digital art project sponsored by Samsung.

It’s called Masterpieces, an online platform to crowd-source and showcase digital art from Asia. At this moment, anyone can go to the website, create a free account and upload images. But what gets shown is subject to review and selection by the curator, Iola Lenzi.

Disclosure: Iola Lenzi was co-curator for Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in South East Asia 1991 – 2011, an exhibition that included my work. I’ve also corresponded with her professionally on a number of occasions.

Samsung would send me their latest tablet, the Galaxy S Note 10.1, on which I was to create at least 3 works to be self-uploaded to the Masterpieces website. A real-life exhibition of selected works would be launched later. In the Philippines, the Masterpieces exhibition was held at the Ayala Museum, in Singapore at the National Museum – plenty of institutional cred.

I was offered no contract, artist agreement or fees, only a ‘possibility’ that I would be given a Samsung device as ‘thank you’ for participating. After I requested twice that this ‘thank you’ not remain a matter of ambiguity, Samsung confirmed that I could keep the Galaxy S Note I was sent.

Iola Lenzi told me I was free to experiment and create whatever I wanted, including being ‘provocative with the brand’, with the exception of hardcore pornography. In the absence of a contract, I was sent Terms & Conditions of the Masterpieces platform – 24 pages of legalese that I didn’t read.

I decided to collaborate with my friend Maryann Tan, a writer and content developer, to produce a story about the troubled relationship we have with our smart devices.

This is what we made (if you can’t see the reader below, please go here):

We uploaded it to the Masterpieces platform in mid-May and waited.

Last week, I received a call from a Samsung executive informing me that our work was not acceptable due to legal concerns, citing unauthorized use of the Samsung trademark.

I pointed out that such restrictions were never mentioned in any of their communications with me. Since there was no contract (though I requested it repeatedly), I could only follow the curator’s ‘you’re free to experiment, except for porn’ statement as a guideline.

The executive explained that any mention of Samsung was not allowed because Masterpieces was a strictly non-commercial CSR project. This was also the reason why artists were not given contracts – since it was non-commercial, my participation was a ‘non-commission’, and because it was a ‘non-commission’, they were not REJECTING my work, they were merely not including it because of legal reasons.

Flummoxed by this circular corporate logic, I forgot to remind her that the Android app in the Google Play Store is called ‘Masterpieces Art by Samsung’, and that the exhibitions held in museums had been called ‘The Samsung Masterpieces Digital Art Exhibition’.

The executive went on to assure me that they really wanted me in Masterpieces, and asked me to create new work so I could continue to be part of it. I said to send clear guidelines on the permissible content, and asked if there were specific clauses which our first submission had violated. She said she wasn’t sure and would have to check the Terms and Conditions.

Evidently neither she nor the curator had read the document. Can’t say I blame them.

Well, they can breathe easy. Their asses are covered. After the Samsung call, I did what no one would do in ordinary circumstances and read the Ts & Cs. Buried in there is this clause: ‘You are not entitled to use any of Samsung’s (including Samsung’s Subsidiaries) trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, or other distinctive brand features (“Samsung’s Brands”) without Samsung’s prior written consent.’

I haven’t heard from Samsung or Iola Lenzi again.

I estimate that I and Maryann laboured a combined total of 150 hours to produce this work. In the DEDICATION section for each uploaded image we wrote the following: ‘Dedicated to workers in the semiconductor industry worldwide.’

Maryann:

When Sharon asked if I’d like to be part of a new art project that she’d just taken on I didn’t think twice about it.

There are some things you just don’t say no to. Psychedelics that may afford transcendental experiences could be one of them, the other is an opportunity to collaborate with one of Malaysia’s most thoughtful and unaffected visual artists.

Sharon explained that Samsung would afford no pecuniary reward for whatever work we might eventually submit but in any case, the project was novel to me and I’d have the opportunity to flex some creative muscle, so that was attractive enough.

While I knew I’d be doing the easier part of the work, I also believed that I could be part of something meaningful. A reader of the documents on this blog will gather that Sharon’s output, especially in recent times has been motivated by a desire to use art as a means to be in solidarity with ordinary folks everywhere. In drawing beauty from the mundane and familiar, and even the “wicked”, her art reminds us of our humanity and calls for compassion.

She warned that the work might be rejected because of the subject matter we chose. We discussed that a couple of times. Somehow, that risk didn’t trouble us much and we went ahead, putting a lot of thought and effort into it. I guess this is an instance of two people in their own way having to justify doing something for which there seemed no real purpose nor reward. Knowing that somehow accrued gravitas.

Without exaggerating, I found the entire process, in the end very rewarding indeed. I’m not one known for being a conscious consumer. But Sharon raised this real issue that all users of modern mobile devices ought to be aware of and think a bit harder about. At least, it has made me consider getting the Fairphone, when my Samsung wears out its useful life, although I do admit technological advances continue to tempt and enthrall me.

I am also very proud of the end result. The art was beautiful and Sharon’s depiction of the writhing tentacles of a Kraken is a wonderful metaphor for how technology creeps into and grips our consciousness. By then I was hoping that the curator would accept the work on its merits. The story, while it may not put Samsung in the most positive light, was based entirely on news reports and documentaries so we weren’t exposing anything new. Indeed, there is a full panel dedicated to the apology that Samsung issued to the aggrieved families of the deceased and afflicted.

When Sharon told me the news I chuckled with cynicism. I was neither angry nor disappointed. Just resigned. I thought about the Samsung executive and imagined how she’d prepared a script to explain the decision to Sharon. How, she might have calculated the possible repercussions from a very conservative management if she’d let this through. And what about the curator? Might she have felt that the artwork, judged purely on its merit could have been exhibited but then corporate and marketing objectives took precedence? Maybe Iola Lenzi herself wished she wasn’t put in that position; after all she must have pursued a career as curator out of her love for art.

*chuckle* *chuckle*

Still, I wished they’d just be more upfront with their reasons for the rejection. They wouldn’t use the negative, and instead tried to appear conciliatory, although I think they failed miserably. Deferring to item 13 on page 8 of a 24 page-long Terms & Conditions was a convenient bureaucratic manoeuvre. The part about this being a “non-commercial CSR project” also strikes me as disingenuous. Incidentally, neither executive nor curator pointed us to that clause when Sharon asked them to be specific. I looked it up after I got the news. From the language used in the first email that invited Sharon to submit her work, I’m inclined to think that they didn’t take the time to read the Ts & Cs because let’s get real lah… Who does?

Because I’m really an outsider without any investment in the art world, other than to view beautiful creations on gallery walls on occasion, I think I’m less affected by this revelation. However, I think it adds another weight to the argument that CSR is mostly an insidious and elaborate marketing ruse. It’s not that they are purposefully evil but when your fiduciary duty and obligation boils down to making profit for shareholders, how can you truly care?

Dear Malaysian women’s magazine,

First of all, thank you for nominating me to be in the running for the Great Women of Our Time Awards 2014. I’m honoured that you’ve noticed my work and consider it of value. Many Malaysian women read and enjoy your magazine, which makes me sincerely appreciate this recognition. Again, thank you.

But I must respectfully decline. For one thing, since I hit my 30s, I find I’ve lost that sensation of having all the time in the world, stretching out before me. This isn’t a fear of getting old, it’s a very welcome effect of no longer being 20. As they say, art is long, and life is very short. As an artist in Malaysia, I doubt I will ever amass much money or prestige of my own. Luckily, my privileged circumstances allow my family to support me financially, so that I can continue doing my work. My time, that is, the time to do this work, is all I have to give the world.

Therefore I will not be able to attend the photoshoot and interview and gala dinner.

I wish you, your team, the judging panel, the 3 nominees in 6 categories and the eventual grand winners all the best. Personally, I wish women could be celebrated without competition, but those are not the times we live in. Your magazine must do as it can, and so must I.

Once again, thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Sharon

With my mother. I get it all from her. Photo by Cindy Koh

A few weeks ago I visited Kg Hakka Mantin, a century-old village on the way between Seremban and Kajang.

It was a picnic by the river, organized by the villagers and Rakan Mantin. Since last year, they’ve been holding events like this that allow people to experience the culture and history of Kg Hakka up close.

The future of the village is precarious. Villagers are up against Mega 9 Sdn Bhd, a private developer claiming to have bought the land from the Negeri Sembilan state government. Like Kg Berembang and Kg Buah Pala before it, Kg Hakka is the latest in the recurring tale of forced displacement happening across Malaysia. This one is still on-going; there may yet be a chance to determine how it ends, or rather, how it continues.

The day unfolded in bright sunshine. We moved from house to house, making our way down to the river and the shrine where we had lunch. Throughout, villagers told stories about their lives and the land they’ve lived on for generations.

I didn’t catch the name of this auntie, but I know she’s 74 and doesn’t look it. We were gathered at the Kg Hakka Interpretive Centre – about 20 of us, an equal number of villagers and visitors.

She spoke first, in Hakka and Mandarin, which was translated into English by the few who could understand all three. She remembered growing up alongside the nearby tin mine, and being absolutely forbidden to go there.

The Interpretive Centre is well named. Oral history isn’t neat and linear, the way it’s laid out in textbooks. The gaps get filled by others and by the imagination. It’s history as a collaborative and continuous process.

In my utopia, all Information Centers are replaced with Interpretive ones.

This is Jun Kit’s grandmother – Madam Yap, 85 years old. Her house is actually in the Cantonese village adjacent to Kg Hakka. The two communities have always been close.

Once upon a time, she transported coal on bicycle, tapped rubber, raised pigs, brewed soy sauce, and had 6 children. Eventually, she moved with them to the city.

After the picnic, Jun Kit and I accompanied her as she went around calling on old friends – a merry and moving experience. The ties of friendship and community forged in this place have lasted longer than I’ve been alive.

Chong Tze Yaw, Kg Hakka residents committee chairman. The Interpretive Center is set up in a house belonging to the Chong family, which has been in Kg Hakka for 6 generations.

‘It’s not about money or compensation, but tradition and history. We’ve got hundred year-old temples and houses, a 90 year-old school. There’s so much here, we don’t want to let it go. Thank you for coming today to support us’.

Grandpa Chong. He was in Standard 2 when the Japanese invaded Malaya. As a young man, he began work laying pipes at the dredge mine. He got into an accident 2 weeks into the job and never went there again.

The route on the way to the river was strewn with trash. Old furniture, mattresses, broken glass, an altar – all manner of flotsam and debris lay there rotting in the undergrowth.

Whatever the differences between urban and rural life, rubbish is one thing we have in common.

Sungai Setul. 100 million years ago, it and other rivers brought tin rich alluvial soil down from the surrounding Galla and Setul hills into the Mantin valley. These hills lie at the foot of the Titiwangsa mountains on the southernmost west side.

The history of Kg Hakka is also the history of tin mining, itself foundational to the history of Malaya. It dates back to the 1800s, when Chinese immigrants came to mine the highly priced tin ore that flooded the western foothills of the peninsula. Tussles between Chinese towkays and Malay sultans for this treasure gave the British an excuse to intervene and secure their colonial foothold.

Years ago, I memorized a mass of disparate geographic, historical and economic facts to pass school exams. I felt them finally start to arrange themselves into a coherent picture in my mind…

Lunch was at a shrine next to the river. Samy is the caretaker. He sleeps there, and wakes up at 4am everyday to clean the place. People come from all over Mantin to pray, give offerings, and ask for lottery numbers.

Many villagers contributed something for lunch – yam cake, steamed chickpeas, fresh nangka. This Auntie cooked meehoon and chicken curry. It was so good. She was wearing bright pink shirt with flowers all over it.

This auntie was so full of character I had to draw her. She declared that she was going to cook two of her own chickens for the next event!

I brought jelly dyed with bluepea flowers for the picnic. The aunties were curious about the deep blue colour, and we chatted about natural food dye as far as my broken Mandarin would allow.

When I arrived at Kg Hakka, I passed someone lying on the floor, pressed up against the front of an empty house. At first I thought it was a dead body, but then saw it heave gently, breathing. I walked on.

I passed him again on my way back. Now he was standing up, his left hand grabbing his crotch as he stared ahead with empty eyes. Around him was a strange display – rows of used plastic lighters arranged on piles of gathered dirt. The image haunts my mind. I wish would have have stopped and said hello, but I was chicken shit.

What’s a Chinese village without dogs? They’re suspicious of strangers, but confidence is the key. By the end of the day, I’d learned to stride pass them like I belonged there.

The best thing you can do for Kg Hakka Mantin is to take part in their activities, and yay for this, because they are fun and will make you happy.

Join the Rakan Mantin FB group for updates.

The next event will be ‘Grandpa’s Era’ Bicycle Carnival on Sunday, 8 June 2014, 10am – 2pm.

In July last year, I drew a portrait of Alvivi.

Alvivi are Vivian Lee and Alvin Tan. I follow them online. It’s like following a meteor as it trolls brightly through the Internet, trailing controversy and naked pictures in its wake.

This time though, the stakes were different. It was Ramadan, the holy month. Alvivi uploaded a photo of themselves eating pork soup, wishing Muslims ‘happy breaking fast’, and included a HALAL logo in the corner.

The public outcry was intense. They were arrested, denied bail, sent to prison for 8 nights and charged with the Film Censorship Act, the Sedition Act and Section 298A of the Penal Code.

As is usual with controversies, especially ones online, and especially in Malaysia, you’re either for or against. I drew Alvivi’s portrait as an escape route, an attempt to look at them (and our reactions to them), differently. I wasn’t very successful. There is a limit to the insight you can gain when you only know your subjects through the Internet.

People interacting with “Vivian Lee, Social Portrait” at the exhibition opening.

That portrait eventually led to me meeting Vivian in person. She saw it and friended me on Facebook. Months later, I sent her a message asking: ‘Can we hang out? I want to make art about you.’

I’m not sure if she found it flattering, or creepy. Possibly both. Anyway, she said yes.

Meeting Vivian for the first time was surreal. My brain kept recalibrating the online image I had in my head with the reality of the human being, both simpler and more complex, in front of me. I’ll be honest – I was inclined to be sympathetic from the outset, and had trouble keeping my projections in check.

My affinity for Vivian comes not just from being a woman, but one whose life, work and self-image are closely tied to the Internet. I met my first boyfriend in an IRC chatroom (back in the earlier days of the Internet) when I was 16. Almost 2 decades later, the Internet is allowing me to build an independent art career by connecting me directly to my audience. At the same time, my Facebook feed shows me ads for weight loss and vaginal tightening creams because its algorithms predict that’s what I’m mostly likely to buy.

Vivian is 10 years younger than I am. She was about 11 or 12 when she first encountered the Internet. She started chatting over MSN Messenger, and moved on to the proto social network site Friendster. When she joined Facebook, she was extremely self-conscious and cautious about posting there because her family and friends shared the same network. Her mother, a conservative single parent, would nag her based on her status updates.

Photo by Nadia J Mahfix

Tumblr was different. The blogging and social media platform has relatively low usage amongst Malaysians. It was there that she and Alvin started their (now defunct) sex blog Sumptuous Erotica in 2012, which was followed by international fans and a handful of close friends. She spoke with sadness about no longer having the blog. She had lost a place on the Internet where she felt free to be, as she put it, ‘my true self’.

Vivian maintains she never wanted controversy or fame. She regrets that Alvin shared the link to their sex blog on forums like hardwarezone.sg, which led to it being picked up by Singaporean media. Whether he did so to connect with more like-minded people, or to boost the Alvivi signal online, is open to question. This sheds light on Alvin and Vivian’s relationship and the Alvivi ‘brand’ – while they may have differing approaches to fame and the Internet, they bear the outcomes of each other’s actions together.

Many accuse Alvivi of being low-rent attention seekers. But who’s really mining and exploiting our human attention spans? In today’s economy, ‘eyeball hours’ are the new raw minerals. Stock prices depend on views, likes and shares, while Youtube sensations leverage their millions of subscribers for lucrative partnerships with big brands. An indication of what Vivian does for web traffic: a photo posted to my Facebook page usually gets 200 – 600 views. A photo tagged with Vivian got 2,000. When The Star broke the story of Alvivi in Malaysia, it garnered record page views, and continued to feature them in print and online every day, for a week.

Photo by Masjaliza Hamzah

In the press and their social media channels, Alvin’s voice dominates. Negative comments on their Youtube videos reveal a marked difference in the way people perceive him compared to Vivian. He’s ‘wasting his future’, while she’s ‘stupid for being used by an asshole’. She said that most of the ‘shameful’ and ‘slut’ comments were directed at her. Even though Alvin was derided for embarrassing his family, she was seen as ‘incurring the most loss’ because no one would want her as a wife. It seems that women can’t even be harlots on their own terms; they’re bad not because they’re bad, but because they’re unmarriageable.

When I asked Vivian what she had learned about race and religion in Malaysia since the Ramadan pork soup controversy, she could not answer. I’m not sure if it was because she didn’t understand my question, or because there was nothing she had learnt. I rephrased: ‘what do you think about race and religion in general?’ She expressed frankly that she likes the fact that she’s Chinese, and that there must be reasons why people don’t like different races, for example: because Chinese are greedy, Malays are lazy and Indians are violent.

She felt that people should be less sensitive about race and religion, and wondered ‘why make such a big deal out of it?’ On the one hand, she seemed to buy into racial stereotypes. On the other, she felt that race and religion were forms of social control, and saw no difference between being offended by racial or religious self-expression and being offended by sexual self-expression.

Hello can you hear me? Photo by Maryann Tan

This is where my values differ from Vivian’s. Freedom of expression is a poor defense for holding and expressing racist views. Maintaining the right to individual self-expression, while expressing a group racial identity (e.g. Chinese eating pork soup) to address another group racial identity (e.g. Muslims fasting during the holy month), is hypocritical.

Vivian said if she had known that the consequences of posting the Ramadan picture were jail and criminal charges, she would not have done it. Not because it was hurtful or offensive, but because it was ‘not practical’. This is important. It tells us that criminalizing offense does nothing to impart understanding. It only enforces obedience based on fear. As long as we turn to repressive laws to manage our cultural differences, we will continue to live in fear.

Vivian’s racism does not diminish my affinity for her in other respects. Looking at her honestly enough to make a portrait that has a kernel of truth and meaning trains me to look at Malaysia the same way. The picture that emerges is complex: brave, ugly and challenging all at once. She is neither good nor bad, she is simply herself. Looking deeply into the individual, we may find a way to understand the whole.

We are all Vivian. Photo by Maryann Tan

Many thanks to Zedeck Siew, Danny Lim, Maryann Tan and Sunitha Janamohanan for editorial help on this essay.

The Good Malaysian Woman: Ethnicity. Religion. Politics is showing at Black Box, MAP Publika, from 18 – 25 May 2014.

Mr. Raman is our gardener.

He comes round every month, sometimes more often, sometimes less. He cuts the grass, sweeps the leaves and clears the drains.

He’s built like a tree, solid and barrel chested. Our garden is a two-day job for him. He’s getting older now. He’s had several eye operations and wears big sunglasses when he works.

Once he tried to introduce me to another lady in the neighborhood who also employs him to keep her garden tidy. I think he thought I was lonely, since he only ever sees me sitting at my table hunched up over a drawing or my computer. Finally, I ran out of excuses and went to visit her. We had tea. She was very nice to me, but I got the strong impression we were both there to oblige our gardener.

The portrait shows him cutting down a bougainvillea tree that used to choke our front fence. It was a massive tangle of thorny branches that grew so high, it blocked out the street light. I remember him standing in the shadow of the bougainvillea, hacking away at its trunk with a small hand axe: Thwuck! Thwck! Twhuck! For some reason, that image is like chewing gum on the bottom shoe of my mind.

He invited us to his 68th birthday party yesterday! I rushed like crazy to finish the portrait in time. I gave him the drawing, but I’m not sure if his eyes can see it clearly. We met his family. Most of his children are in Port Dickson now, so he’s got company. He’s been a widower for many years.

I ate too many poppadoms at the party, which I am wont to do. And I tried not to be envious of his super cute garden, full of pretty plants. I want green thumbs, I get green eyes. WHY.

Happy birthday, Mr. Raman!

Lena Hendry is Programme Coordinator at Pusat KOMAS, a human rights organization that uses popular media to empower and educate communities. In September 2013, she was charged by the Malaysian government under the Film Censorship Act for screening a documentary, No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka. It’s the first time the law has been used against a human rights activist.

If convicted, she could face a fine of up to RM30,000 or 3 years imprisonment, or both. It will also send the message that the government can and will use this wide-ranging, arbitrary law to limit freedom of expression and information. The case is on-going.

Click image for hi-res version. Feel free to print, spread, share and link, but please include a credit.

Find out more about Lena’s case here. Sign a petition to have the charges dropped here.

This was the year I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.

It felt like I’d hit a vein of water after digging in dry rock for almost two years – which, if you count back, is when we moved to Port Dickson in 2011.

This year I worked with the frenzy of someone who has learned never to take the spring/source/muse/mojo/lalalala/whateveryoucallit for granted again.

The drawings of weeds I started as daily practice in 2012…

…led to WEEDS/RUMPAI, my first real show in 2 years. I found new ways of doing things and new comrades to do them with.

I went back on Facebook, and tried to relearn the Internets so that I could use it instead of it using me. Douglas Rushkoff‘s work by way of Molly Crabapple‘s work helped.

The best tattoos are revealed to you by your own life. It was time to learn how to fly, fight and be brave, so I got sparrowhawk feathers to balance out the leaves on my other shoulder. Fresh from the needle:

Elections 2013. I made political propaganda for Parti Keadilan Rakyat. It was the hardest thing I did. We lost anyway. I don’t regret a moment of my time – it gave me a close look at the political power machine that controls our lives, and convinced me once and for all that my path doesn’t lie that way.

We tried to bring forth the Malaysian Spring. In the hopeless hope I planted all the flowers from my #bungaBERSIH dress on the street. The last time I checked, they are still there, slowly turning black from exhaust fumes.

I hired my friends Roberto and Maryann to help me build a beautiful new website. This is the best thing I’ve done so far for myself and my art. The E-shop should be up and running sometime in the new year.

I drew alot, including #Alvivi, Malaysia Day Medusa and Ah Gow the treecutter. I want to get better at drawing, but also just want to draw more, because dammit, it is FUN. I hope this Dedication + Joy = Lots of cool art for your eyeballs in 2014.

This is a drawing of my cancelled performance for the controversial M50 exhibition in August. I meant to blog about it but never got the chance.

Mandi Bunga happened at Singapore Biennale. It landed me and over a hundred other brave, beautiful people dressed in yellow on the front pages of The Straits Times.

Me and Zedeck did a Flower Shower stall at Urbanscapes under Market of Experiences, and spent the week after scratching madly at mysterious rashes.

So much for doing. There’s always the dark side which never gets talked about enough – massive personal shit like dealing with the serious illness of a loved one, relationship shit which had me and Zedeck giving and taking pain in equal measure, and garden variety self-doubt/self-sabotage shit which… never truly goes away.

And then there’s all the other stuff around the edges, long hours spent at home, thinking, watching the sky turn slowly from morning to evening, cats, friends, wine, coffee, solitude…

The vein of water is deep, and only goes deeper.

Wishing you joy and art and dancing and pain and love and epic failure and dreams coming true and making things and doing things and being things. See you there at the source.

Happy New Year, diggers!

(Photo of me and my new pony by Ronnie Khoo)

It is my birthday! [ARgh. No, it is not. I did not actually finish this in time. Two days late. But I did spend my birthday writing it!]

I swore to myself that I’d finish the Mandi Bunga epic blog by my birthday. Not for any special reason except maybe people would want to be nice to me and would probably read it if I asked them, compared to any other day. Also, because I know, with a terrible certainty, that if I don’t do it by today, I won’t do it at all.

So! I give you the epic Mandi Bunga blog, that’s turned out to be not really epic, but a collection of 10 fragments, sewn together by luck and sweat into something meaningful. When I think about it, that’s exactly how this project happened. It is the opposite of monumental.

1. Super Mind Enzyme

Somewhere along the way, I stopped keeping proper sketchbooks. I can probably trace it back to when I started telling myself I couldn’t/didn’t want/didn’t need to draw.

For Mandi Bunga, I picked the cheapest blank notebook with a hard cover lying around and used it throughout. It became the single most important tool I had, a super enzyme for my compost pile of a mind. Scraps of ideas, doubts, anxiety, fear of failure, fear of success – the notebook took it all, and broke it down into little nuggets of useable gold.

2. Lynda Barry, or, Farewell Art World, Hello Myself

I went to her work again and again, a thirsty hyena looking for water, and drank deep from two books in particular – What It Is and Picture This. It looked and felt like the art I wanted to be making, bringing back all the excitement and wonder that my 7 years in the art world had sucked dry. I rediscovered drawing, not as a proof of talent/skill, but as a way to access what she calls ‘the unspeakable mind’ – that well of pain and joy that makes us who we are.

The realization that I’d spent years making art defined by the dry artspeak of project proposals and curators’ essays was devastating to me. Why, why had I done that? Because it’s what I learned in art school? Because that’s what the ‘art industry’ is, and I’m just a miserable worker making its cogs go round and round, in the hopes that one day I’ll rise to the top?

It was like waking up from a long, drugged sleep. It helped me to understand why participants in my workshops were so afraid to pick up their brushes and paint. It mirrored my own estrangement. I swore I would not spend another moment making things that pushed people further away from art and themselves. I held on to the feeling that Lynda’s work gave me, and used it as a guide to shape everything.

3. Comma-rades

Commas & Industry is a PR and events agency started by my ex-housemate Ying, and manned by a fantastic motley crew: Stephanie, Liy, Maryann, Sue and Julia. It is small but mighty. I hired them to help me with WEEDS, which was the first time I admitted I needed proper help and actually did something about it. The result: holy sweet working chemistry, Batman!

There’s incredible value in working with people who are exactly your wavelength, but not necessarily from your field. It has to do with different tracks of thinking coming together to produce unexpected solutions. The reality is, without Commas, Mandi Bunga would still have happened, but it would never have achieved the same polish and coherence.

It’s like hitting a target. All artists know that every artwork will only ever be an approximation of their vision. You never hit the bullseye. You only hope to get as close as your skills and resources allow. This time, for various reasons, I got as close as I could have. One of those reasons is Commas & Industry.

4. Repeat after me: only ever an approxmation…

I had the idea for Mandi Bunga way before I was asked to be part of Singapore Biennale. It was dreamed up for the streets of KL – people were to stand side by side and pass water, bucket brigade style, from point A to B. It was to be the most public spectacle imaginable, open to any person from the public to take part.

Early on, Zedeck predicted that I if I did this project at Singapore Biennale, I would struggle mightily with its context – the limitations, requirements and politics that come hand-in-hand with such a government-backed, institutionally-run blockbuster art event. Sure enough, I did.

The venue changed from a public park away from the city center to the lawn of the National Museum, a stone’s throw away from Singapore Art Museum (SAM), both right smack in the CBD. I wanted to bring it out of the center, where it would encounter more communities, but I failed.

I wanted people who are less visible in society to take part, like the elderly and migrants, but I also failed. I’d been allocated 20 days in Singapore. No time to meet people, no time to go to the ground. I pushed it as far as the parameters would go, but in the end, the context defined me and my work.

Still. To be able to walk in a parade, waving a yellow flag, on the streets of Singapore… I think of that, and a satisfied smile creeps over my face. This wouldn’t have happened if the National Museum wasn’t so close to SAM. Honor for choosing the right site goes to my friend and comrade, Biennale co-curator Khairuddin Hori. Sometimes the context gives you something you never dreamed of, and you’re left standing in a tiny, momentary space of freedom that wasn’t there before.

5. The Network, or, Mandi Bunga beats Facebook’s Edgerank

We launched the project online with a call for participants, focusing almost exclusively on Facebook and Twitter. There was no Plan B, and without participants, Mandi Bunga basically… wasn’t going to happen.

Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm ensures that what you share will only reach 15 percent of your subscribers. For the privilege of being connected to your own network, you must pay. I decided that we were NOT going to pay to promote the open call. No, I’m not a masochist. This isn’t about ego.

To me, the Network is more than the number of my FB fans. Like cycling and gardening, it’s a tool that bears the seeds of a peaceful and permanent revolution – one that’s not based solely on political victory, but on developing living, breathing connections.

When we pay for connections, we exploit human relationships as currency – all that matters is that there are eyeballs attached to the person on the other side of the screen. Instead of being the great leveler, the Network becomes another place where the rich get more and corporations grow fat.

I needed to know that the Internet isn’t just another media outlet controlled by new corporate gatekeepers who are mining our human attention spans like raw minerals.

Despite Edgerank, the Network shared and spread Mandi Bunga. By the second day, the list of sign-ups was overflowing. The Internet had generated more than likes and retweets and bitchy blogs about things that don’t matter. It had helped me Make Something Happen.

6. Hey! Themesong time! The former Captain James T. Kirk will take us there:

7. Bersih

Yes, Mandi Bunga was inspired by Bersih. The colour yellow, besides looking super cute and cheerful, is a direct reference to the movement. But people looking at Mandi Bunga as a political statement will be disappointed.

Hell, even I’m disappointed! I wish it WERE as simple as staging a Bersih-like demonstration in Singapore and getting away with it under the guise of art. Maybe it would have made politicians sit up. Maybe it would have caused more ripples than it did and made me a fucking famous controversial art-revolutionary.

The thing is, it wouldn’t have been very good art. Or good thinking. Or good politics. But most of all, it would have meant using over 100 people for my own ends without giving them anything in return.

My experience with Bersih left me both energized and confused. It called itself a people’s movement, but didn’t consult with the people. Instead, it had charismatic heroes and leaders who negotiated with kings – the ‘people’ were alternately the bargaining chip or trump card in a high stakes poker game. And yet, the experience of being on the street with a sea of fellow citizens was indescribable… a glimpse of human solidarity and brotherhood, mingled with the smell of sweat and blood.

For a long while, I didn’t know what to do with my contradictory feelings about Bersih. I was ashamed of them. I wanted the easy narrative. I wanted to be a Righteous Warrior for Urgent Change dammit!

In the end though, I couldn’t hide from the doubts. They ate away at me until I took them and turned them into Mandi Bunga.

8. People, Part I

“Despite the horse race elections, manifestos, and movements, the truth is most of the time for most people, political systems don’t mean much. For all activists and politicians see excitement and power in their bloodsports, most people, and probably the healthier sorts, prefer to get on with their lives regardless of who’s in charge. They spend their time with family and meeting friends for coffee and trying to understand what makes a good life. And it is these people, not the power players, who keep us fed and warm in winter and give us the soft curve of a ceramic cup in hand, who make the memory and fabric of a place. It is details and human labor that give the name of home to the cities and towns that earn that name inside of people. Society is mostly built away from power, by the politically distant and ideologically vague.” – Quinn Norton

9. Giving up ownership, not authorship* (*borrowed from The New Rules of Public Art)

One criticism of the performance was that it looked sloppy. It’s true, people kept coming in and out of the ‘sacred’ performance space, taking pictures and interacting with participants. In fact, when I arrived with the last group at the National Museum, I panicked a little when I saw the bathers weren’t neatly in position ready to perform – they were sitting around, chatting, selfie-ing, tweeting, laughing. I remember thinking for a split second: oh my god this does not look like an artwork.

But I came to my senses, and realized this was exactly what I had meant it to be.

Consider this: Sometimes ‘sloppiness’, open-endedness and lack of polish (I prefer ‘informality’) is not an accident, but an intended outcome. The thing looks the way it’s supposed to feel.

What does giving up ownership feel like? It feels like letting go of control. It’s risky and vulnerable and hard to trust people to make their own decisions. Like, what if people didn’t show up? Well, that’s that. Gotta accept failure as an outcome.

But it can also make things easy: people kept asking what would happen if it rained. I said: I don’t know. If it rains, we’ll discuss and decide together what to do. Somehow, this answer was enough for them, and for me. It helped us endure what none of us could control.

What does keeping authorship (I prefer ‘stewardship’) mean? To me, it’s this: doing your utmost to encourage the conditions and maintain the bonds that made people want to do this in the first place.

10. People, Part II

Have you ever watched someone making art? Their face changes. Concentration and relaxation comes over them at the same time. They open up, become easy to talk to.

Three observations from interacting with close to 140 people who took part in the sarong-painting workshops:

1. Most people (unless they’re working in the arts) have lost their relationship to making art. It’s unbearable to witness. Over and over, I heard things like: ‘I haven’t picked up a brush in 20 years, except to paint my house’ ‘I’m not creative’ ‘I don’t know how to draw’ ‘Never thought I’d be doing this’. Heartbreakingly, they felt the need to apologize: ‘Sorry *nervous laughter*, I’m bad at art lah’. I do not know how this has happened. It was like encountering a forrest that had lost its leaves.

We cannot know how this loss has affected our ability to relate to ourselves, other people and our world, but I will say this: almost every person who left the workshops told me it was ‘relaxing’, ‘therapeutic’, ‘I really needed that’, ‘I wish I could do this more’ and that it made them happy.

2. People are fragile and vulnerable. They get hurt and worried and anxious about everything, like… they don’t have enough time, or they’ve had a really hard year, they don’t know what they’re doing, their father has cancer, they want to spend more time with their mother, they’re worried about their daughter, they’re insecure about their body… it goes on. Does this sound like you? Hey! It sounds like me.

But they’re are brave and beautiful too, in the most everyday, ordinary way. They care. They hope. They abide. They’re funny.

3. It seemed to me that what was most important to people, besides themselves, was other people.

At the end…

There is a feeling that lies at the end of every project, that has very little to do with whether it was a failure or success. It’s a kind of satisfaction… a peace of mind. I’ve been chasing it like an addict for years. That feeling is what I live for, the moment when I can sit down and say: I did it.

This time, that familiar and beloved drug had a new dimension: we did it.

I’m only starting to grasp what that really means.

Sharon Chin

Artist Sharon Chin's Site

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