time – Sharon Chin

Antid Oto #19: Flame of the forest

Deadlines

No time no time no time no time. Late late late late late. Falling behind. Not keeping up. Stuck.

What if you just let it take the time it takes? Where would it go if you let it go where it needed?

Antid Oto – italian for antidote – was one of Leon Trotsky‘s earliest pen names. I also love the Malay word for it: penawar. A few months ago, I started taking regular walks and making drawings afterwards as a way to deal with worry, procrastination, hopelessness, writer’s block, internet rage, and digital distraction. I’ll post a series of them here, one every other day, for as long as I keep making them.

Dear Malaysian women’s magazine

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

We are going on a roadtrip

Yes, me and non-husband Zedeck are packing up and going on a motherfuckin’ roadtrip.

Here is our map:

Here is our itinerary:

I will be collecting visual material for my Epic Project.

Zedeck will attempt to finish his epic book-in-making on the road.

and and AND (oh, you will love this part so much)…

We are going to track down places in a bunch of old postcards that belonged to Zedeck’s parents. Here are a few of them:

SINGAPORE (can you believe it?):

JOHORE CAUSEWAY:

ST. JOHN’S FORT (A’Famosa):

PORT SWETTENHAM (Port Klang):

BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF KUALA LUMPUR TOWN (Yes, this is for real):

A TIN MINE DREDGE, KL (I love how this made it onto a postcard):

PENANG ROAD:

THE NEW DAM IN CAMERON HIGHLANDS:

I’ll try to update as much as I can on the road, either here or on mah Twitter. But I am notoriously bad at recording my travels – I get too caught up in living and being.

The land, the sky, the roads, the people, the rivers, the sea. We leave early tomorrow.

This is happening, it’s happening. I can’t wait but I also wish I could sit here forever and write to you about this feeling.

Should I bring my ukulele?

Love, Sharon

UPDATE: When @rezasalleh says you should bring the ukulele, then well, the ukulele is gonna be brought.

New brog! The Strange Power of Time

First, a plug! Zedeck is reading some stories from his epic book-in-making this Saturday, 27 Oct at Seksan’s. Come witness this pre-birth. More info here.

(Btw, if you don’t know, Zedeck is my non-husband and fellow inhabitant of leaky magical house in Port Dickson. Oh, he is a writer. Rather a good one, I think.)

Now, a story for you. I’ll keep the words short, and let the photos tell it.

In 2005, I had my first solo exhibition, Boats & Bridges. Back then, Reka Art Space was a great little gallery in Kelana Jaya. It was run by Sek Thim, who was very supportive but tough-minded. He was the kind of mentor I needed at the time. I had just come back from overseas and was a bundle of nervous energy. People who spend a long time away have this thing called ‘returner-angst’. I had alot of that.

Department of embarrassing and devastating memories: the night before my exhibition opened, I found out the person I had been hopelessly in love with in Australia had found someone else. I was a wreck. Halfway through discussing some exhibition detail, I started blubbing. It wasn’t pretty crying either, where perfect tears creep slowly down your face. It was horrible, snot-everywhere sobbing. Sek Thim packed me off home and reassured me everything would be ok.

Opening night was a success. Many people came. All the works sold out. I got happy-sad drunk and cried to sleep when I reached home.

I always associate my pride and joy in that first exhibition with the memory of gut-wrenching desperate sorrow. They kind of balance each other on a scale in my mind.

The high of the high is measured by the depth of the low. This is how it is.

So much for keeping the words short. Sorry.

For the exhibition, I’d made these weird shapes by pouring plaster-of-paris into plastic bags, and then peeling the bag off once the plaster had hardened. They were so cute! They were like little animals, little grey THINGS made from gravity and weight.

After the exhibition, I had an overwhelming feeling of not wanting to hold on to the THINGS. I thought it would be nice to distribute the THINGS all over the city. My friend Nazim (an excellent photographer and filmmaker) agreed to come along on this art littering/adventure and take pictures.

So that’s what we did at some ungodly hour of the morning. We dropped the THINGS at roadsides, at my old secondary school, a shopping mall, a carpark, the National Art Gallery (gotta get in there somehow). We put some in Dataran Merdeka, where homeless people were sleeping under the Malaysian flag. The last stop was Reka. It was dawn. I left a big grey THING there for Sek Thim as a tribute to what he had helped me start.

Nazim brought two cameras. He shot mostly on the digital, but also handed me a roll of 35mm film at the end, which I forgot all about.

Last week, I found it lying at the bottom of a box. These photos were on the roll.

Seeing them is like drinking a fine, aged wine. Memories, colours, even certain smells, come washing over me in a strangely potent combination. I love how age has caused these ‘stretch marks’ over the images, like on a woman’s hips (well, MY hips, anyway).

My iphone does so many things. But it can’t do this.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we shot a roll of film every year and promised only to develop them at a certain point in the future? I imagine rows and rows of them sitting in a cupboard somewhere, waiting.

But in the meantime, we would have to make sure there was someone around to process them. There could be an instruction scroll, handed down from generation to generation. It would be like… that boy dude in Terminator. THE ROLLS. OF FILM. HELD HER DESTINITY.

*dun dun DUNNN*

I wonder if anyone found the THINGS and took them home?

P.S. – Looking to develop film in Malaysia? Someone has compiled a good list here. I processed mine at Fotosun, SS2 (they will scan the negatives and put them on a CD for RM12). I’m printing some of these out for an exhibition next month. Hands down the best place for professional, archival quality photographic prints is Photomedia in SS2.