crack crack

Being attracted so strongly to each other, but pulled back by the strings, they were held in place. As I was waiting to see whether their attraction would become weaker overnight, I realized that if the magnet would do anything, it would just magnetize the razorblade – even from a distance – being the rare earth magnet that it was, and being the metal that the razorblade was. Just being themselves, really.

It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important. Except that in this case, it’s not only time that has been devoted. What else, I don’t know yet. Magnetic field, perhaps? Some kind of an energy?

What’s interesting is that in this setup, the magnet just hangs from above. It’s the razorblade that was pulled to the ground to create the distance. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise, because the magnet’s just too heavy. In this setup, it was the razorblade that reacted. Attracted by the magnet, it rose up, defying gravity.

I’ve witnessed, however, that when the pull somehow ceases – usually mechanically induced – and the razorblade falls, the magnet wobbles around as well. Both the magnet and the razorblade are equal parts of the balance.

It seems that there are many types of attractions, and this is just one of them. The earth and the sun also attracts each other, but lucky for us mere mortals of the earth, their attraction is a bit different.

From one point in space, at one point of time, you can see a smoothly curved line. You have the option to believe that that’s the only reality: that the line you’re looking at is smoothly curved.

 

You might dislike this change of perspective, though, and fear not: you always have the option to stay sedentary. Fate is almost entirely your decision after all. But even our bulky continents are moving as we speak, and as Bucky Fuller once said, the earth is a giant spaceship. We are perpetually moving, in space, over time. Everything in us is perpetually moving, in minuscule space, over minuscule time.

But then again, we can still always opt not to see. We can still always opt not to imagine. Try this: at this point of slow time, it can appear that although we agree that we are constantly moving, we have only been moving along the same route over and over for thousands of years. Without the appropriate imagination, the change of perspectives we experience could become another constant cliché.

A change of perspectives on time, however, is possible, and necessary. Take one small step back at a time. Maybe that’s why I love timelapse.

 

 
When I returned, she was still drawing. On the wall. Why, I asked her. Because it is a wall, she said. But why, I asked again. Because a wall is a construct that stands between this space, where we are, and the next, where they are. I didn’t get it. So I told her, I don’t get it. She smiled. Skipping away from the wall, she was careful enough not to spill the light blue liquid in the cocktail glass that she was holding in her left hand all along. She looked at the wall carefully, as though to make sense of it. To make sense of her drawing, I suppose.

It was a big tall wall. And on it, a big tall drawing. Bluish. Vague. In her right hand was not a straw; it was a brush, its bristles wet. A mosquito flew by my ear and, reflexively, I slapped my own face. I woke up. I didn’t sleep well last night.

So why, I asked again, are you drawing on the wall. She skipped back in, with her cocktail glass, brush and all. Why do people scribble on toilet doors, she asked me back. Why graffiti, she asked me again. Why do dogs pee on lampposts. Why was Kilroy here, there and everywhere. Why do you sign letters. Why do you label things. Why do we define. And why do you want to know why. The mosquito landed on her cheek, her nose only an inch away from my face now, and I, reflexively, slapped her.

I woke up. I didn’t sleep well last night. On my palm the remaining of the mosquito, and a speck of blood: mine or hers? So why do you have to know why, she asked again. Because, I said, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Still not, she asked. Still not, I said, but I still really want to know why. Well, she said. It really doesn’t matter. Just enjoy it. And from that moment on, as though rescued by the baptism, I do.

At the end of the exhibition, she punched a window onto that very wall, right at the middle of her bluish drawing on that very wall, a drawing of the world according to the mapmakers. She then cut that rectangular hole that was the window into small pieces, and sold them away. I framed mine as a reminder of nothings.

Visually and spatially, the audience can follow this line of colourful miniature passports, which leads them the to Main part.

Photos courtesy of Osage Gallery and Eva McGovern.
Many thanks to:
• Daniel Wolfson for assisting with the Melbourne part of the production.
• Miranda Harlan for supervising the Yogyakarta part of the production.
• Carmen Ho for liaising with the Chinese part of the production.
• Eva McGovern for supervising the installation at Osage Gallery Hong Kong.
• Roslisham Ismail a.k.a. Ise for assisting with installation at Osage Gallery Hong Kong.

About two years ago now, I met Will in an immigration office. I’ve lost my passport, and he got his working visa washed in his pants. For a few days we were the constant clients of immigration’s endless (they did this really skillful stunt called typing a whole report with a single finger) interrogation. I discovered that Will, admiredly (and at his age, he’s especially inspiring), still flew around the world consulting governments on drafting their new law and regulations. And so our discussions continued outside the wonders of the immigration office.

Will told me that my intent reminded him of Garry Davis. That’s when I started thinking more about this project. At around the same time, I started rethinking a small project I’ve done for the post-exhibition catalog of Globos Sonda. That’s where the mosquitoes came from.

And now I find myself here in Amsterdam, finishing up my 132 passports.

It was a long journey in a quite short period. I’ve since learned many interesting facts not less bewildering than the TPP (Tongan Protected Person) passport (Imelda Marcos had one) and about artists like Hasan M. Elahi.

On my way to Amsterdam, I traced the covers in Singapore during a two-hour transit, and also in the airplane. When we arrived in Amsterdam, some of the airport workers were on strike, and so the luggage took quite a while to come out. I sat down and continued doing my passports.

The act entertained myself, nobody else seemed to care, and I didn’t really care if they did. I thought it’s simply hilarious to do such thing with an urgency of an elementary school student doing all the homeworks that she chose to forget doing at home (the story of my childhood). It was as though I had to finish making my passports before I land, to present them to the immigration officer at the border.

But these are not real passports, Ms Wulia.
I know, Mr Officertje, but can’t we just have fun with them?

This project keeps me laughing.

-

Now I have only a few more to go, comparably. But I haven’t met anyone from St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, and no matter how familiar the country’s name is (I’ve always felt I’ve heard a band by that name), I have no idea how their passports look like.

So I think from now on it’s simply gonna be tough.

(Re)Collection of Togetherness is an ongoing project exploring the conflicting tendencies between chance and nationalism, between natural and man-made systems, and between the recognition of self and the constructs of identity.