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Archive for March, 2009


lure.

Published March 12th, 2009 in hands-on thinking, lure | No Comments »

Lure (2009) is a spatial installation using handmade miniature passports, handmade real-size passports, and a claw vending machine.
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The installation consists of two coherent parts — the Intro and the Main part. The Intro is a long line of colourful miniature passports that is composed along the exhibition space, analogous to Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs leading back home. Each of the miniature passports is positioned vertically, with pages open, so the audience can see the cover and the inside sequentially as they are walking pass a horizontal line of miniature passports. When they are attached to the floor and the audience is standing directly above the trail looking down, and when they are attached to a frontal wall, the visual form that the audience sees resembles a bird’s footprints.

Visually and spatially, the audience can follow this line of colourful miniature passports, which leads them the to Main part.
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The Main part is a claw vending machine, analogous to the witch’s candy house in Hansel and Gretel’s story. In the machine’s transparent container, instead of a big pile of prizes (or chocolate bars), the audience sees a big pile of colourful handmade passports from all the current nation-states in the world.
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The audience has the option to play the machine by inserting a gold coin into the machine’s slot, and controlling the claw to win some handmade passports. The claw mechanism is setup so it is challenging for the audience but not too difficult to win. When they win, they can bring the handmade passports home with them.
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In Lure, passports are like candies: people want as much as they can have, and it is attainable for just a small fee. You still have to be either lucky or highly skilled, but neither as a boat person nor as a skilled migrant, nor even as a native to the land — as a player controlling the claw, instead.
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Stemming from my ongoing project (Re)Collection of Togetherness, in which I collect and remake passports of all the current nation-states in the world, Lure examines the relationship between chance and citizenship in a re-imagined world.
(Lure is part of Some Rooms exhibition at Osage Gallery Hong Kong, 27 Feb – 24 May 2009. Curator for Lure in this exhibition is Eva McGovern.)

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.
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Click on this thumbnail to read what Doretta Lau says about the exhibition, and about Lure, in Time Out magazine, Hong Kong.

multinational.

Published March 11th, 2009 in lure | No Comments »

The production of Lure involved a curator (Eva McGovern) based in Kuala Lumpur, a production supervisor based in Yogyakarta, and a production assistant based in Melbourne, as well as subcontractors in Guangzhou and Yogyakarta. This valuable experience of a multinational production had to be made possible because I could not go out of Australia in fulfilling the requirements of my Permanent Residency visa – a theme that echoes throughout the project itself as well.

In the beginning, I sent a few digital sketches to all parties involved.

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Even before I received the green light for this project, I have started hunting for a claw vending machine. eBay had some, and a company in New South Wales made them. After more hunting, however, I decided to go a Guangzhou-based company, for ease of shipping (to Hong Kong).

I skyped with the sole contact person of that company. I sent her some samples of the books, and at one point she almost refused to sell the machine to me because she said it didn’t work – it would be too hard for my customer to win any notebooks. I said, good.

After much skyping, and some arrangement with Osage Gallery Hong Kong, she finally shipped the beast. To proof it, she emailed me some photos.

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When it arrived in Hong Kong, Eva was there already, and she installed and tested the machine right away. She sent me a video of it. No, not as a proof. Just because it’s fun.
In the meanwhile, I contacted Miranda, who was the residency manager for Cemeti Art House and asked her to supervise the production in Yogyakarta. I sent her all the cover design and some samples, also the digital sketches of the project, and a proportion photo.
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Miranda liaised with the subcontractors in there who were responsible for the production of the passports, and the tracing of the covers. The booklets were stitched manually, the covers were traced manually as well, exactly like what I did for (Re)Collection of Togetherness. She also sent me some photos, samples of the subcontractor’s previous work.

The full-sized passports were shipped from Yogyakarta directly to Hong Kong, while the mini passports were shipped to Melbourne.

As soon as the mini passports arrived in Melbourne, Daniel and I started spending several sleepless nights. I had to lay out the trail on the floor and arrange the mini passport according their colour gradation, and then numbered each of them, while Daniel designed the packaging system. I also had to attach the base to each mini passport because they will have to arrive in Hong Kong ready to be installed. Then, It took the two of us several days only to do the mechanical work of the packing.

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Photo courtesy of Daniel Wolfson.
When the mini passports were ready, I shipped them off to Hong Kong. I also emailed Eva a working drawing for the installation.
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Lucky that Ise was there to help Eva as well. It took us several days only to pack; who knows how long it would have taken Eva alone to unpack and install!

Eva then sent me a few photos to show me the lights.

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And after so many emails, so many skyping, so many SMSes, and so many calls, the exhibition eventually opened.
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Many thanks to Eugene Tan, Daniel Wolfson, Eva McGovern, Miranda Harlan, Carmen Ho, Ise and Osage Gallery, without whom this project would never happen.