展訊 Exhibition Info

 




Anniversary Exhibition (Part I)

19 July 2022 till 06 August 2022




Anniversary Exhibition (Part 2)

13 August 2022 till 27 August 2022





華人新村是一種基於政治因素而被創造出來的隔離社區。它是 1948 年英國殖民政府為了隔絕共產主義滲透華人社區而設計的,最終在 1960 年緊急狀態結束後才解除隔離。至今,全國 600 多個華人新村裏,只有少數靠近都市範圍的新村,得以跟著時代變革而形成更完整的居住社區;其餘的大多數,已被逐漸邊緣化,乃至被認為是髒亂、荒蕪的破落村鎮。

 

我在華人新村出生並長大。雖然十八歲以後我便到了城市展開升學、工作、成家立業等嶄新的生命階段,惟這個童年故鄉帶給我的生命和文化記憶,甚至身分認同與歸屬感,仍然緩緩地與時並進著。

 

这是一组以家族及个人记忆为基点而展开的视觉作品。我从家庭相簿、社會新聞、歷史圖像,馬共成員撰寫的回憶錄、以及所走访的村落與人物攝影圖像裏展開寫生創作,並從中思考人與原鄉的紐帶關係,及探究人在追求理想家園和現實家園中遭遇的衝突,而折射出來的精神映像,來完成我對社會現實更進一步的理據考察,佐證我的繪畫實踐。

 

在這組紙上作品裡,我還嘗試在記憶的邊界裏書寫與華人新村有關的社會歷史、家族乃至個體生活記憶,塑造一種非線性的敘事結構,以斷裂、重疊、非理性的連結關係來展示過去與現在的閃回片段。同時,我採用了一種靠近筆記方式的視覺手段,一點一滴地重頭建立起我對故鄉的認識與認知,試圖讓這些文化與記憶圖騰成為一面鏡子,思索地方、場域、空間與個體自我的因果關係,和與之對應的文化結晶。

 

The Chinese New Village was an apartheid community created on political grounds. Designed by the British colonial administration in 1948, its purpose was to counteract the Communist penetration into Chinese communities. The order of segregation was not lifted until 1960 when the Malayan Emergency ended. Today, among some 600 Chinese New Villages, only the few located in the vicinity of cities have transformed into fully-fledged modern communities; the remaining majority have been marginalised and perceived as squalid slums. 

 

I was born in and grew up in a Chinese New Village. Although I left at the age of eighteen for new pursuits — studies, work, settling down — the New Village lives with me and pursues its course through time: this place of childhood, rife with energy, cultural memory, identity, and a sense of belonging. 

 

This series takes these family and personal memories as its point of departure. Drawing on family albums, newspapers, historic images, memories written by members of the Malaysian Communist Party, and photographs taken during my fieldwork, I reflect on what binds a person and his or her hometown. I investigate conflicts arising between the pursuit of a utopian vision for a dwelling place and one’s humble abode in reality. Through the prism of this vision, a variety of images serve as essential references for my contemplation of social reality through painting.

 

Drawings on paper also illustrate my attempts to document the social history of Chinese New Villages and the memories of family and individuals living on the margins of visions of the past. These scripts amount to a non-linear narrative structure characterised by fragmentation, superposition, and irrational associations, demonstrating how the past and the present are connected through flashbacks. At the same time, I employ an approximate and note-taking approach to visual representation, constructing the home as I remember it, bit by bit from fragments. My purpose is to turn these emblems of culture and memory into a mirror of the formation of places, sites, spaces, and selves in relation to cultural shifts, from changing ways of living, ideological turns, to emerging forms of art and literature. 

 

 




Studies of Chinese new Villages
2012-2022
Water colour, acrylic, marker, ink pen, crayon, charcoal, colour pencil, ball pen on various textures papers
Dimensions variable




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