I - Project description: What, How and Why

Stairway to

‘Stairway to’ is an installation bridging pathway to a beach in Siglufjörður, Iceland, created during the REITIR artist in residence programme in 2016. It was a set of various staircases and platforms made of a discarded industrial staircase and wood petals. These staircases and platforms were installed on various larger rocks on both sides of a 1.5 metre stonewall, that created an access to the beach as well as observation points in between. It was located at the stonewall along the northern edge of Siglufjörður that separates the sea with the rest of the town as to protect the town from strong wind in winter.

The structure of this installation was an abandoned industrial staircase at a local factory next to the stonewall that it was installed. The staircase then was examined and modified by the collective, the collective scrubbed off the rust on handrails and replaced several rotten wood steps with new petals. The staircase then was being divided into several parts according to height and shape of the stonewall and fixed on various larger rocks with rock bolts.

Being part of this community-based residence, the collective of four [names] felt very strongly to collaborate with the people living in Siglufjörður and contribute to the place itself as artists, thus created this installation in response to an anonymous request that expressed the wish for easier access to the beach that was unfortunately hindered by the stonewall. Because of limited access to new material as well as the artistic approach of sourcing material in local, the staircase is built on a discarded metal structure with minimal alternation and adjustment.

Your Boss

Inspired by the element of visualising language in the game ‘Pictionary’, ‘Your Boss’ is a single channel video installation that shows a series of drawing done according to a soundtrack by several anonymous individuals working in culture and art sector. The soundtrack consists various records of individuals describing their experiences with their boss in the industry. It provides audience a chance to look into the inequality in industry as well as participants to exchange their experiences while shooting the work.

The collective [names of the artists] invited people who hold a day job at galleries, non-profit art institutions, private foundations and art academies through artists and their networks.They were invited to talk about their boss or supervisor and the experience of working with him or her, after recording for this first session, then they were asked to listen to another anonymous participant through headphone and draw asked to draw according to description.The process of drawing was being shot and later edited into the video installation. The video explores the process of understanding and interpreting individual experience in an anonymous approach.

Having been working in the sector as curatorial assistant and research assistant for years, the working condition in the art industry is something close to heart to the collective. And it was made as invited by [name of artspace] in 2017 for its exhibition examines the same subject. Regarding unsatisfying work environment and lack of a trade union that represents their interest, this project creates a playful and safe situation for people to voice out their experience at workplace, no matter if it is exploitive or respectful, and make their work, instead of the artists’ work, becoming visible to audience. The project aims to tell the power relation and inequality that individuals face in day-to-day workplace, and look into individual experiences and its relation to cultural policies.

Borrowed Space

Borrowed Space is a series of images and texts made in homes of individual young people in Hong Kong. The set consists of mixed selection of still object photographs and long exposure portraits taken in their home, months or days before they were moving to another apartment or country. These images are presented in various sizes, while the texts are shown as part of the work without attached to specific image or subject in a scattered approach, in order to open up various reading possibilities towards these images and texts as a narrative.

The images were made together with the dweller of the space. Dwellers were invited to talk about their space, then they came up with various spots to make long exposure portraits. Dwellers were being asked to imitate his or her ordinary life the space and stay still for a period of time, then move away from the camera. The interviews with dwellers were later turned into transcripts and shown side by side with the series, as part of the installation and book.

As an image-maker, I made this series after suffering from a mild depression caused by moving 3 times in 3 years, the project allowed me to get in touch with people who encountered similar situation. Meanwhile the series also experiments the cracks between documentary and staged photography, as ambiguous relationship between image and text.