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Original Version

Stairway to

What

‘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 installed on a 1.5 metre stonewall along the northern edge of the town.

How

The installation is upcycled from a rusty industrial staircase that combined metal and wood from a local factory, with several steps replaced by new wood pallets and handrails repainted into yellow. Installed on the stonewall that protects the town from strong wind in winter, ‘Stairway to’ is divided into several pieces to create a few platforms as well to rest and view the sea.

Why

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

What

Inspired by the guessing word 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.

How

Through artists and their networks, people who hold a day job at galleries, non-profit art institutions, private foundations and art academies were invited to participate the project. They were invited to talk about their boss or supervisor and the experience of working with him or her, then they were asked to draw while listening to a record of another participant. The video installation shows the process of understanding and interpreting individual experience in an anonymous approach.

Why

The project is part of an exhibition that explores the conditions of people working in the art sector. Regarding high turnover rate in the industry, the work creates a playful and safe situation for people to voice out their experience at workplace, 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

What

Borrowed Space is a series of images and texts made in homes of individual young people in Hong Kong. The set consists of photographs of still objects as well as long exposure portraits taken in their home, months or days before they were moving to another apartment or country. In both book and exhibition settings, the texts are shown as part of the work without attached to specific image or subject.

How

The images were made together by the artist and dweller of the space. Dwellers were invited to talk about their space, then they came up with various spots to make long exposure portraits, imitating ordinary life of the dweller in his or her space. Dwellers were being asked to 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.

Why

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.