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All eyes on Palestine.

I start this newsletter on a sombre note, but my heart is with all the suffering happening in Gaza right now. How do you act when such news bombard you from all directions the moment you wake up? Even I feel it, this thickening of armour, because for the regular, empathetic human, hearing about such suffering is too much for our spirit, especially when we sit safe and comfortable in our homes.

We might not be able to do much. But what we can do is arm ourselves with knowledge, so our eyes are always open to truth, in a time where misinformation has become such a strong weapon.

It helps to speak up, when you hear unfairness and untruths. Selfishness begins from the first selfish act, no matter how small. We learn from a young age that energy cannot be created, only transferred. But I find that ‘energy’ of the spirit can actually be created; and it can also multiply. Make yourself smile to someone who has been kind to you when you are tired and feeling grouchy, and it makes you feel a bit happier. Try our best to be stronger, kinder, and finally, braver— something I’ve learnt more about just watching the Palestinian people. Live your own lives meaningfully and well, speak up for those who have lost their voices— it might not seem related to larger world issues, but as I always believe, many small acts add up. Always stand on the right side of humanity.

Singapore’s National Day is approaching— that one day all Singaporeans suddenly become patriotic, wearing red and white, hanging out flags, gathering for fireworks, united for once in something that isn’t complaining about the government. All sorts of events and exhibitions celebrating our very young nation’s 60 years birthday. But in such a climate of world affairs, I find it hard to celebrate my country when people elsewhere are suffering. I wonder about ‘ownership’, a topic that has been in the undercurrent of my destruction work since 2022. I wonder what true possession means. Does an artwork truly belong to someone just because they have paid for it? I wonder what creates an identity— is something real just because we have named it so? These thoughts surrounding destroying origins to wrest ownership are very present in my recent thoughts.

WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO

Setouchi Triennale 2025

Because I know how long it would get if I even tried writing about the Setouchi Triennale in this newsletter, I tried writing it as an article on my website instead.

This year, many friends from Singapore visited the Triennale and it was so much fun bringing them around. A lot of them faced the same issues though— the guidebook being only in Japanese, confusing information with regards to ferry and bus timings, not knowing where to eat on the islands, just to name a few. While I seriously considered organising small-group tours, I find that even my knowledge about the festival from working as a staff member in 2019 is not adequate if I were to host a proper paid tour. A friend suggested doing a virtual guide, and I thought, why not!

As such, here is PART 1 of my Setouchi Triennale posts— a more informative than interesting one, but including what I think would be helpful information if you are planning for a trip there. I’m in the midst of writing about the artworks on specific islands (I have written a little about it in my previous newsletter), but looking at my schedule, it’d be a miracle if I finish before the Summer season.

NEW THINGS I SAW

Meeting Artisans, Studio Visits

Kyoto

I’ve always felt like the best part of working as an artist is the opportunity to meet so many amazing people whose works I admire. Last year, I coincidentally ran into the founder of Kouad Kyoto, C, a Singaporean based in Kyoto, who introduced me to the works of many Japanese artisans. I was particularly fond of Wei Nan, who specialises in lacquer on leather. Her work has been acquired by and is in the permanent collection of the V&A museum in London.

I got to visit her exhibition and meet her in person this trip to Kyoto thanks to C. We had a great conversation about the overlap in textiles in our practice! The touring exhibition (Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya) entitled ‘Transposition’ featured 9 different artists who tread the line between contemporary and traditional arts, and some of them definitely found a new fan in me. I look forward to the day and I can start to collect bigger works.

The following day, C brought me to the atelier of Takeshi Nakajima, a craftsman practising the traditional Hikizome dyeing technique. Having first seen his work in Singapore, I was very keen to meet him to discuss a potential collaboration. What I did not expect was for him to prepare a workshop specially for me.

I’m not a natural painter, and even choosing colours is difficult for me. I’m ok at pairing together found colours, but to choose from an almost inexhaustible palette was very tough. Takeshi stretched out the fabric for me, and it reminded me very much of my batik practice in Yogyakarta last year, where the ends of the long fabric are held in place with tiny spikes spaced apart. The biggest difference however, was that Takeshi used thin bamboo sticks with spikes set into either end, spaced out on the bottom-side of the fabric— and these made a world of difference. The fabric was taut, yet not completely straightened out. Stretched, but at rest.

Takeshi taught me how to paint with the deer-hair brushes, both dry and wet, and demonstrated the ‘bokashi’ (gradiation blending) method. The paints are all mixed from powder pigment, and produce different effects depending on whether you wet the fabric beforehand, the time you take between each stroke, and so on. I was stressed out but I managed to produce something!

Being so used to additive work that is added on stitch upon stitch, it was quite liberating to swipe the brushes around and see an immediate effect. It’s a good exercise to have really, and I’m really looking forward to working with Takeshi again.

Takamatsu

Our friends in Takamatsu who run Kotomath Hyogomachi and hosted my solo exhibition, In Vain last year, are always so kind to introduce us to their artisan friends in the area. Last year, we visited Ueno Tsuyoshi, a ceramist who built his own house and kiln. When I met him, I felt that he was just so alike to his works— honest. Stable. Not a touch of excessive fancy, but an understated charm. He had a ‘graveyard of ceramics’, where he trashed fired pieces he did not like, and our friend had picked those up and stored it in the exhibition space. I loved those pieces, and choosing a few shards, crocheted a ‘sheath’ that enveloped these pieces into a single entity. As a final move, I melted the nylon yarn, so the soft crochet would harden and lift the pieces up into a spindly tower.

It was quite embarrassing, but Ueno-san was quite keen to see how I ‘fired’ my pieces, so we carried out this piece and I melted it with a blowtorch— in front of his magnificent kiln. Other ceramists might scorn, but he expressed his curiosity and intrigue, which I appreciated.

This year, we visited him again, and then headed even further into the countryside to visit a ceramic artist, Oikawa Minoru (he does not have a digital presence). He has been toiling at putting together his own house, workspace, and even a small gallery in the middle of a forest, right beside a gurgling creek.

We visited on a rainy day that insisted on showing off Kagawa’s famous mist to us, and it was quite surreal trekking through a dim forest with raindrops making the leaves tremble, visiting art in nature with friends, having tea. The life!

WHAT I’M UP TO NEXT

Singapore Oceanarium

I’ve been working on this commercial project since February and finally getting back to it after my break in Japan. I still take on commercial work out of necessity, but it doesn’t mean I don’t get fulfillment from it. I am always grateful that clients remember me, and that I have opportunities to do these jobs outside of my studio work because I get to interact with the local crochet community and use a very different part of my brain. (I’m not usually a planner, so I get everything down on the floor, and place pieces randomly, a little like painting, I guess!) The Oceanarium officially opens on 23 July (will share more photos then!), and this installation will be in the retail shop space.

Filet Lace

It’s been half a year since Anekanta, and I think I’m finally ready to embark on my next large filet crochet piece! I was already working on a new design in January, but it wasn’t completed in time for the exhibition in April. So there it lies in a half-done state; I have an awful habit, which is when something is not done in a spurt, it almost always never gets finished.

This current design I’m working on is about another Javanese ‘goddess’— a Dema Deity, like Dewi Sri who was the main figure in Anekanta. The piece in limbo is of the mythological Chinese goddess Chang’E. Some newsletters ago, I was sharing the results of my online poll on why people are afraid of death and want ‘ownership’ over their lives, which are ideas I ponder in the story of Chang’E. I find I am drawn to mythological figures as a mode of exploring larger ideas such as immortality, ownership and colonization (though I took many of them to be just fantasy tales when I was exposed to them as a child).

When one lays eyes on the completed piece, it is inevitable that the impact comes from the intricacy of the crochet lace. The craftsmanship of a piece is something I hold pride in, so that is not a bad thing— but I never want it to be the main focus. In my filet lace pieces, the motifs become important. As someone who was never an image-maker, it is the most grueling part of the process for me: drawing in pixels. It’s as manual as it gets. I draw lines on Adobe Illustrator, and using photos as a reference, fill in the squares one by one. The main composition is directly inspired by antique lace patterns, so I follow that and edit the motifs accordingly, sometimes drawing rough lines (stick men!) for my composition. Then there is the positive and negative space to consider, since the shadow of the work is meant to be the primary image (for example, Dewi Sri is dark-skinned, so she is represented by solid pixels, which is represented by white squares in the pixel art).

I think it is ironic that without a deliberate meaning pegged to each motif, such handmade works are seen only as ‘craft’; yet once it crosses that hurdle, viewers mostly do not engage deeply with them. The work, as a whole, is acknowledged as pertaining to ‘cultural’ or ‘historical’ reference, yet from my personal experience, not many notice the actual story the work is trying to tell. That is not necessarily bad though, because I find these are ‘secret messages’ between the artist and anyone who wants to spend an extended time with the work, that have to be discovered in time.

WHAT I’M READING

I haven’t had the time for books, and am just nipping in and out of the stack I have on my table. But the following 2 digital articles have given me some food for thought.

The Subtle Terror of Rereadability

I always found it interesting that my partner re-reads his favourite books again and again, sometimes going back to particular chapters. “Beef jerky,” he calls good books— they always need an extra chew to find new flavour. Me though, I tend to have a special compartment in my brain for particular phrases or scenes I like so much I devour them; I can sometimes regurgitate exact quotes having only read them once. So I never found the need for re-reads, what with all the new novels popping up.

But that would also mean, you only remember the feeling you got back then, from reading that scene. How would the me today feel, reading that same scene again? Maybe that’s what I fear, that the magic would be lost.

“The real novel is hidden in the reread,” says Maggie Stiefvater. Indeed, some books are so packed full of subplots, you’d never get it the first time. When I first read “To Kill a Mockingbird”, I couldn’t understand their slang and gave up. But I discovered its magic the second time. Urusla Le Guin leaves you no chances. You might hate her if you don’t like feeling stupid or left out. She doesn’t let her reader into her world gently. “The Left Hand of Darkness” was extremely difficult for me, but halfway through, I finally found the entrance into the party. And then there is “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt, so cramped with difficult (and very real) human situations, beauty twisting themselves into words— but currently, too painful for me to reread. Books that make you pine.

Stiefvater says, creating something that is easily digestible is ‘dangerously seductive’. We all need to pay bills, and I think it takes a lot of courage to create something that challenges the modern attention span— for people who want to “pack a suitcase and live inside [the books]”; the same goes for artwork and its ‘secret messages’.

Smart People Don’t Chase Goals; They Create Limits

I’ve always hated this question: “where do you see yourself X years from now?” I’ve always felt a rush of irritation; these questions are such crowd favourites. Everyone is obsessed with goals. And reading this article helped answer some of that post-irritation ‘rational thinking’: why don’t I have goals?

Is it a problem? “Setting goals feels like action. It gives you the warm sense of progress without the discomfort of change,” says Joan Westernberg, the author of this article. I find that I am not clear about goals, because I’ve never found satisfaction in clear outcomes such as “win an award” or “get sold for X amount of money”. The last time I had a career goal, it was to get gallery representation, but the moment it happened, I realised it wasn’t what I wanted.

That’s it, maybe. Because a goal is a dream you project. But it isn’t necessarily a real destination. So what if you get ‘there’? I only observed through this article that I give myself many constraints; it’s just the way I am. “Constraints scale better because they don’t assume knowledge. They are adaptive.”— and I think these ‘limits’ give your journey longevity. People around me often say, “why do you make life so hard for yourself?” I don’t know why. There are certain ways of working (or even living) you definitely won’t see me bow to. I feel it is difficult to be creative in the face of excess, the affluence in Singapore being a good example.

“Do you want to be someone, or do something?” the article asks. The former requires goals— and results in an image. And the latter? Constraints, of course, resulting in identity. I know which I am.

LAST THOUGHTS

Applying for exhibitions, residencies and more have become part of my job as an artist. It really does take a lot of time, and the acceptance rate is really low for the ‘legit’ residencies (e.g. with institutions). Only last year did I get accepted for my first sponsored residency and also a biennale, and that’s after sending out over 20 (30?) applications over a period of 2 years.

Recently, there was a ‘saga’ on social media about a ‘scam’ residency. I don’t want to mention names, but it is run by a social media ‘magazine’ with a very large following, and promises to fully pay fees for artists all over the world to fly to a château in Southern France and spend 2 weeks creating. You didn’t even need to submit a proposal. The catch? Paying USD25 for an application.

I’m ashamed to say this, but I paid it. 2am at night, vulnerable, worried about the lack of opportunities— I thought USD25 was a small price to pay. I didn’t expect the amount of shame and anxiety that followed in the coming months, when the account was bombarded with comments and even Reddit threads calling out the residency’s lack of legitimacy, and warning about how we had freely given our credit card information.

Long story short, I got my money back, but it wasn’t just about the money. Even though I’m doing better in the ‘art world’ these 2 years, why am I still plagued by this desperation to get more opportunities, to prove to myself I can do better? I felt ashamed at my desperation, so much so that I couldn’t see through an ‘obvious scam’.

(It hasn’t been proven to be a scam; the account ended up announcing 200 names after just 1 week of deliberation. But following the scandal and having no credit to its name, I realised its not a residency I would want in my CV as well.)

Another residency I tried applying for was at the Aomori Contemporary Arts Centre, While it can be quite a chore, I find applying for things really forces you to think about your practice, and constantly be engaged with what you are trying to say with your work. I find I get easily ‘lost’ or ‘distracted’ if I let my work go with the flow, and I enjoy reviewing my CV and portfolio to check my progress.

I knew I was not going to get selected, but I was pleasantly surprised to see they released comments regarding the selection, some mentioning specific proposals that did not get selected. I feel contented just knowing the judges seriously went through each proposal, and explained why they leaned towards some. It felt like my effort working on a proposal was worth it. A few years ago, I applied to a Biennale and did not get selected. I really wanted to know how to improve, so I sent a polite email asking them for some short comments, only to get this reply: “the judges are not paid and do not have time for your questions.”

A few days back as I sat crocheting my filet lace, my visibly annoyed mum said, “Can you not crochet these small things? It spoils your eyes.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” I answered.

“Change jobs.”

What I can say is that, if you’ve been exposed to this environment, a complete lack of encouragement and in fact, constant snide remarks— you only make work because you really have no other way to live. Why else would you make it, when it only offers you punishments from the people you love? I don’t make work ‘for fun’. I don’t make work because I ‘want to be famous’. No. I make work because I honestly don’t know another way I can live. Not ‘make a living’— that, I have an idea of. But, I don’t know how else to live, if I can’t express myself through art anymore.

Do I own anything in this world? Do I even own myself or my time? I’ve asked myself this many times, and my answer is this: We only own what we make with our own hands.

This draft sat for a month, and finally I am sending it out, before it sits for another month. Till next time (-: