洗手 (Washing Hands) (2017)
Participatory public installation,
handmade metal soap dispensers installed in public bathroom, dead skin (made from soap)
handmade metal soap dispensers installed in public bathroom, dead skin (made from soap)
Winner of Social Art Award 2017
The Institute for Art and Innovation e.V.,
Selected winner and international artist to exhibit at WHITECONCEPTS Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Published in Award book: The Social Art Award 2017 – Invigorating the Rise of Social Art
The Institute for Art and Innovation e.V.,
Selected winner and international artist to exhibit at WHITECONCEPTS Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Published in Award book: The Social Art Award 2017 – Invigorating the Rise of Social Art
“Washing Hands is an excellent and complex piece of social, interventionist art. Designed to be part of everyday life as a multiple soap dispenser, it is a piece not intended for a White Cube but to be used in, and to shape everyday social interaction. The piece makes visible the everyday quality not just of rituals of cleanliness, but also of ethnic “orderliness” and its ubiquitous presence in Singapore, where even flats in apartment buildings are distributed according to ethnicity. Independent of Singapore politics, the piece can expose undercurrents of racism and ethnic rivalry anywhere in an angry, funny and provocative way, asking indelicate questions which most societies are happy to avoid.”
-The professional jury, Social Art Award 2017
-The professional jury, Social Art Award 2017
|
Social Art Award No.1, WHITECONCEPTS Gallery, Berlin, Germany
|
Public Toilet, London, UK
|
洗手 (Washing Hands) (2017) is a reconstruction of Singapore’s Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others racial classification model into hand-built soap dispensers installed in a public toilet. Displacing the boundary between the manufactured and handmade, the participatory art installation challenges how we visually register our mundane encounters in everyday life. By making tangible the ethical effects of our everyday actions produced by socio-categorical constructs and codes, the piece acts as a social interstice to raise a few key questions: How much do we submit ourselves passively, out of habit, or complicity in our everyday encounters. How do they influence our behaviour and internal conservative bias? In this age of increasing diversity, how can we remove ourselves from the danger of perpetuating stereotypes, and modify our structure of assumptions in order to strengthen our cohesive diversity?
The public intervention seeks to empower everyday spaces by opening a discursive space for viewers to cultivate reflection, perspectives and inspire meaningful exchange. Prompted to participate in the act of cleansing with “dead skin” (made from soap), the pedagogical intervention seeks participants to reconsider our own notions of dirt, as a by-product of systematic classification. By questioning the threshold between individual liberty and social cohesion, the piece aims to activate dialogues in social responsibility as well as nuanced complexities of socio-ethnic identities and privilege.
洗手 (Washing Hands) (2017) is a reconstruction of Singapore’s Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others racial classification model into hand-built soap dispensers installed in a public toilet. Displacing the boundary between the manufactured and handmade, the participatory art installation challenges how we visually register our mundane encounters in everyday life. By making tangible the ethical effects of our everyday actions produced by socio-categorical constructs and codes, the piece acts as a social interstice to raise a few key questions: How much do we submit ourselves passively, out of habit, or complicity in our everyday encounters. How do they influence our behaviour and internal conservative bias? In this age of increasing diversity, how can we remove ourselves from the danger of perpetuating stereotypes, and modify our structure of assumptions in order to strengthen our cohesive diversity?
The public intervention seeks to empower everyday spaces by opening a discursive space for viewers to cultivate reflection, perspectives and inspire meaningful exchange. Prompted to participate in the act of cleansing with “dead skin” (made from soap), the pedagogical intervention seeks participants to reconsider our own notions of dirt, as a by-product of systematic classification. By questioning the threshold between individual liberty and social cohesion, the piece aims to activate dialogues in social responsibility as well as nuanced complexities of socio-ethnic identities and privilege.