membadan / mengatur (2024)
(translation from Malay: embody / re-arrange)
Artist statement
In membadan / mengatur, I engage a collection of ‘unknown women’ images from colonial archives through her: my nenek (grandma in Malay), nani (grandma in Bengali), and nek tok (nickname given to grandaunt). They are matriarchs from both sides of my family and have been important figures in influencing how I navigate the intersections of my ethnicities: as Tamil, Bengali, Bugis, and ‘others’. I engage them as interlocuters, mapping their stories, voices, and batiks (which I inherited in their passing) as annotations against/alongside these collection of studio photographs of women across Southeast Asia. Recognising my nenek, nani, and nek tok in many of these images, I annotate as a salve to the itchiness of absence, illegibility, and anger observed in how these images have been photographed and archived through a colonial lens. I will illuminate the processes of annotating through different ways of building and re-arranging the body through her.
This work is developed as part of Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF) 2024. Curated by Sean Cham.
Exhibition photos by Grace Baey
(translation from Malay: embody / re-arrange)
Artist statement
In membadan / mengatur, I engage a collection of ‘unknown women’ images from colonial archives through her: my nenek (grandma in Malay), nani (grandma in Bengali), and nek tok (nickname given to grandaunt). They are matriarchs from both sides of my family and have been important figures in influencing how I navigate the intersections of my ethnicities: as Tamil, Bengali, Bugis, and ‘others’. I engage them as interlocuters, mapping their stories, voices, and batiks (which I inherited in their passing) as annotations against/alongside these collection of studio photographs of women across Southeast Asia. Recognising my nenek, nani, and nek tok in many of these images, I annotate as a salve to the itchiness of absence, illegibility, and anger observed in how these images have been photographed and archived through a colonial lens. I will illuminate the processes of annotating through different ways of building and re-arranging the body through her.
This work is developed as part of Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF) 2024. Curated by Sean Cham.
Exhibition photos by Grace Baey
