S.I.T.A.R.
Sewing Circle (artists to add write up and CV here)
Wong Mei Sheong:
"What is a woman?"
Is it someone who has female sexual characteristics, feminine behaviour/attitudes, etc?
Tamarra:
As social creatures, appearance or bodily presence is very important, especially in relation to acceptance.
The feeling of incompatibility between the physical body and the spiritual body is often a problem in the social sphere because gender expression is considered incompatible with biological condition.
The performance work BONGKAR PASANG is a personal reflection on the intimate acceptance and struggle for the social body which is always being questioned.
Nila Choo:
In Singapore 2021, I made a tribute to my mother in a song and dance and then proceeded to making fertility dolls with ten participants in a workshop at Supernormal Space. We quickly enter into a common sharing stories in a sewing circle. Trust is built while we each fashioned a doll from the scrap materials in front of us. It was a circle of healing and communal bonding within two hours amongst strangers.
Later I made pillow sculptures out of old clothes named Soma, as moment mori to the loved ones I have lost, especially to my mother from whom I was separated as a child.
After the Pandemic, I would return to the unfinished soft sculptures I was making with Tamarra started in Jogja...
What is the feminine in the masculine? Is it not the constant flux of perfect deception and perfect realisation in an apparent representation?
Ass & Dam
Tamarra Pertamina, Wong Mei Sheong and Nila Choo first met in Jogjakarta in 2013 as friends in a SITA Residency. After almost a decade, the three women are teamed up for an exhibition with aNERD Gallery in Singapore in a group show for the Singapore Art Week 2024. As a collective comprising of an Indonesian, and two Singapore artists, they reconnected over the Pandemic to collaborate in a sewing circle over the making of a soft sculpture, calling themselves Ass&Dam. Over several meetings since August 2023 including an autoethography workshop with Anne Shakker, the three artists have made a pair of soft sculptures Calalai Calabai which will be performed on by Tamarra at the opening of the exhibition and a community workshop making small cloth objects by Mei Sheong and Nila.
Preview photos of work in progress here.
Wong Mei Sheong:
"What is a woman?"
Is it someone who has female sexual characteristics, feminine behaviour/attitudes, etc?
Tamarra:
The performance work Bongkar Pasang is a personal reflection on my intimate acceptance of self and the constant struggle for the social body.
Nila Choo:
What is the feminine in the masculine? Is it not the constant flux of perfect deception and perfect realisation in visual representation? I longed for the mother I have not known, and looked for her within me.
Anne Shakker:
Autoethography should be ethnographic in its methodological orientation, cultural in its interpretive orientation, and autobiographical in its content orientation
One of the great advantages of autoethnography is the view that the self is an extension of the community, rather than an individual free or detached from it. Self-sufficient being, as the possibility of personal analysis rests on the understanding that the self is part of a cultural community. (Haewon Chang, 2008)
