Art goes on show in a graveyard, HDB flats

SINGAPORE — If one walks past the Hakka Cemetery in Holland Close, one might see more than the old headstones rising from the ground.

Laid out on the lawn are circular sculptures made of stone, clay, concrete and paper.

The pieces are by artist Ivan David Ng, 26, who added the final touches to his installation, Don’t Ask Me Where I Come From, last Saturday.

“The installation in the cemetery (is related to) the lost story of the origins of the Hakka people,” said Ng.

“A thousand years ago, (they) probably knew where their ancestral land was, but this information did not survive through the ages, lost with those who passed away.”

Some of the repeated forms in the sculptures are closed loops, with loops symbolising wholeness, Ng said. The work is inspired by his own Hakka heritage, and he hopes the disparate media bring to the mind the Hakka people’s fragmented history of migration.

He refers to the fact that Hakkas are thought to have originated from the lands bordering the Yellow River (the nothern Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Henan, and Hubei). However, there is no definitive view of the origins of the Hakkas.

“We have our (own) different cuisines, language and beliefs, (and) we view ourselves as complete and not lacking, like the loops (in my work). We don’t see that there is a gaping hole in the middle, a missing piece. For the Hakka people, the gaping hole is our land of origin,” Ng said.

The piece is part of Oh! Holland Village, the popular walkabout tour which returns this Saturday.

The tour, into its seventh edition, features 14 artists. Most of the works will require people to step into homes around the Chip Bee Gardens and Holland Village areas to look at the art, which will include installations of objects and photography.

National Arts Council Young Artist Award recipient Ezzam Rahman has set his installation, titled You Pick What I Left Behind, in a two-room HDB flat. The artist, 36, is known for creating sculptures from his own dead skin.

His Oh! Holland Village piece sees glass dinnerware filled with talcum powder set on a table in the home of Ms S. Liew. The artist says that the objects are “the remnants of yesterdays and yesteryears”, and he hopes that the materials used in the installation convey “the fragility of life, loss and longing”.

For Ezzam, presenting his work in a local residential space offered unique challenges. “I (have to be) respectful towards the owner of the house. She has been so open and understanding. I cannot do my usual crazy, messy (style of) installation as this space is a domestic one, and I want my work to blend in with its interior,” he said.

Liew, 41, opened up her home as an exhibition space because she appreciates art, and this is her way of “supporting the promotion of locally created artwork and giving artists a platform to showcase their creations”.

She is a fan of Ezzam’s work and especially enjoyed his previous creations, such as those in which he used dead skin to create replicas of flowers and plants. She remembers those works to be “slightly unsettling”, but “beautiful”.

Anthony Chin, a designer-turned-visual artist, was influenced by the history of Chip Bee Gardens for his work, located in an old terrace house.

Inspired by the time Chip Bee Gardens housed family members of the British Forces assigned to the decolonisation process of Singapore, Chin, 45, ground down the walls of one room in the house to get to the materials he is using in his piece — dust and base coat paint that dates back to 1965, when the area was built.

Titled East of Suez, visitors can expect to find the room filled with 34 British-colony-era military medals cast with the materials from the walls.

The artist sees it as an “act of blowing away the dust that covered the truth. I wanted to peel back history to the time when the empire was in its final phase of decolonising Singapore” and when the newly formed Singapore government was coming into power, he said.

He hopes that visitors will walk away with a better idea of the truth behind Chip Bee Gardens’ history.

The Oh! Holland Village tours start this Saturday. Tours run from 4pm, and cost S$25 for three 45-minute tours. Book at ohopenhouse.org/holland-village