Donna Chiu (2023) | Photography in Southeast Asia (IV) at Lumenvisum, HK – zhuang wubin

Photography in Southeast Asia IV

“Sitting by the Window, Looking at the Painting Dry” 坐在窗前，看畫風乾

Donna Chiu / Singapore
Curated by Zhuang Wubin

31 March to 30 April 2023

光影作坊｜九龍石硤尾白田街30號賽馬會創意藝術中心L2-02
開幕：2023年4月1日，星期六，4:00pm
分享會：2023年4月1日，星期六，2:30pm

Lumenvisum｜L2-02, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon
Opening Reception: 2023.04.01, Sat, 4:00pm
Artist Sharing: 2023.04.01, Sat, 2:30pm
For a recording of the artist sharing, please follow the link.

Artist Statement
By Donna CHIU

I come from a diasporic family. This exhibition revolves around my migratory experience and that of my father.

I migrated from Hong Kong (HK) to Singapore in 1996. The process of establishing an emotional connection with my new home has been a long and arduous one. The defining moments of building the connection occurred with the common experience of living through the pandemic in Singapore and the realisation that I can be a Chinese Singaporean who does not have to speak Mandarin or any Chinese dialect. Somehow, the realisation feels liberating to me.

My father’s journey started in 1997 when he moved to Canada. Returning to HK in 2019, presumably for good, he did not expect that he would have to move again in 2023, at the age of 84.

Over the years, our paths crossed infrequently. Most of the time though, we live in each other’s memories, with the belief that life is not that cruel. My artmaking allows me to make sense of the reality, express my suppressed emotions and anticipate the future.

In my painting practice, I like to experiment with texture, which gives me the feeling of layering my different experiences and emotions. The photographic images in this exhibition mark specific incidents in our diasporic journeys. The collaging of found images from my family collection allows me to idealise the reality and rework the effect of fate and politics on our lives.

我來自一個離散的家庭，父親和我的離散經歷是這次展覽的主軸。

我於1996年從香港移民新加坡，經歷了漫長及費勁的過程，嘗試與新家園建立情感連繫。過程的轉捩點來自和同住這小紅點的人們一起渡過新冠的共同經歷。與此同時，我也逐漸意識到，身為華裔新加坡人是可以完全不說華文或方言的。這項覺悟讓我相當釋懷。

父親於1997年移居加拿大，開始他的飄流之旅。他在2019年回流，計劃在香港終老，誰知道三年後，84歲高齡的父親又得踏上離散的旅程。

經年來，我們聚少離多。很多時候，我們僅存在於彼此的記憶中，並堅信生命不是那麼殘酷的。我透過藝術創作試圖理解現狀，抒發抑壓的情感，並找尋邁向未來的動力。

我喜歡在繪畫創作中嘗試堆疊不同物料，感覺上就像是一層一層地堆積我的經歷與情感。這次展覽中的攝影作品記錄了我們離散旅程中的一些特定事件。我透過拼湊、堆疊家庭照片讓現實生活理想化，並試圖重塑命運與政治在我們生命中的痕跡。

Curatorial Statement
By ZHUANG Wubin

In April 2019, I visited Hong Kong (HK) to curate the third iteration of the Photography in Southeast Asia series at Lumenvisum. After that, I began working on the fourth edition of the annual exhibition, originally scheduled to open in 2020. I decided to work with Donna Chiu because I am attracted to her collage work and her biography of being a HK-born Singaporean. Chiu moved to Singapore in 1996 to get over a heartbreak and not necessarily because of the handover. A year later, her parents migrated to Canada where they found a degree of familiarity, as many of their friends and relatives were already there. Since then, the lives of Chiu and her father have unfolded in two trajectories, seemingly detached yet emotionally connected. In 2019, Chiu’s aged parents moved back to HK, presumably for good. It is fair to say that the world has since been disrupted and altered. Our exhibition has also been postponed to April 2023. For the common people, there is, at times, an overwhelming sense of helplessness. It is not that we are indifferent. It is the realisation that there is nothing much we can do, except to sit by the window and watch the world unfold. For Chiu’s family members, the decision to leave has always been a choice and a privilege. But that does not negate the bouts of helplessness and anxiety that marked their diasporic journeys. This is the condition of life that they share with the HK people and the overseas Chinese across Southeast Asia. Chiu recognises that she has become a citizen through a transaction with the government because she fits the demographic and professional needs of Singapore. However, for a “new” migrant, how and when does a place become home?

2019年4月，我和光影作坊籌劃的東南亞攝影年度展第3屆個展於香港開幕，隨後我便開始籌備第4屆個展，原本預計2020年開幕。趙敬堂的攝影拼貼和她出生香港、移居新加坡的身分背景促成了這次合作的契機。由於一場戀情的結束，而並非回歸將及，趙於1996年移居新加坡。一年後，父母移居加拿大，並在新的國度找到某種熟悉感，因為他們的許多親友早已在當地生活。從此之後，趙與父親循著兩條軌跡過著若即若離的生活。趙年邁的父母於2019年回流，原本計劃在香港終老，我們的世界卻因為各種原因被阻斷、改變，展覽也因此展延至2023年4月。對於一般老百姓，我們有時倍感無助；這並非漠不關心，而是覺得我們能做的確實有限，只好安坐窗前，靜看世界繼續運行。趙的家庭成員固然享有離散的選擇權，然而這並不能減輕他們在離散旅程中不時感受到的無助和焦慮。這也是他們和一般香港人或東南亞華僑所共有的生活狀態。趙意識到自己因為符合新加坡的人口和專業需求而得以和政府「交易」，成為公民。然而，對「新」移民而言，她需要多少時間，並在什麼情況下，才可以把一個地方視作家園？

This exhibition is an invitation for Chiu to think through her experiences of living in HK and Singapore. She stages her artistic response on a personal level, using her migratory body and that of her father as a means to visualise her feelings for the two cities. As we awaited the reopening of borders, Chiu’s work evolved considerably, reflecting her increased confidence as an artist and the imprint of politics. Not surprisingly, she turns to her collage practice to rework photographs of her father in the family archive. One of the first pieces that she completed, colloquially titled “Time Travel I”, actually features the overlay of two bodies—those of her father and her father-in-law. The background image was taken in 1984 at Peninsula Hotel, Singapore. The transient nature of the hotel room provides an interesting parallel to the apartment that appears in the Instax images shot in 2017. Her parents would stay in that apartment, which was owned by their friends, whenever they visited HK.

趙透過這次個展的邀約思考自己在香港和新加坡的生活經歷，其藝術創作以個人經驗為基礎，利用父親和她離散的身軀，體現自己對於兩個城市的觀感。趙的作品隨著我們期盼邊境重開的過程而逐漸改變，反映她對藝術創作所累積的信心和外在政局的影響。她一開始便試着以拼貼手法處理家庭收藏中有關父親的照片。「時光旅程I」是其中一幅最早完成的影像，由父親和家公兩人的身體重疊而成。背景影像攝於1984年，地點為新加坡半島酒店。酒店客房的暫時性與攝於2017年的Instax影像中出現的簡單公寓互相對照；每當父母重訪香港，他們往往住在那間朋友名下的公寓。

Chiu’s painting practice started in 2017. Her process is typically long drawn and features the repeated gestures of layering paint onto the canvas. She would know intuitively that the painting is near completion. Before that, the paint might still crack, or she might change her mind and repaint parts of the work. This is analogous to the tactile manipulation that Chiu enjoys in photography. The camera can only produce a snapshot of the migrant’s current existence, without revealing much of her past or foretelling much of her future. The act of collaging photographs and, by extension, the process of producing this exhibition gives Chiu the possibility of reworking her life and that of her father. It allows her to regain a sense of initiative while seated by the window, looking at the drying painting.

趙的繪畫創作始於2017年，以不斷在畫布上堆砌顏料為基礎，其過程相當耗時。她往往憑直覺判斷作品是否已經完成，而在那之前，顏料仍然可能皸裂，她也可能改變想法，重畫畫作的某些局部。這也對應了她在攝影創作中所傾向的手工拼貼。攝影機只能夠抓拍移民的現狀，既不能全然透露她的過往，也不能預示她的未來。透過拼貼照片和籌備這次展覽，趙嘗試重塑自己和父親的人生，重拾自主性，讓自己得以坐在窗前，看畫風乾。