Rain, the Ash, The Snow and the People in Other Place: Chang Yoong Chia’s Artistic Inquiry as an Artist-in-Residence

By Teoh Ming Wah
(translated from the original essay in Chinese)

I am the artist’s wife.

Yes, I am Chang Yoong Chia's wife. Perhaps this statement might affect your views on what I am going to say. However, I decided to write and reveal my observations beyond the role of a curator with an impersonal standpoint.

Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life is the first survey solo exhibition of the artist held at the National Art Gallery. It features around 130 works from Chang’s oeuvre between 1994 and 2017. The majority are those between 2006 and 2017, when Chang was an invited artist-in-residence with various local and overseas institutions. As a curatorial team, we agreed I should be writing about these journeys of creative inquiry, given the first-hand information I have had as a partner and companion over the years.

As we were putting together the exhibition, I landed on some thoughts to ponder. I asked myself: How involved have I been in the artist’s creative journey? Where do I stand, and at what distance should I keep myself in order to form my interpretation of the artist’s creations?

Rather like someone who has passed through the woods on a visible path, I looked back and thought about the many hidden tracks, faint trails and diverging roads we have walked past. I revisited my memories of Chang’s work and life as an artist-in-residence, and chronologically divided them into intimate or distant perspectives, re-scripting the path again to let readers and viewers catch a glimpse of the otherwise invisible or unseen creative sparks in the obscure terrain of the artist’s mind.

 

The Rain
Rimbun Dahan, Kuang, Malaysia. March 2006 to March 2007


The warm night was pitch-dark and damp. Swarms of winged termites on a mating flight flocked to the single fluorescent lamp left on in the studio. The following morning, green foliage laden with drops of crystal dew bore silent witness to the nocturnal rainshower. Inside the studio, Chang Yoong Chia was on all fours, carefully lifting discarded wings scattered all over the floor, one at a time. The swarming termites were nowhere in sight after their night's copulation. During his year-long stay at Rimbun Dahan, Chang also salvaged skin shed by snakes, empty shells of dead snails, and the dry, hollow remains of an insect wrapped in spider silk, with every drop of its body fluid sapped.

Born and raised in tropical Malaysia, Chang could not have been more familiar with winged termites. Nevertheless, his Rimbun Dahan experience was that of a “different place” altogether. Chang was born in 1975, the year when his parents settled in Happy Garden, 1  one of the new garden communities designated by the Government to accommodate the influx of people to Kuala Lumpur from the rural areas in the 1970s’1. Chang’s parents planted fruit trees, vegetables, flowers and other plants around their house, and their children played with chicken, ducks, rabbits and tortoises the family raised against the city’s increasingly urbanised backdrop. Rimbun Dahan with its garden-orchard and ponds complete with indigenous Malaysia plants created a complex ecosystem for species to thrive and flourish, and presented a broader vista for the artist to explore.


Piqued by boundless curiosity and imagination reminiscent of his childhood, Chang reacquainted himself with Nature. When he used his paint and brushes to “transform vignettes” from the past, it felt “magical”. Details inadvertently resurfaced in his mind, developing into a full awakening of the senses. As emotional response to these memories unfolded, the there-and-then was “juxtaposed” against the here-and-now. Snippets of the past and the present, and the real and the imagined, were etched into the same “framed” space, defying any sort of order or sequence.


The theme of flora and fauna runs through Chang’s oil paintings. Far from being a means to represent Nature, the animal and plant motifs are used arbitrarily to externalise the interaction between the artist and his memories.

Happy Garden on display in Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life is a telling example of how the artist “looks back” on his childhood memories from where he is. The monochromatic Flora and Fauna series, where rabbits, snakes, bats and a man in shirt and tie (in premonition of an anticipated white-collar career, perhaps?) are recurring images. Springing seemingly from the artist’s subconscious self, these creatures lead the way to “The Garden of Eden” where viewers lose themselves in a world of peaceful coexistence between mankind and the flora and fauna. Portrait of HRH Chang Yoong Chia, commissioned by his Minions, a 2006 self-portrait made of termite wings, carries the imprints of the big question: "Who am I?" This perpetual puzzlement pushes its way through in the artist’s many creative narratives. Self-examination aside, in Flora and Fauna, it is as if the artist has entered his own paintings, changing size at will like Alice in her wonderland to fully grasp the world he has built, one stroke at a time.

​

1.  Garden communities were introduced by the British colonial government as an urban residential model. They served as reference for the country’s development planning at a later stage, with an objective to promote housing plans that could break down ethnic divides and nurture a sense of community living. These residential communities are today commonly called “Taman”, which is the Malay term for “Garden”

 

 

The People
Uijae Art Studio, Gwangju, Korea. March to May 2007

On foreign soil, is the landscape within in sync with that without?

“I lost my ability to talk... People say when you lose one of your senses, the others will be enhanced.”

“What am I doing here? I came here to understand myself.”


Chang expressed his anticipation and anxiety in Moodung Gi, a work displayed at a group exhibition in May, 2007. Chang’s three-month sojourn at the foot of Mount Moodung in Gwangju, South Korea was his first extended overseas outing as an artist-in-residence.

It was March. The chill lingered. The first signs of spring emerged subtly on trees dotting the mountain. Speech-locked, Chang felt cold as he worked alone in the studio. He was eager to connect with the place and its people even though he was unable read or speak in the local tongue. The faces he saw on the streets seemed familiar, like his own, and yet, to him, the words around him were but symbols devoid of meaning. As he strolled around the city, he noticed the recurring appearance of a numeral he could make out — 518.

Chang has stated that while he painted tirelessly every day for years after his graduation from the Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) in 1996, completed oil paintings were few and far between. He later realised that he was tied down by his own doubt and anxiety about how to connect painting, which he sees to be a lonely and solitary action, with other people. With this realisation, he decided to make his art more accessible by using elements of craft, such as paper-cutting and handmade candles. Among the artworks moving in this direction, and which eventually evolved into a long-term performance art-cum-workshop project, is Quilt of the Dead. 2

A local newspaper published an advertisement on 17 May 2007 calling Gwangju citizens to join Chang Yoong Chia’s Quilt of the Dead workshop. On the morning of 24 May, 120 people showed up at the Main Hall of the May 18 Memorial Foundation to embroider the portraits of deceased victims of the 5.18 Democratic Uprising. 3  With only one interpreter, Chang was overwhelmed. Fortunately, ten student volunteers from an arts high school came forth to offer their assistance. Chang never thought, being unable to speak the language, he could depend on art to build a bridge to others and to other places. A personal memory of an absurd funeral he attended when he was 17 serendipitously merged together with that of a collective memory persistently defended by a foreign city.

Quilt of The Dead is a major work on display in Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life. It is a 15-year art project that is as yet unfinished. Perhaps the viewer can guess which of the black and white portraits on the quilt were embroidered by the artist on 24 May 2007. Exhibited next to it is The Family, a 1994 oil painting during his MIA days. The image is a recreation from Chang’s grandmother’s funeral photo in which family members posed in front of a coffin. Interestingly, the 17-year-old Chang is missing.

 

2.  "Quilt of the Dead". See Chapter 4, the catalogue for Chang Yoong Chia’s 2009 solo exhibition "The 2nd Seven Years".

 

3.  The May 18 Democratic Uprising, also known as the 518 Gwangju Incident, took place between 18 May and 27 May 1980. It was a pro-democracy uprising initiated by local citizens. President Chun Doo-hwan, a former army general, ordered a brutal crackdown that ended in heavy civilian and student casualties. Realisation of transitional justice in Korea after the Gwangju Incident is a rare case of success in the postwar era.

 

 

The Ash
Tembi Contemporary, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 1 October to 7 November 2010
1Shanthiroad, Bangalore, India. 20 July  to 20 August 2012



The shadow puppet performance was on! But the object of viewing is not the shadow on the screen?!

A shadow puppet performance preluded the exhibition’s opening. Sitting in a row facing the audience were four kebaya-clad female singers with voluminous chignons crooning along to the music. On the floor, male musicians in Java batik sarong were playing gamelan instruments with their backs to the audience. Sitting centre stage, also with his back to the audience, the puppet master moved his hands deftly, bringing the colourful puppets to life.

Chang got back to his temporary abode near a paddy field on the outskirts of Yogyakarta late at night. The enchanting images kept flashing and floating across his mind, challenging the monochromatic impression of shadow puppet play he had had up to this point.  

To the north of Yogyakarta, latticed with terraced fields, is Mount Merapi; to its south is the Indian Ocean with its vagarious, towering waves. The royal palace at the heart of the city is steeped in legend and tradition. There are many art galleries, artists’ studios and artist-run spaces. On one hand, Chang immersed himself in the vitality of the city’s contemporary art scene. On the other, he retreated into the farmlands where he watched farmwives pick up the bullet-like red seeds which had dropped from the big trees outside their houses, then “magically” transforming them into a bite-size deep-fried emping. Instead of seeds, the artist picked up leaves from under the tree at his front door. They reminded him of the Tree of Life, a symbol of the universe that appeared at the start of a shadow puppet performance.

It was 5 November 2010. Chang looked out of the window and muttered, "Sun shower?"  The fine powder drizzling down in the shimmering light was neither snow nor rain but volcanic ash blown from the restless Mount Merapi 4  some 30 kilometres away. There had been numerous sacrificial rituals and prayers performed everywhere since the mighty mountain unleashed its wrath on 26 October and subsequently on 30 October 2010. Chang was in a state of unease. Amidst the disruptive crackling TV transmission came news that the danger zone was pushed forward to a radius of 15 km instead of 10 km from the volcano and the distraught voice of an expert imploring villagers to evacuate their property and farmland immediately.

The two-month stint in Yogyakarta came to a premature end on 7 November 2010. A woman in the village comforted Chang before he left, reassuring him that a night-long shadow puppet performance was held to pacify the Mountain God at an elaborate ceremony of worship by the seaside. Born in a country spared of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, Chang nevertheless vaguely understood that, for the villagers whom leaving was not really an option, rituals like shadow puppetry offered some solace. Far from being just a form of entertainment, it is a ceremony performed to appease Nature and ask for mercy.       

Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life features four previously unexhibited works, Orang Belanda, Revolusi, Cina Totok and Api Merapi, created with reference to Javanese history and the traditional way of making shadow puppets using cowhide. Instead of cowhide, Chang used half-dried fallen leaves to make the cut-out figures. The leaves were set aside to be flattened and dried thoroughly, before gouache was applied to render the images. These finished works may bear witness to an unfinished stay, but the world of stories and shadows has since lived on in the artist’s mind.  

In July 2012, the artist set out for a month-long artist residency at 1Shanthiroad in Bangalore, India. At the nearby 200-year-old Lalbagh Botanical Garden, the artist picked up where he had left off, re-engaging leaves as his medium of choice. The Botany of Desire, first shown in Bangalore, demonstrates his understanding of shadow puppetry (incidentally, shadow puppetry in both Indonesia and Malaysia traces its origins to India) based on his Yogyakarta experience; but it has gone beyond it. Finding both inspiration and raw materials at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden, Chang created a motionless shadow puppet play in which colours and shadows coexist.

Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life brings Chang’s works from Indonesia and India together. They illustrate the artist’s evolving understanding and use of his media, and highlight the growing presence of region-based cultural and historical characteristics in his works.

​

 

4.   Mount Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia. It has very special meaning to local communities. Volcanic ash has made the soil extremely fertile, resulting in waves of peasant migration and settlement here. It is also an important part of the people’s faith. Every year, worship and sacrificial rituals are performed in honour of the echelon of deities in Javanese mythology. During its 2010 eruption, 353 people were killed and some 350,000 had to evacuate.

 

The Snow
S-AIR, Sapporo, Japan.  17 January to 21 March 2017


“What will you do if you are given a second chance?
Will you do the same things or try something new?
If you repeat yourself, does it have the same meaning as before?  
If you try something new, is it merely a variation of the same thing?”

On 10 March 2017, the HUE University Gallery hosted Second Life, a solo exhibition of works by Chang Yoong Chia completed during his two-month stay as an artist-in-residence in Sapporo. The statement above expressed his thoughts and feelings about being invited for the second time to Sapporo by S-AIR after a lapse of nine years.

When Chang arrived, Sapporo had just had its worst blizzard in fifty years and sat under a blanket of glaring white snow the height of an average person. The buildings in the city lost their distinguishable appearances. The sheer volume of falling snow forced people to draw and redraw the skyline and the horizon in their mind. Chang was shocked by what he saw; this could not be the same Sapporo he had familiarised himself with while cycling around in the summer of 2008. The powdery sugar-like snow changed the cityscape and Chang’s sensory experience. There was an ethereal, dreamlike quality to the place; but the piercing cold immediately brought people back to a strangely tangible reality.  

The artist was in a constant state of excitement throughout his stay. He took it upon himself to inject Malaysia’s “heat” into the bone-chilling Sapporo winter, albeit in his own ways, such as stuffing snow scooped up outside the house into his mouth, making a perfect snow angel, face-printing in the snow, and pouring half a pot of steaming soup he had made into a plastic bag and burying it in the snow to observe how long it would take before it turned into ice.

Chang is not interested in studying physical phenomena such as heat absorption or the dissipation of snow, ice and water in a scientific or technical way; but rather, he relied on his senses and intuition to explore “phase” change as he goes about his daily life. This yields no clear outcome. He finds batik-making especially intriguing; it is a constant conversion of heat energy as wax liquefies and solidifies. With its ceremonial-like process, batik-making enables Chang to inject “heat” into his artworks. In Sapporo, Chang was often seen using traditional copper funnel pens filled with hot wax to outline huge rabbits and butterflies on cotton cloth.

Because Chang was invited a second time to Sapporo for an artist residency, he did not only insists on exploring new creative ideas but also wanted to work with materials he had used in 2008. Once again, he turned to the large number of discarded scallop shells. In the repetitive forms of these shells, the artist “saw” panels resembling those sequencing a comic strip. In his signature metaphorical and autobiographical narratives, Chang tells the story of man’s overconsumption with Otaru Fable, also displayed in this exhibition.

              *               *

Between 2006 and 2017, Chang was stationed in different localities as an artist-in-residence. Being in these “other places” has made for a dynamic mode of creation, inspiring explorations in geography and history, and further inquiries into issues such as transformation, creative media, ritual and a second life.

I would like to conclude with an excerpt from my article in the catalogue of Chang Yoong Chia’s 2009 solo exhibition The 2nd Seven Years:

“Does this idea of Second Life refer to the lifeforms plentifully consumed by humanity but transformed by the artist and presented as art? Does it ascribe to the living who embroider the likeness of their dearly departed, or does it ascribe to the departed whose likeness are being embroidered? Or, perhaps it refers to none other than the artist himself whose love for people, animals and plants is given a spiritual renewal?”