INTERVIEW WITH BANANAJAM SPACE
PAPER TIGER WOODEN HORSE《紙虎木馬》
BananaJam Space (Shenzhen, China)
Artist: Ivy T.C. Chan
Interviewed by Clara Ren, from Divine Studio
Hong Kong, 2016
(English translations from Chinese)
During the group show ‘Paper Tiger Wooden Horse’ (《紙虎木馬》) from 11th-25th December 2016, Ivy showed a collection of photographic/text installation, and performed STRIAGHTNESS: THREE BODIES (《直嗎？》行爲藝術) on the opening afternoon. The following interview took place in Hong Kong on 15th December 2016 after the performance premiere.
Clara How did you arrived to the decision to study Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts?
Ivy Back in 2013, I was studying my foundation at Central Saint Martins. At that time I visited both Chelsea and the now Granary Square CSM campuses, and had preferred the learning atmosphere at Chelsea over CSM. Unlike CSM, Chelsea does not provide specialised fine art pathways within the BA course, and I tended towards a more loosely structured programme, where I felt there was more room and time to develop a practice. Also, the environment in CSM made me feel really tense and pressured, so I ended up choosing Chelsea.
Clara What did you specialise in during your foundation studies at CSM?
Ivy There were four disciplines, 2D (painting), 3D (sculpture), 4D (photography), and XD (mixed media). Out of those four pathways I chose sculpture. During my time at CSM, I was interested in space, systems, geometry, and perception, which I developed into a practice of composing identical paper objects to experiment with repetition and patterns.
Clara How was your experience at Chelsea?
Ivy Moving on from foundation to BA, I continued my practice in making paper objects. At that time, I have already developed a routine of creating geometrical paper objects to the extent that I kept repeating myself so much, it turned into a form of reiteration, which I think I did to supress the insecurity I felt very early on in the course. In a way I was allowing myself to mechanically make optically intriguing paper objects (I call them slanted cubes), to evade certain questions in my work. Looking back at it now, I think that period gave me time to reflect and actually challenge myself, which as I gradually became more conscious of my dependence to seek comfort in repetitive and expected things, I was able to loosen up, and (as they say) step out of my comfort zone.
Clara How has your practice changed over the course of your BA studies?
Ivy I think there was a turning point in my third year, when I moved from making paper objects to practicing photography. One evening I was alone in the studio, it was a few days after we submitted the final dissertation, and we have this Interim Show to put on the other day. I had a bunch of abstract geometric shapes that I had cut out from before, and had the idea to film or record my process of making sense out of those randomly shaped cardboards. I set up the camera on a tripod, and as I kept thinking about the contour lines of those shapes and dwelling on the concept of straightness, symmetry, order, logic, etc., instead of capturing myself organizing those shapes into a pattern, I photographed a series of images of myself posing in front of the camera as if I was the objects that was being handled. I ended up with a collections of photographs that presented my body in some sort of awkward and ambiguous state. I think from that point forward, I recognized photography as my tool to begin exploring ways to express the sense of frustration and discomfort through the body, and that transition of an idea from the internal to the external.
Clara In your creative process, do you prefer to work in isolation or with others?
Ivy I think it is important to maintain a balance between those two states of mind. I do enjoy times when you can focus completely on doing a task or thinking about something alone. Alternatively I think making work requires a level of involvement from others to give you feedback. I believe in order to progress and develop a practice, one must be willing to listen and to open up to conversation. Making work to me is a very personal process, but I think getting feedback is even more crucial to my practice. This doesn’t mean that you are reliant on the thoughts and comments of others in order to progress in your practice, but rather it’s about imposing that optimum level of internal and external influences on yourself.
Clara Tell us about the performance you did at BananaJam Space on 11th Dec 2016.
Ivy I have always been struggling with certain obsessive compulsive urges in my everyday life. It is like a need or urgency to correct and change particular things or objects around me. In a way it can really affect those around me, hence I have learnt to fight over those tendencies. I do so because I understand that there are many perceptions as to what is right or correct in this world. I cannot simple overstep into someone else’s boundaries and attempt to make certain alternations as I wish just to settle my own nerves. What is see as ‘un-straight’ or ‘out of line’ may seem right and perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the other, vice versa. For this reason, I have been puzzled as to how do we maintain such a balance with others and within ourselves. My mother has always suffered from body pain issues. Recently her back spinal pains has driven her to constantly seek for other’s approval, asking, ‘Am I standing straight?’, ‘Am I sitting straight?’, ‘Am I lying straight on my back?’. I understand that she is desperate to take control over her body and to correct what she believes is wrong in order to battle with the pain. However, her constant and relentless questioning, asking whether she is ‘straight’ in the eyes of the other, made me wonder. If someone tells me that I’m ‘straight’ or ‘not straight’, and I disagree with what I was told about my body because I feel otherwise, how should I resolve this conflict? This got me thinking as to how we define our inner lines of judgement between the body and mind, and that was the bases for the performance STRAIGHTNESS: THREE BODIES.
Clara What did you write about in your dissertation during your final year at Chelsea?
Ivy My dissertation title was, ‘How does the sense of verticality play a role in one’s perception of their self as a legitimate self-conscious being?’ I have this practice of observing things and deciding for myself whether those objects or people are placed ‘correctly’ in a space. Very often, I am very self-conscious when I do so, and I try to be as objective as I can, yet I also realize that inside of me, there is already an image of how the object ought to be if I am to see it as ‘right’ in that space, which I think is rather subjective, and I want to challenge those innate sensations we have by asking where do these intuitive perceptions come from. For example, (pointing at the water bottle on the table) does this bottle appear to be straight to you?
Clara Yes, it is standing straight on the table.
Ivy What made you decide it is straight? Or what caused you to believe it is standing straight?
Clara The central axis of this bottle is upright.
Ivy I see. It is apparent that even though this bottle does not have any straight contour lines, you are able to decipher that its central axis is perpendicular to the table, hence the bottle is standing upright. In my dissertation, I call this inner reception of uprightness the internal grid. Unconsciously, we exert it with sensorial perceptions received by the body to make judgements about our relationship with external things. Perhaps you may have had such kind of similar experience in the past, ‘You are situated in a perfectly ordinary and normal space. For some reason, it feels like there’s something out of place in your surroundings, and you don’t know what it is.’ For instance you walk into a space designed to deliver optical illusion effects where all the lines in that setting is intended to counter balance what you may experience as given verticals. As much as you know that the space is choreographed to go against common logic and make you feel odd, your sense of perception and direction will be shaken as you try to identify the cause of that confusion. You may try to tilt your body to comprehend the distorted spatial alterations, or perhaps question yourself whether you are actually standing straight. As human being, we rely greatly on how our body feels to inform the judgements we make. At the same time, we constantly seek for clues in the environment to confirm our senses. What if what we feel does not match up to what we expected to experience? What if there are external factors that disproof our sensory perception? If your entire exterior world is warped and is suggesting that you are in fact the ‘un-straight’ one, would you bend down and surrender your initial recognition of yourself as a legitimate right minded person? Or would you stand your grounds, and dismiss outside voices that advocate you as twisted? … How do you locate yourself? Where does the line of judgement lies? If this bottle in front of us has a conscious mind today, would it say that it is standing straight?
Clara What is your view then? How do you manage this tension between subjectivity and objectivity, internal and external struggles?
Ivy I think no matter to whatever extent we are as autonomous beings, we are trapped in an intrinsically complex inner verses outer existence. No human can remove themselves completely from all external influences. Instead, I believe exposing oneself to more stimuluses creates room for diversity and creativity. However it is very easy to lose focus and be distracted at the same time.
Clara In what way do you want your audience to experience your work?
Ivy I think looking at work is a very personal experience. I hope that by using the body as a medium to questions perceptions of uprightness, the viewer is invited to engage in those questions by relating their own bodies to those they see in my work. It’s like seeing yourself by looking into the eyes of the other. I want to reverse the positions of subjectivity, and invite the audience to see themselves as the object of their own spectacle.
Clara What kind of approach do you use to maintain a collaborative relationship with your performance participants?
Ivy We do not rehearse beforehand, so we are able to behave and react spontaneously based on the instructions I give out prior to the performance. Those instructions include to walk, to stand, to sit, and to lie down on the floor. The performers have the freedom to interpret those instructions as they wish and decide how they will perform those actions. The only rule is that participants are not allowed to talk, but they can make noises if they want to. At some point in the performance, I would signal the participant to stop moving, and approach them one by one to move them around in the space. In a way I am relying on the participants to trust in me as I react to how they perform. There is no guideline as to how long they have to carry out each instruction. One body may sit down while the others continue walking. And in the midst of the randomness, we are all collaborating to complete the performance. I find this process of relating with other bodies really compelling, and I try to perform with as many different participants as possible when presented with the opportunity.
Clara A final question. How has it been moving back to Hong Kong after graduating from Chelsea to continue your practice?
Ivy It took me quite a while to realise that I am in a different environment, and there were some adjustments to go through psychologically. I think having the opportunity to perform and show at BananaJam Space was like meeting an oasis in a desert, and I’m keen to continue my practice in Hong Kong.
Ivy, Tin Chi Chan (陳天慈, b.1994, Hong Kong) studied BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts in London, and graduated in June 2016. For the past four years Ivy has worked in many forms of media including sculpture, text, sound, photography, and performance. Her recent practice looks at the perception of selfhood and oneness between the mind and the body. In 2016 summer, Ivy was awarded the Clyde & Co. (London) THE BLANK CANVAS 2016-17 art award. She now lives and works in Hong Kong.
