the art of reflection
Female Singapore|September 2024
DICTIONARY.COM DEFINES NOSTALGIA AS "A WISTFUL DESIRE TO RETURN IN THOUGHT OR IN FACT TO A FORMER TIME IN ONE'S LIFE, TO ONE'S HOME OR HOMELAND, OR TO ONE'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS". KENG YANG SHUEN ZEROES IN ON FIVE SINGAPORE ARTISTS INTERPRETING THIS OFTEN-INTANGIBLE QUALITY AS WELL AS THE NOTION OF TIME AND MEMORY ONLY TO EVOKE POIGNANCY, CURIOSITY AND EVEN PLENTY OF LAUGHS.
KENG YANG SHUEN
the art of reflection

ANG JUN ZUAN

In the playful hands of this 30-year-old, who works in the day as an art director at a design agency, mundane items find a whole new and often absurdist lease of life. Take his po chai pills series, in which the traditional Chinese medicine popularly used to treat indigestion or diarrhoea becomes a part of a locket necklace with a vial of the tiny pills for a pendant, or the prize in a miniature gashapon machine (pictured below). Those who grew up in - or have been exposed to the pre-Internet age would recognise several of the objects he toys with in his body of work as an artist. (Retro snacks are another one of his favourite motifs, for example.) Taking about a day to create and document each piece, he sees his craft as straddling the fields of art and design, and his intention can be said to be suitably innocent: "I just want to make everyone laugh. That's my KPI (key performance indicator). I used to make nonsensical zines and comics about poop and farts in primary school, and people laughed at them. Nothing much has changed today, I think."

Ang Jun Zuan likes working with quotidian objects such as retro snacks (see opposite page) and other household items that he grew up with because of their "plainness". "A pau (a Chinese steamed bun) is a pau and nothing more," he says. "I enjoy finding relationships between different mundane objects and mashing them to see what else they could be, and sometimes, things turn out really absurd."

KELVIN LIM

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2024 من Female Singapore.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2024 من Female Singapore.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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