GLIMPSE

A look at the recently concluded A Temporary Self Aku Hanya Sebentar exhibition.

- NIKITA NAWAWI

The whitewashed walls of Temu House, a privately run space where a community of diverse likes and interests flocks to for conversations, came alive with a series of contemplative oeuvres sprawling across. There were butterflies and bleached bones encased in resin; erect metallic sculptures; and canvases drenched in ink, coffee and wait for it-blood.

A Temporary Self / Aku Hanya Sebentar is a portrait of life's faithful companion that is change. It is a personification of the lived versus new experience dichotomies and an embodiment of the notion that through time, we are incessantly introduced to our temporary selves. The creatives behind the masterful artworks dived deep and spoke their truth.

"We came up with the idea for this show early this year. We were entering the post-pandemic world and felt a little lost.

We lost a little bit of ourselves to the pandemic and we were trying to find our footing as this new person," said Kimberley Boudville. The exhibition slowly took form as the artists began extracting parts of themselves to the theme of "Collective Mourning."

But in September, a month before the opening weekend, a realisation struck that the world has stopped grieving, reverting into ways of living and being as we once were-yet, shifting places either within ourselves or in relation to the world in which we operate-thus prompting a necessary pivot in direction that hinged on the idea of progress, evolution, change.

Kimberley's series of artworks, for instance, explored the burden of relinquishing control as her pursuit of stability and order was often thwarted by the reality of life. Here, she asked: "Is relinquishing control the closest to having control?" Her counterpart Silas Oo, on the other hand, pondered on his internal chaos, pushing through it with self-affirmation and recognising the truth of matters.