The Frequency Illusion

Artist Vaevae Chan installed a cave in her studio that represents how she copes with personal trauma-and she has opened it up to the public By Aaina Bhargava.

- Affa Chan

There's a tendency, after we see or hear something that resonates with us, to keep noticing it everywhere, all the time. This is known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or frequency illusion, and it is something local artist Vaevae Chan has been experiencing since 2018, after a friend messaged her asking what emoji best represented her.

"I immediately sent him the blue spiral emoji, Chan says, recalling her intuitive response. "He asked me why, and I didn't have an answer: it was just something I gravitated towards." From then on, she started seeing spirals everywhere-from naturally occurring patterns in nature to designed emblems. This led her to start an Instagram account dedicated to posting photos of the symbol when she came across it; and as people found the account, they would send her images of other spirals. "The energy and attraction must have become increasingly strong," says Chan of the symbol and its growing presence in her life, attributing this increased frequency to cosmic coincidence. "I believe in everything: signs, symbols-but most of all, serendipity."

And signs, particularly the spiral, kept popping up in the artist's life, so much so that on a trip to Thailand in December 2019, a friend initially noticed an unalome-a Buddhist symbol representing one's path to enlightenment that begins with a spiral shape and morphs into a more complex winding pattern that eventually straightens out into a straight line-Chan started noticing it everywhere too, in temples and tattoos, and found a resounding sense of spiritual resonance. The curves in the symbol emphasise that no journey is a straight and direct path, which for Chan mimicked her healing process. "It goes along with my story and affirms my journey and what I want to do."