Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Working in collaboration with women In 1 991 , I had the chance to work with three young women artists in a workshop . We met regularly for fou r months and talked about growing up as a woman and women's position in society. The slides show some of the performance we made at a fringe event called 'The Space', when I worked as the chairperson of the working committee. The event was part of the Singapore Arts Festival held in 1 992. The workshop taught me the importance of working with women; it g ives me connection and support. Between You and Me is a performance made in a residency program at the Canberra School of Art with Paloma, whose ancestors came from Spain. We found a common interest in deal ing with our cultural identity in the collaboration work. Time/Site. A Shift is another collaboration with a local ceramist, Ng Siew Kuan. It is a site-specific installation and examines the h istory of Fort Cann ing H ill, Singapore; its changes from being the power centre of various governments in the past, to a cultural centre for the public today. Finally I would like to bring you to the most recent collaboration I have done with my mother. In 1 996 I started working with her on a project to explore the issues of mother and daughter relationships and communication in urban conditions. There were no serious conflicts between mother and I; but there were communication problems. Mother speaks only in Teochew (a kind of Chinese d ialect), as she had no opportunity for education in the past. I speak very little Teochew. It was d ifficult to make her understand why I make art. I decided the best way to make her understand was to involve her in the process of my work. The opportunity came when mother asked me to make a portrait of her in photography. In Chinese culture, old people in their seventies have portrait photographs made, in a way to prepare for their death. I felt proud to be asked to do this portrait but I also felt sad that she seemed to know time is runn ing short. We continued working together after making that portrait. Later on, the focus was shifted to the touch of the two bod ies and the photos were made in close­ up shots. Touch , in any form of bodily contact, was never encouraged in Chinese cultu re . I had the u rge to touch my mother, who is my primary source, to feel again the connection . These are sl ides of the work presented in the form of an installation, Another Woman, which was first exhi bited at the Singapore Art Museum in 1 997, in an exchange program with Australia. The work had travelled to various cities in Australia, including Brisbane. Other works were shown in 'Womanifesto', an international women's exh ibition held in Bangkok in 1 997. It was an important occasion for me because my mother actually sponsored my air ticket and travelled with me to Bangkok. In November '98, I had a chance to work with some German women in thinking about the relationsh ip between mother and daughter, in this context I made portraits of sixteen women I had interviewed to talk about their mothers and daughters, and invited them to write their stories on their portraits in a live performance at the open ing of the exhibition. The latest presentation on the theme was made in a series of photo prints done for the Fukuoka Triennale held in March this year. And Narrating bodies is a reconstruction of the h istory of my mother and myself presented here at the Third Asia-Pacific Trienn ial. ABOUT MY WORK Mali Wu As an artist, my work usually combines images and text to question our understanding of the world. My work is therefore coloured by strong social critique. Gender issues are one of my concerns. My creation of art has been implemented in the light of such subject matter as 'People, Land, H istory' in the last two years. Epitaph ( 1 997), Stories of Women from Hsin-Chuang ( 1 997) and Formosa Club ( 1 998), are the examples . The three works demonstrate how females are recorded in h istory as well as in the community. I'm indebted to various causes for making the three works. Epitaph was originally produced in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 228 (February 28, 1 949) massacre. The 228 incident was a conflict between the Chinese who came 48