The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

153 ARTISTS Top: Spirit of Sky and Earth 3 & 4 2016 and Tree Spirit 2012 Cotton fabric appliqué on cotton fabric / Left and right: 351 x 112cm (each), middle: 427 x 322cm / Collection: Singapore Art Museum / Image courtesy: Singapore Art Museum Below: Tcheu Siong, 2010 / Photograph: Yves Bernard / Image courtesy: The artist and Project Space, Luang Prabang TCHEU SIONG Born 1947, Luang Prabang Province, Laos Lives and works in Luang Prabang In the pre-dawn hours in the hills of Luang Prabang, Tcheu Siong chronicles a spiritual world, recalling her dreams and visions before the day begins. She invokes a realm of Hmong spirits, stories and departed ancestors, creating constellations of human, animal and anthropomorphic figures on long colourful cloths, and employing techniques and materials that have remained a source of knowledge and communication over centuries. Tcheu Siong is an indigenous Hmoob Dawb (White Hmong) woman, one of the main dialect groups of the Hmong people in South-East Asia. Clothing adornment, embroidery, appliqué and piecework are integral aspects of Hmong culture and contain keys to sacred symbols. Designs carry intangible value and cultural understanding; a patch, a collar or a shirt sleeve can convey great meaning. Colour combinations can denote different language groups, and elaborate costumes are an intrinsic part of ceremonial custom. The Hmong are a people known for their expressive culture, as well as their perpetual migrations. Laos has the third largest population of Hmong in the world, and Hmong comprise the third largest ethnic group in the country. Many of these communities have been dispersed following conflicts that have affected the wider region, and they now live in the mountainous regions of Northern Laos. In 1996, Siong moved from the highlands to the city of Luang Prabang, where, like many local Hmong women, she began to make traditional embroidery to sell in tourist markets. Gradually, Siong became compelled to experiment with styles and methods, eventually giving up traditional modes and motifs to devote herself to a creative path, in which she united artistic and spiritual expression. Her bold, large-scale banners with illustrations of stylised figures are unique representations of Hmong spirits, with little resemblance to the dense geometric designs of traditional Hmong textiles. Also distinctive is Siong’s collaborative process in the development of form and meaning. Phasao Lao, the artist’s husband and a Hmong shaman, identifies the range of figures and creatures from the Hmong spiritual world depicted in Siong’s works. Hand-stitched appliqué techniques, originally taught to her by her mother, are now shared with Siong’s daughter, who assists in their creation. 1 Hmong believe in a pantheon of spirits ranging from shamanic masters and mythical kings to spirits who govern over health, wealth, death and the afterlife. Believed to be present in the Hmong home, they are coded into the abstract designs of traditional crafts. Amongst these commanding figures, Siong features jungle animal spirits, toads (a form of ancestral spirit), beasts (representing fertility), spirits that control the weather, and totemic human forms with curious triangular features and elongated limbs. 2 Siong employs shamanistic knowledge in her art, as well as in daily rituals, to help cure sickness, settle problems, and explain and resolve relationships with the human, natural and metaphysical worlds. This knowledge forms part of a belief system expressed through a matrix of oral tradition, poetry, myth and symbolism that may appear indecipherable to an outsider. Tcheu Siong’s vivid creations offer a unique entry point to this realm, a pathway to explain the physical world and worlds beyond. Tarun Nagesh Endnotes 1 Michèle-Baj Strobel, Tcheu Siong: The Genie Behind the Scissors [exhibition catalogue], Project Space, Luang Prabang, 2010, pp.7–8. 2 See Susanne Leppmann Bessac, Embroidered Hmong Story Cloths , University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 1988, p.21.