Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours

PORTAL PARTY

Last weekend, 7-9 March, Sharon and I hosted a party.

Because:

It was my birthday the week before;
Sharon’s “Portal” work, which began on our local beach, then travelled to the 9th Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan, needed to come home again;
Sharon had to film a short educational documentary about her practice with the National Gallery Singapore;
We made ShrineShare last year, but had yet to show the project in our hometown;
It is always fun to give our friends a holiday, especially during Ramadhan;
I have always wanted to host a party where our friends could come and share the stuff they’ve made / been working on in a casual, no-pressure environment.

We rented an AirBNB close to our favourite beach for the occasion.

(Photo: Dunyagozel Annaberdiyeva)

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Though it was stressful to prep for (mainly because I was ill for the preceding two weeks; in the end I was feeling too poorly to run any TTRPGs on Saturday)—

The weekend went better than we could have imagined.

Highlights:

(Photos: Hana Zamri, Dunyagozel Annaberdiyeva, Shahriman Shahrul, Erin Malikhain, Ali Rafiq)

ShrineShare, featuring 16 artists, co-curated with David Blandy (also of ECO MOFOS! fame), was designed to be a complete art-exhibition-in-a-folder. A pop-up exhibition, I guess?

The protective folder doubles as a curatorial statement and orientation essay; remove the binding clasp and you can remove the prints to hang individually; it comes with artist statements and game-like prompts you can put up as wall texts.

ShrineShare has been shown in the UK and in Penang (as far as we know); it was time Port Dickson got to see it. We had the original stamps that the I used to make the prints, so folks popping by could make their own prints to take home.

(Photos: Hana Zamri, Adriana Nordin Manan)

This cat, which we got from a local sundry shop, served as a piggy bank for personal family stories.

I am collecting those for my upcoming art installation at Weird Hope Engines (a crocodile shrine that eats pain)—but it did double duty, in that the surrendering of trauma to the forces of transformation is a big part of Sharon’s “Portal” work, too, which is why …

(Photos: Jin Tee, Dunyagozel Annaberdiyeva, Shahriman Shahrul, Ali Rafiq, Erin Malikhain)

… when the time came for Sharon to perform “Portal” again, the cat was a central piece.

Sharon (with fellow performance artist Poodien) led the ceremony there on the low-tide flat, in the 8pm dark. We lit the lamps—made of bottles (alcoholism defined Sharon’s home life, growing up; a feature of our beach is the fact that people often come here, to drink in the dark; you find empty bottles of whisky and beer buried in the backshore grass); filled with paraffin.

We held hands, around the place where two mangroves once stood, like a pair of gate posts, to another world. We wrote and spoke ideas of things we wanted the fire to burn away, as we passed through.

(Photos: Sharon Chin, Jin Tee)

Afterwards, an evening of sharing. Including:

“Where is my place in your life?”, a collage work by Erin, about the seats and expectations we are expected to fill, in family, in politics;

Poems—one by Cameron, about the Jalan Ang Seng cemetery, one of Kuala Lumpur’s oldest burial grounds; one by Lisa (our neighbour, who Sharon and I watched grow up) about a penpal who recently passed away;

Farah, talking about her new storytelling initiative, tentatively called “Bebenang”; and Muizz on his fashion project, INKAA;

Aiman’s spoken-word love letter about his hometown of Batu Buruk—“no batu, but a lot of buruk”—hilarious and heartfelt;

Nana’s song of Port Dickson’s faded glory, empty resorts, and missing trees, an extension to the Blues Gang’s “Apo Nak Dikato”, (itself an ode to Negeri Sembilan), in lilting Nogori dialect (ngl this made me tear up yo);

Vincent’s origin myth of the mangrove apple;

Dunya playing a Turkmeni gopuz / jaw harp, traditionally a women’s instrument;

Adriana sharing a WIP historical piece, told from the POV of her grandfather, who passed recently at one hundred years of age, who grew up in British colonial rule, and watched the Japanese soldiers arrive on their bicycles.

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There are places one loves. There are places one hates. And there are places one cannot help but belong to.

I am glad we got to share our place with you, dear friends.