Charles Lim 4
Details
Charles Lim 4
Metadata (MODS) |
|
|---|---|
| Titles | Charles Lim 4: Clip 4 |
| Name | Charles Lim |
| Name | Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Type of Resource | sound recording-nonmusical |
| Genre | Interview |
| Identifier | Interview |
| Identifier | Charles Lim 4 |
| Abstract | Charles Lim talks about land reclamation and his SEA STATE project "Inside / Outside." |
| Extent | 5:28 |
| Form | sound recording |
| Note | Charles Lim: I’d gone through this whole thing, the art school, the ways of looking at—actually, the way of looking at the sea became more critical, you know, I wasn’t like the sailor anymore just looking for the wind. So, what happened was that I went out to sea, and then I realized that actually, there was a lot of things going on with the sea. Land reclamation, there’s a sea wall that we built on the east side, it was almost like The Truman Show, I would sail and then, bang! I hit the wall, you know, and then this strange sign that said HDB, because it was owned by HDB. So, what happened was that—later I found out was that actually, the state gave HDB a part of sea, and then they walled it up for many years. I wanted to do things that would grapple with this thing. And then there was a fence on the north side of Singapore, trying to stop immigrants from coming in. And then what happened was that the work I did, I wanted to be super critical—I wanted to show all these things that were happening. In a sense I was quite angry, you know, I’m a sailor and like, hey man, you know, I used to sail in this area called Seafix, and then it was all totally reclaimed, I can’t even sail there anymore. And that place used to be—used to represent the far away for me. Because my coach would say, “Oh, if you can sail the Seafix, you’re very far away.” And then you can imagine that far away place has become land, actually. And so, what happened was that I had this project called “SEA STATE 1: inside/outside.” And I remember wanting to do this work and then…I think even my father was quite worried for me, you know, “you’re going to talk about land reclamation and all these things, they will not be happy.” And then what happened was that I was working on the Tsunamii projects, and in a sense, I’ll say that the Tsunamii projects actually failed, they weren’t that good. Although we were all over the place, we were on these big shows. And at that point in time I was a young artist, I realized the problem was that the kind of things, issues that I was talking to you about was that I was trying to load too many issues into the artwork. And I realized that I had to kind of like invert the way I was working, actually. So what I did was that…I wanted to make works that were highly politicized, but at the same time I needed a kind of cover, and then, you know, at the same time I come from the art world, and the art world has the art market, you know, it’s not all nice and wonderful in the art word. The art audience have a certain kind of expectation, they go there, they want to see pretty things, they want to see—they have a way of looking at things. And then I realized that…how do I make work that I’m able to operate in the art world, in the field of arts, that engages me also, and then at the same time I’m able to do something that I want to talk about, actually, that it’s about my space? So, what I did was I began to do conceptual art. And then I realized that, you know, conceptual art, it’s actually very simple, all you are doing is come up with one concept, a simple concept, and then you just execute a common concept. And then, you know, and then people ask you like, “why are you doing this?” Then you just say like, “oh, I’m doing it because of this concept,” and it’s as simple as that. There’s no other reason. And, actually, that’s what I do, you know, for my artwork. So I did a project called “inside/outside,” and I came out with this concept, and every time someone asked me, like the state would ask me, “why are you doing this project?”, I’ll say, “oh, I simply just want to look inside and outside of Singapore.” Because when I’m outside Singapore I tend to think about Singapore a lot, you know, I miss Singapore when I’m in England, I miss Singapore a lot. But then when I’m in Singapore I don’t think of Singapore, you know. So, I feel that I need to be just outside Singapore to think about Singapore, I want to be in that situation. So what happened was that I did a project where I took a boat out on the border of Singapore and then I would go outside Singapore—every time I would see something floating along the coast of Singapore, I would go outside Singapore and take a picture of inside Singapore, and then I would go inside Singapore and take a picture of outside of Singapore. But actually, I’m not interested in the objects that are floating. And it’s quite interesting because a lot of the people that first saw the work, they think that the work is about buoys, the work is about those things that are photo—but actually what I’m more interested in is the things on the background. So, I’m actually showing the fence on the north, I’m showing the reclamation, actually. All these things that happen along the coast. And it was quite interesting, that project when I was doing it, was actually funded by—it was the president’s young talent award thing, actually. So, I actually had to shake Nathan’s hand (laughing), and then he was looking at the things. So, it was kind of interesting too. So, there are kind of two facades, actually. So in a sense I kind of like operating like that also, because I think it works both ways, you know, in some ways I want to say something, but then at the same time, as an artist when I want to say something, there’s always that question, “am I right?” When I come in here and say, “this is how things are, the state is doing this,” and then I’m going to show it, I’m asking myself, “am I right, do I have preconceptions on these things?” Maybe what they’re doing is not that bad. So what I’m trying to do is actually…having that very simple concept is interesting because when I do that it gives me a certain kind of rigor, you know, to push myself into spaces that, that will challenge me, and might challenge my own perceptions of what I thought. |
| Access Condition | Contact Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Subject Geographic | Pacific Ocean |
| Subject Hierarchical Geographic | Asia--Singapore------Singapore |
| Subject Local Name | ----Coast--Landscape / Skyline--Land Reclamation--Pacific Ocean-- |