At the heart of the city, Millenia Walk’s Creative Neighbourhood initiative is back with a new take on ordinary Christmas celebrations — a flurry of artistic creativity. Entitled Moving Wonders, the mall’s 2024 festive programme introduces a variety of global and regional artists to the local audience, inviting them to enjoy new perspectives on familiar holidays, from Christmas to Lunar New Year (February 2025).
A moving Christmas tree
This unique experience at Millenia Walk is headlined by a vibrant, unorthodox Christmas tree. Glance up and be wowed by Monument to Movement, the Southeast Asian debut of acclaimed New-York based artist duo Wade and Leta. Stretching towards the ceiling, this interactive installation stands at over 10 metres tall, in a playful whirl of bright colours, bold patterns, and playful shapes.
Through the restless, kinetic quality of its moving parts and blinking lights, the tree seems to embody the lifeforce of the city centre, especially during the bustling festive season. It complements the mall’s open atrium and high ceilings, bringing a new dimension to the familiar architecture, and offering a refreshing take on the conventional Christmas tree.
Wade and Leta, who run a multidisciplinary design studio of the same name, intend to create works that “make music for your eyes” and evoke a sense of play and wonder. Utilising bright colours and geometric shapes, Monument and Movement takes inspiration from joyful Christmas ornaments, while remaining culturally open-ended such that anyone can comfortably join in the festivities. Furthermore, the sculpture will undergo an update to become a centrepiece for the mall’s 2025 Lunar New Year celebrations.
Incorporating built-in swings and a beanbag seating area, Monument and Movement invites visitors from any and all backgrounds to interact with it and become part of the art. Indeed, Wade and Leta believe the work is unfinished without visitors interacting with it. As people lounge on the swings and converse on the beanbags, audience and sculpture seem to come together as a whole — living, breathing, and moving.
Thus, the work blends the organic and mechanical together, opposed yet complementary, in a celebration of life — conveying that Christmas festivities are only complete with the congregation of loved ones at their core.
New settings for performance art
Another featured artwork is Hydra, a wearable art performance (presented by Yeo Workshop in conjunction with the exhibition Who is Weaving the Sky Net?). Here, Vietnamese artist Lai Thi Dieu Ha invites the audience to look at everyday life anew, introducing a more niche way of artmaking — performance art — to the general public. On selected days, performers wearing elaborate textile costumes act as pathfinders, moving to their own beat through the mall’s eateries, retail outlets, and department stores.
During our visit, we followed the performers through the mall, observing their weird mannerisms, peculiar music, and alien attire. Lai Thi Dieu Ha takes a curious approach to costuming, using textiles and stuffing to create sculptural silhouettes that call to mind fungi, corals, and other organic life forms.
The juxtaposition of the otherworldly performers against a familiar retail backdrop raised interesting questions. One of the most intriguing elements of the performance was the interaction between the performers and the public, who approached them with caution and even fear — some choosing to shy away, others poking at the costumes with curiosity.
Engulfed in these alien forms and moving through the mall’s public spaces, the anonymised dancers took on new identities, sparking an active questioning of our roles in society. What were such mysterious beings doing in a place so overrun by capitalist consumption, surrounded by offices and skyscrapers? There was something dignified about their confidence, the way they stood their ground, abiding by their own logic and exploring their own existences — perhaps encouraging onlookers to do the same. They brought to light what we fear, beings that stray from normalcy, even if we know that we share the same biology underneath.
Hydra thus invites us to poke at the reality we have constructed around ourselves, the lives we perceive as “ordinary” — from tools, musical instruments, and clothing to habits, lifestyles, and goals — the social conditioning to which we have grown accustomed, that we perhaps lie too comfortably within.
A more sustainable season?
Additionally, sustainability is an emphasis of this year’s Moving Wonders celebration, which encourages audiences to remain mindful of how their consumption practices impact the environment. Wade and Leta’s Monument and Movement utilises the recyclable materials of cardboard and steel, demonstrating that sustainable art can still maintain its wow factor. The artists have intentionally left the raw finish of the cardboard and metal exposed, showcasing their material qualities. Besides being adapted for Lunar New Year, the installation will also be broken down into smaller sculptures for the mall, extending the joy past the festive season and fully utilising the materials across multiple life cycles.
In Living Room Curiosities, members of the public can witness demonstrations by mixed media artist Keisha Yan, showcasing her real-time artistic process of creating dioramas from the most unassuming materials.
Keisha shares that her works are inspired by stories and characters from her childhood, such as Peter Rabbit. Drawing from these experiences, she crafts spellbinding miniature scenes made primarily from found objects and materials — shipping packaging, thrifted frames, old clothes, scraps of yarn from previous projects — which she sources from her own home or secondhand. Most would regard these stray bits and bobs as trash, but where they might have once been discarded, they now find a place in Keisha’s art.
In her live demonstration, taking place on 14 December, audiences can witness how she takes materials apart and pieces them back together in surprising combinations and contexts. Keisha jumps into her projects with only a rough aesthetic and narrative concept, instead choosing to go where the materials lead her. As she creates each scene, the narrative changes and evolves. (Till the end of the month, mallgoers can view her work on the second floor of the Harvey Norman store.)
Focusing on everyday materials that can be easily found at home, and encouraging others to do the same, Keisha primarily uses a glue paste made of cornstarch rather than longer-lasting, but more toxic, commercial alternatives. Crafting can be environmentally taxing at times, but by being conscious of her consumption and craft practices, Keisha reduces the waste generated by her artmaking. In her hands, old scraps take on new lives, in a meticulous and truly unique way of upcycling.
Besides these three artistic projects, Moving Wonders at Millennia Walk is packed with many more activities for all ages and interests, including workshops, music performances, and artisan markets. It’s a refreshing way to celebrate and enliven old traditions this holiday season.
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Moving Wonders with Wade and Leta takes place at Millenia Walk till 31 December 2024, with live performances and demonstrations for Hydra and Living Room Curiosities on 14 December 2024. Find out more at milleniawalk.com.
