23 September 2022 – Sugar Pills for a Bitter World at Objectifs
In Daniel Chong’s latest exhibition Sugar Pills for a Bitter World, absurdity proves to be an unavoidable new vernacular that allows us to navigate the world. It might be easy to brush off these works as merely having strange, farcical appearances, but we encourage you to look a little deeper at the underlying anxieties and profound concerns beneath the surface.
The artists on show include Yeyoon Avis Ann, Mike HJ Chang, Desiree Tham, Ryan Lim Zi Yi, and Eng Kai Er. Some of their ridiculous and surreal works include a pet rock created as a solution to loneliness; an installation that recalls a yoga position to critique the capitalist wellness industry; and a feng shui-inspired, palm tree-shaped sculpture made out of office supplies.
Reflecting life under the constant strain of consumerism and social expectation, the exhibition prompts a strange, comforting realisation: that we aren’t alone in trying to make sense of an increasingly absurd world.
Check out our highlights below!
Yeyoon Avis Ann’s Fike Air (2022) represents the widespread anxiety that the growing wellness industry hopes to solve and capitalise on. The metal structure recalls the ‘downward dog’ yoga pose, as a reference to the artist picking up yoga during the pandemic. On the screen is a collection of meditation tutorials that have been synchronised to a single breath — referring to how the wellness industry even commodifies the act of breathing.
(Left) Curator Daniel Chong introducing Eng Kai Er’s In Other Words – an off script gym (2022), which is intended to be performed with collaborators Bernice Lee and Jereh Leung. (Right) A page from the work, which suggests instructions we can follow to both encourage conversation and disrupt its social norms.
In the background is Mike HJ Chang’s photographic series Cinema-Going-Surrogates (2016-ongoing), which depicts figures in local cinemas. The series was conceptualised in response to the abundance of films we cannot finish watching. In the foreground is a giant pet rock, created as part of The Thief, The Storage, and The Trap (2022-ongoing). This series looks at ideas of surrogacy; with the pet rock being an absurd solution for one’s loneliness.
Ryan Lim Zi Yi’s installation We will never have earthquakes (2022) includes a projection of a famous scene from Casablanca where the lead character Rick tells his former lover that “We’ll always have Paris.” The projection plays briefly once per hour. Lim ponders about what it is like to experience an earthquake in Singapore, and if we can truly value our stability without experiencing disruption. (Right) A photographic print of a fire escape, which Lim believes has become a redundant part of local architecture as many of us believe in our safety. (Left). The work’s title imprinted on the wall.
(Right) Desiree Tham’s Calculated Luck (2022) takes the form of a tall artificial tree, created to ward off bad luck from the artist’s workplace. It comes out of the artist’s enduring interest in Feng Shui. (Left) Detail of Calculated Luck, where you can see the incorporation of office materials like red pens and small mirrors.
The exhibition runs at Objectifs until 6 November 2022. Click here to learn more.
