Bare Bones - by kirins Presentation (2022)

What if Waterloo Street was an entity of its own? Bare Bones surrounds the idea of place attachment in relation to religion, culture, identity and people. A temporal identity of Waterloo Street is conceived through the collective’s lenses, where found objects from the street are repurposed into a series of assemblages. It is an envisioned made-up space that encompasses the senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch which allows for an experience of the “non-place” of Waterloo Street, being there physically yet in the idea of “nonexistence”, evoking a certain sense of loss. Through the inspection of the objects, the installation represents the relics of Waterloo Street, giving it a voice and narrative of its own. These objects that have once served their purpose, have become abandoned and forgotten in time and age. By showcasing them, they are given an afterlife of sorts; to present them in a new light, to anticipate their final moments, and to truly pay attention to them.

Moving on to the conceptualization of Barebones, after our first individual visits to Waterloo, we realised our collective was keen on noticing the parts of Waterloo Street that most people would overlook, we found that we were drawn to aspects of smells, sounds, and materials of objects and the environment that surrounded them, which led us to observations of the abject as well as the idea of attachment, and along with it detachment, the various ways in which people can get attached to Waterloo Street, through religion and spirituality, place and identity, and buildings and environments

This led to our initial enquiry of How attachment manifests in different ways, in which we were focused on people's attachment to Waterloo Street. However, we realised that it wasn't the direction we wanted to go in for our artistic outcome, and through the critique session and further group discussion, we came to our final enquiry, What if waterloo street was an entity of its own? in which we turned our focus onto waterloo streets attachment to people, allowing us an opportunity to rethink the relationship between waterloo street and the people, and to reimagine waterloo street with a voice and narrative of its own.

With these enquiry in mind, we started researching on key frameworks of our theme and concept. first being, place attachment. place attachment refers to the emotional bonds between a person and an environment of the place. it can be interpreted as the way people experience, express, imagine and know a place. with its own history and meaning, place is a unique entity. it affects and shapes our identity, and in contrast, the people occupying the space also shapes the places itself.

So we were very much into the idea of place attachment, and after the week 7 feedback, we did think about how we could turn the tables around to make it more interesting, and that is the concept of attachment with regards to the relationship between the person and the environment. This is where the term anthropomorphism comes into place, where an object has attributes of human characteristics and behaviour.

To which brought a few more inquiries such as, “How does Waterloo Street attach itself onto people that visit it?” and “What if Waterloo Street has a voice, what would it say?” Because we decided to dive deeper into anthropomorphism, it gave birth to another framework and it’s the Non-place. The theory of non-place is quite complex but the idea of non-places essentially are places with no history or cultural significance, and it is there to serve a functional purpose, for example for transit purposes like bus stops.

Non-places are identified through text and signs showing their intended purposes and we see this as them having their own voice. So we linked and played around with the idea of non-places and anthropomorphism because of their similarities, and we questioned, what if Waterloo street is an entity on its own and has its own unique voice, what would it say to us, what’s the relationship between us and the street? Clearly waterloo street is not a non-place, so this work of ours is a speculation and interpretation of the relationship between us and the space. And thus began our journey to collect found objects around and in waterloo street. We looked out for discarded objects in waterloo, old furnitures and such, we were interested in old objects that people don’t use anymore so that we can repurpose them and change their form.

When it comes to the collection of materials, our collective aims to identify what Waterloo Street is trying to communicate with us. As stated earlier, we arranged many trips to visit the street, to document and find things that we believe would be interesting or relavant to how Waterloo Street expresses itself to us. So through our earlier trips, we found an unused wooden crate, an old New Moon brand umbrella and a dilapitated vanity dresser that are placed in a haphazard fashion, which indicated that they were unwanted. These objects we found seem to have exhausted their initial function, but we felt that we can make use of them in relation to our investigation and concept.(of attachment and detachment)

Group5_BAFA2_Positions 2_Group Presentation.pdf

Download PDF • 65.54MB

There was something intriguing with regards to the earlier items we have collected. Even though they were no longer what they were originally used for, we can't help but associate them to the spirit of Waterloo Street itself, constantly changing.

Other than looking out for found objects, our team made sure to keeplook out for the various nooks and crannies of Waterloo Street, or things that would seem obscure. Throughout the various trips along Waterloo Street, we couldn't help but notice many things that appeared out of place yet contrastingly fit into the environment as well. We rarely fail to see oddly placed furniture, though most notably we saw chairs chained up to a lamppost, the type of chair chained up can be a totally different from what it used to be. We would see misplaced carts that or items that have been arranged in a way that stands out yet something passers-by would rarely notice. These trips allowed our team to truly look closer at the various nuance to the environment of Waterloo Street, each visit is different from the last. If it was any ordinary trip of everyday life, we would have ignored how strange and weird Waterloo Street actually is. It allows our group to Re-remember these old places, rethinking our past and present ideas of Waterloo Street, slowly immersing ourselves towards understanding what Waterloo Street is telling us. These objects that we have collected further affirms our decisions to create a more immersive approach. From the various plannings, Installation work is a strong candidate to translate our findings of Waterloo Street. We couldn't help but feel immersed by the atmosphere that Waterloo Street evoked, and in order to express that similar sentiment, we believed an installation work feels more suited to how we envision. Installation works touches on the aspect of the work interacting with the space and we believe that it can provide a strong visual presence to viewers. With the objects we have gathered, we envisioned a work be rawer and weirder, yet exhibiting a sense of humour.

Our team determined that we would achieve this by disassembling, rebuilding and changing the forms of these objects. As a collective, we believe that we want to prioritise more on the experimenting and at the same time providing more room for play. With the materials in hand, our group investigated possible artist references to gain some inspiration for possible artistic direction, but also observe the process of making works.

The main reference was the 2022 Singapore Art Week exhibit, REFUSE which was coordinated by the collective by the name of "The Observatory". The exhibition draws on the band's past and present influences, bringing their interests in fungi and mycelial networks, exploring the twin ideas of decomposition and composition of biological and musical perspectives. Our group who visited this exhibition were entranced by the level of immersion and stimulation it brings to our senses, the visuals, scent and sound of the place provided an unforgettable influence for us. Sarah Sze is another reference for our artistic idea for how we could learn to arrange seemingly unrelated objects together to form something beyond what it could be used for. Her use of photographs in her work while 2D as it is can be used in a sculptural way, able to assimilate to the environment well. Our collective was incredibly inspired by the sheer amount of detail and sensitivity in the process, which we made sure to keep this in mind

Now we will move onto our sketches. We did not really have a definite “idea” of what we wanted to showcase, meaning that we were keen on embracing the found objects that we collected as they were without hopefully altering them too much. However we understood that it was still important to have a sketch, to allow for easier visualisation and organisation of how the work would turn out artistically.Through out this process, we really adapted to the spontaneity of both this work and waterloo street itself, where we critically think of how each assemblage should look like, and the work was heavily reliant on what the street would be providing for us during our site visits. We had quite a good number of sketches actually but due to keeping the slides concise, we put up more relevant ones as such. this also laid out the foundation clearly for the layout of the work.

Before we started collecting our materials, we already wanted this work to be immersive. so when we were in the midst of collecting, we were fortunate to have this in our favour.

keeping the 5 senses in mind, the series is like a recollection or reimagination of Waterloo street, alongside its cultural and residential connotations

with taste… smell… sight… touch… and hearing…

Furthering on with our soundscape, we premised it around the sounds heard from waterloo street, and we tried to avoid having any specific human voices or interactions to really let the objects speak on their own with the objects being abandoned by its previous users for no longer being able to perform its function or being discarded as is, we wanted to show the sense of loss and loneliness by the objects in this soundscape. One of the prominent sounds gathered is the rain, like an umbrella that can no longer shield from the rain and also creaks and noises from old furniture and pillars.

Including the abject was one of the main ideas that stayed since the start. The series is heavily based off abjection, to really reimagine waterloo street all of the assemblages that you see later on do not have any additional “new” materials modifying the work itself, except for when building the works to ensure the work is structurally sound. What we did was like to really experiment and rethink what we could further do with these rejected and possibly breaking apart objects and the result was a whimsical yet uncomfortable setting, like a frankenstein almost.

We decided on stripping down some objects to its rawest form. Which the reason we do that was to observe and pay more attention to the materials that we are working with before making deliberate choices to our sculptural works. Hence to have the freedom to manipulate different materials in an organic and unstructured way allows for exploration and experimentation. Part of progress is based on experimentations, paying attention to the materials we work with allows the audience to have some insight into the artistic processes and material choices that we made. Which we creates the opportunity to renew objects' potential for new attachments and purposes.

Some examples are

· Metal skeleton of the New Moon Umbrella

· Wooden crates

· Wood poles

· Dressing table and drawer

Our group decided on rebuilding and reconstructing parts of objects to present them in a new light. Which we want the audience to be aware of the materials that we employ. Which we use these found objects as our materials for expressing our artistic visions. Where we also got inspired by the idea of “Arte Povera” an Italian phrase that stands for poor art which refers to everyday, found objects or common materials and repurpose for our installations. The core idea of Arte Povera was that tradition and collective memory— which is the two important components of cultural heritage—were in danger of being destroyed by modernity. To further muddle their audience's perception of time passing while trying to make sense of a work, Arte Povera artists intentionally juxtaposed the old with the new in their works of art. Which is what our group is doing by using objects of waterloo street and conceptualised the idea we have of place attachment as well as non-place.

Examples are like

· Umbrella panel fabric used as parts of sofa, NewMoon altar

· Wooden crates and poles to build sofa

· Parts and pieces collected to construct altar

Which we gave them a second life/afterlife of sorts, despite having been abandoned and neglected. We find beauty in the decay and deterioration in the life of the objects. Give new form of attachment outside of its original uses and purposes, by adding elements of non-functionality as part of our re-imagination of a Waterloo that does not yet exist in reality.

Why we choose red threads to connect the photos and the umbrella bones?

· In Chinese culture, red string bracelet is worn to attract good luck and fortune

· rooted in the belief that red is the colour of life, which brings all good things

· Red also symbolises “Life”

· Using the red thread to show how the fate of these objects, previously placed in the dumpster areas, changed because of this project​

· By bringing them into the exhibition space, we changed their life in a way, giving them a new purpose

It is important to mention the part of the project that we completely recreated, the table we made, which we can view together in a moment. The table is a total synthesis of our own ideas and creativity. At the same time it is a compilation of some innovative ideas and attempts at experimentation with the materials we found. We did faced many challenges in making it. How to assemble it, set it up and place it, and so on. But this was one of the few opportunities we had to get into the workshop this term. We are also very happy that we were able to put the table together ourselves.

Then there was the installation process. We mainly used fishing line to ensure the stability of the structure so that the objects would be in the shape we wanted them to be. The overall project was guaranteed to be formally and structurally stable. For the different components of the whole project, i.e. for each individual installation, we tried different placement arrangements. Let's see what inspires us.

Our work is made up of six small parts, which together with the whole work can actually be counted as seven parts. For each part we determined their size. Here is the plan of our project, you can see the exact placement of each small installation. After the whole project, we have learnt a lot. The first is that the process of collecting objects was a new experience in creating art, thinking about how they should work with each other in terms of their own characteristics.

Another aspect is that we found ourselves faced with certain constraints in the process of thinking, so we decided to take first and then think. Avoiding overthinking and instead being more about the possible relationships between the objects themselves.

Finally there is the issue of communication and cooperation that you are bound to face as a team project. We did face some challenges at the beginning, but as the project progressed we gained a clearer understanding of each other and created a very enjoyable creative experience.