2nd Prelude to Final Project – In-dependence 20 November, 2007

I posted this on our joint blog for the final project but I thought I should just repeat it here so as to keep a record here on this blog =) The loading time for the photographs will take quite a while since I am loading them directly from Photobucket.

on the shelf

“That independent career woman”

Artist Statement
“Independence” is a quality, something good that we should try to attain. In my mind, I thought of showing the price that comes with independence, how we sacrifice some other things along the way to achieve independence. Life is not always about achieving every wonderful aspect of it. Sometimes, we do have to pay a price, big or small, whether we like it or not.

In a way, this photo actually plays up the stereotypical mindset of how the independent woman in contemporary society cannot have both love and career. The lady shines on her own in the midst of the dull, cool and icy background. There is no warmth about her or surrounding her. I wanted to bring across loneliness through the colours and the construct of the scene.

The duality about this shot, i.e. to show the “in dependence” idea, is simply, not there. The idea is for it to be absent, to show that perhaps it might not be so bad to be “in dependence” after all.

my loving husband

“Chains of Marriage”

Artist Statement
When a man proposes to a woman in Singapore, the local joke is that instead of asking her to “marry him”, he asks her to “apply for a HDB flat (local housing)” with him. This simple joke that touches on the gender relations in local society and their implications on certain local policies has always somewhat troubled me.

I think when it comes to marriage, companionship and love have become overshadowed by government incentives in contemporary Singapore society. Marriage has become more than just finding a soulmate to depend on for the rest of our lives. At the end of the day, the bigger picture is that the government has made marriage a commodity with multiple allures, that Singaporeans sign up for together as a heterosexual couple.

Personally I like to keep things simple in my photographs. A photograph of keychains set amidst a sea of red, that represents romance and love. I chose to contrast the background which represents human passion against the inanimate subjects which represents human logic. The photograph is about society’s chain on the genders of our society and how we are all unescapably interlinked, interconnectedly trapped and dependent on each other.