Sze Yek

Sze Yek

Arts et design
LCI Melbourne

Childish confessions: Ponder and sleep

A memoir and solace seeking object of my childhood and early adolescence that brings out visual and olfactory cues that aims to imitate an experience regarding motherhood or parenthood, youth rhetoric and pride, and our ephemerality, installed within my father’s workplace. As a youth, I asked questions which answers were often rhetoric that had subconsciously satisfied my temporal pride, eagerness for authorization, comfort of control and puts me in a virtual hierarchy where I felt secure. I needed a space of thought and consciousness and the Hammock is an endearing virtual motif that I needed as those questions when I asked occurred such as: through inflicting emotional or physical abuse to another, a parent was not there to guide me. I was in fact pleased with such spectrum of psychopathy. My Childish Confessions is a representation of an attempt to understand my incomplete and significantly flawed identity and morality. I admire, strive for and to unconditional(ly) love, and I believe that such attribute is pure and ‘true-to-self’. Through the processes of this work, I acknowledge it through hand-making the whole hammock and its complimentary components as I’d always think that handmade objects are more precious and sincere as I felt my parents were as well as through using memory specific objects within the work such as the Christmas lights. Unconditional is an aesthetic language I translated of the consciousness with my past and emotional memories through a liberal approach in material, design, technique choices and processes. The exploration of ‘giving life and taking life’ within the context of parenthood and the upbringing of a child is tied to the youth rhetoric within this work. Parents are fully responsible for giving unconditional love to a child whose life was bore without his/her conscious decision, living with knowing that we might not love them unconditionally or, the life of ours would be threatened to neglect and/or be short-lived. Mine was unconditional and I want to acknowledge that through the scent/ a fragrance my mother once wore, cues to her soft and cold fingers that runs through my hair and forehead at midnight after a disappointing day at school. Her aroma comes from the deodorant she wears every morning and night after nine or sometimes midnight, Eau Dynasmisante by Clarins. The unforgettable comfort of a warm embrace and trusting tugging eyes on the belly of my father’s cotton shirt which evaporated of bodily impurities after a five mile run that had trapped my impurities under and, the comfort experienced when he carried me to bed after a long trip from the airport are resembled by the envelopment and warmth that the fabric and air under may replicate. Lastly a confession to myself, the comforts that I could understand a bit better now which I have attempt to replicate in my Childish Confessions: Ponder and Sleep.

Title of work_ Child

Hammock_view1

Title of work_ Childish Confessions: Ponder and Sleep Dimensions_ 3000 x 1200 x 60 mm, suspended on a 4m height in image Date of completion_ 9.05.2016

Arts et design/LCI Melbourne/Hammock_view2

Hammock_view2

Arts et design/LCI Melbourne/Hammock_view3

Hammock_view3

Title of work_ Child
Arts et design/LCI Melbourne/Hammock_view2
Arts et design/LCI Melbourne/Hammock_view3