|
|
Of Fingerbowls & Hankies Chris Yap voyeurs through the Baba House 25 June – 31 December 2009 The Gallery, 3rd level, Baba House
 Photo by Chris Yap
Of Fingerbowls & Hankies is conceived as a drama featuring the fictive lives of three generations in a Peranakan family. Using photography and installations, and making references to personages, domestic spaces, and material culture, artist-photographer Chris Yap evokes popular conceptions associated with and emerging from the Peranakan communities. Beyond the seeming celebration, however, Yap embeds into each scene clues that invite reflections into the dynamics of Peranakan self regard through our habits of spectating. The fingerbowls and the handkerchiefs sit silently, but saliently, as metaphors of change and cycles, from the utilitarian, to the symbolic, to commodity, to relic. The narratives prompt us to consider popular representations of the community in relation to its contemporary and evolving constitution.
|
