It was my first Biennale and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I've heard of how the last Biennale in 2006 was a huge success and was maybe expecting too much. Yanping jio me so I thought 'why not?'
I've captured some photos on the interesting ones...and those that I could understand:
Operation Supermarket
Moshiri, Farhad & Aliabadi, Shirin
Operation Supermarket is a series of photographs of common daily products and food sold in Iranian supermarkets, that through digital manipulation have been given critical meanings. In both positive and negative ways, these products are symbols of our affluent and comfortable society. The meaning varies depending on the environment of the viewer.
It's up to you on how you look at it.
Teratoma II: Digmaan ng mga Mundo (Teratoma II: War of the Worlds)
New, Leeroy
Much like a science fiction writer who imagines utopias or dystopias, New's future world is full of alien beings arriving on earty , a retro nightmare of the 20th century, that allows his imagery to straddle both the past and the future, while still being caught in the concerns of the present.
It's really amzing how he installed this piece where the top of the Supreme Court shows...its like part of the installation. I believed Yanping as soon as she told me this but then she told me that she was just kidding.
Maggots
Pham, Ngoc Duong
Pham likens looking at the giant maggots as to when one peers through a microscope and sees that millimetre-sized creatures have grown in size. Under a magnifying glass, we see things for what they are: translucent, milky white creatures, each section crawling, curling, rising, and lowering with its mouth hooks piercing and tearing into tissue. Breeding in flesh, the presence of maggots signals the rotting of their host's body. This mataphor for corruption within a system is characterstic of Pham's work.
Singapore
Pimkanchanapong, Wit
Layers and layers of stickers made it so difficult for Yanping and me to locate SP. We thought we could make our mark there. Serves us right for only making our way there so late into the festival. The map of Singapore is 90% covered...so we decided that we should stick to Changi Airport.
I Wonder Why?
Prasad, Srinivasa
The room was filed with scooters, urns, benches and various sculptures and it was dark and kinda eerie. I wanted to get out of there was fast as I could. Images of fire are projected on the four surrounding walls so that it looks as if the room is a place enclosed in flames.
Bachelor - The Dual Body
Rhee, Ki-Bong
A book of philosophy floats around in this aquarium, in a closed, isolated environment. The book is made of leather so that it can endure long periods in the water The book will neither rise to the surface or sink to the bottom due to the currents of the water. His art reference the current crises of modern civilization, but he is not directy criticising the state of things. Instead, he makes perceptive allusions, using them to search for a universal sense of values that can assimilate both materialistic and spritual viewpoints.
