{"id":1365,"date":"2018-06-25T21:43:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T13:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brack.sg\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2020-01-13T21:07:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T13:07:07","slug":"brackchat-hello-session-with-wei-leng-tay-playing-with-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/2018\/06\/25\/brackchat-hello-session-with-wei-leng-tay-playing-with-form\/","title":{"rendered":"#BrackChat (Part 1): Hello Session with Wei Leng Tay \u2015 Playing with form"},"content":{"rendered":"
RESEARCHER KIRIN HENG<\/a> <\/span>VISITED ARTIST WEI LENG TAY<\/a><\/span> AT HER NINE-MONTH SOLO EXHIBITION CROSSINGS<\/a><\/span> AT NUS MUSEUM, ABOUT THE THEME OF MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT.<\/h5>\n
WEI LENG TAY IS A FORMER PHOTOJOURNALIST WORKING WITH PHOTOGRAPHY, AUDIO AND VIDEO THAT ARE MADE INTO INSTALLATIONS AND PRINTS. SHE TAKES AN ORGANIC, CONVERSATIONAL APPROACH IN HER WORK, THE IMAGES AND FORM OF HER WORK INSPIRED BY INTERACTIONS SHE HAS WITH PEOPLE SHE MEETS. THIS IS THE FIRST OF THREE INTERVIEW EXTRACTS. READ PARTS 2<\/a><\/span> AND 3<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The following is an excerpt from the interview about how Wei Leng<\/span> has been playing with the form of photography in her newer works, <\/em>transcribed by Athirah Annissa<\/span>. It has been edited lightly for clarity on 26 August 2019. <\/em><\/p>\n

All photos are from Wei Leng Tay\u2019s <\/span><\/em>website<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I still think that my work is photographic, even though in some, the image is almost entirely taken away, for example, in the work [at NUS Museum]. But it\u2019s still photographic for me, in the sense that you\u2019re hearing the objects and it\u2019s a kind of thinking about the photographic, of listening when you are hearing the objects and the kind of image that it conjures when you hear what it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nK: What made you depart from your earlier works? I understand that they were more centred around people\u2019s personal stories and photographing people rather than objects.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 W: <\/strong>In a sense my work is still the same, but the articulation is different. In terms of the form of photography, many of my earlier works are like that because all my work is documentary-based. But for many years, I became very frustrated with working with photography.<\/p>\n

I still think that my work is photographic, even though in some, the image is almost entirely taken away, for example, in the work [at NUS Museum]. But it\u2019s still photographic for me, in the sense that you\u2019re hearing the objects and it\u2019s a kind of thinking about the photographic, of listening when you are hearing the objects and the kind of image that it conjures when you hear what it is.<\/p>\n

In terms of what I have been doing for all these years: the interview, and the image, and also trying reconcile or make meaning between what is said and also what you see in the image…in that sense, maybe I\u2019ve gone more in that direction than just primarily visuals.<\/p>\n

The last [of my works before Crossings<\/em>] involved using a thirty-five-millimeter image and breaking up that image, thereby creating [different] ways of looking, but also creating ways of how audiences can intervene within the image. And then in that way, thinking about how we actually see.<\/p>\n

I guess this is because much of my works is based on talking to people, who at least might not superficially be the same as me. Every time you are dealing with people, you are dealing with someone who\u2019s somewhat the Other. It is just about how you question, think about that perception or about that kind of interaction that you\u2019re having with that person, about how you are seeing that person, or group. But I try not to do groups because I don\u2019t like [placing people into] groups.<\/p>\n

While there are multiple pieces, the several pieces that you see here [in Crossings<\/em>], including that one, is one picture. This installation has three projections, and the main projection falls on several pieces.<\/p>\n

Thus, in the case of this, when you walk through the space, you are encountering the image in different parts, and from every position you\u2019re in, you see the image in a different way. And from a different side or through a different layer.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what I was trying to do: thinking of how you break apart or pull apart an image, and how we can think about an image and ways of seeing.<\/p>\n

K: You took the theme of fragmentation on many different levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

W: <\/strong>Perhaps, yes. That work was based on four people\u2019s recollections, and the works are now perhaps more driven by the voice than the image. Previously, I\u2019d worked with images for a long time. And yet now it\u2019s driven more by the voice and the content [of what it speaks] than the visual.<\/p>\n

K: What made you choose to display everything in this certain way? Because you\u2019re in the middle of an archaeology gallery where they have these unconventional ways of display, for example, unbroken ceramics, but you chose to display broken bits of ceramics and line them along the wall\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

W: <\/strong>All my work is still photography-based. But in terms of how that fragmentation works with the space, it works on several levels in terms of talking about trade, movement, migration in that sense, but also about fragmentation of what [one has]. So in my work, [you could consider that] fragmentation, while in the object it occurs on a physical level.<\/p>\n

I guess in my works, there occurs fragmentation in terms of the voice. Fragmentation also occurs in terms of the image. Even with this exhibition format, it\u2019s fragmented in a way, or unstable. This creates a kind of instability in terms of an exhibition\u2019s changes, that you can\u2019t see if you\u2019ve missed them.<\/p>\n

This type of fleeting\u2026 [feeling like you might have] missed it [can be related to the themes of Crossing<\/em>], in thinking of how this kind of migration or this kind of movement that we have is based on the kind of changing relationships, with family, perhaps with yourself, with your life.<\/p>\n

In that sense, the exhibition works with the existing exhibition in the space.<\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RESEARCHER KIRIN HENG VISITED ARTIST WEI LENG TAY AT HER NINE-MONTH SOLO EXHIBITION CROSSINGS AT NUS MUSEUM, ABOUT THE THEME OF MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT. WEI LENG TAY IS A FORMER PHOTOJOURNALIST WORKING WITH PHOTOGRAPHY, AUDIO AND VIDEO THAT ARE MADE INTO INSTALLATIONS AND PRINTS. SHE TAKES AN ORGANIC, CONVERSATIONAL APPROACH IN HER WORK, THE IMAGES AND […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":1366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50,266],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conversations","tag-photography","tag-tayweileng"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2131,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions\/2131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}