ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Sewing is an ancient practice, a traditional craft. Living in our growing industrial age where everything moves at such a fast pace, I use sewing as a method to negate this. What I seek to emphasise is the practice’s need for slowness and patience to create a link and balance between the past and present. As our environment is changing rapidly, many new buildings are being erected at a rapid pace and, simultaneously, many others are disappearing in the blink of an eye. The speed at which urban development is occurring has left many inhabitants feeling anxious and uneasy.

In more recent years, the concept of returning to the hand-made and more manual modes of making, as well as opting for a slower pace in life has become increasingly popular. I think this is because we have found familiarity with our history and culture, which has in turn aroused feelings of nostalgia towards our past.

Our culture should exist everywhere around us, from what we see to what we feel of our surroundings. It should be captured on our streets, architecture, arts, crafts and should indirectly affect us and our thoughts and values. If visual evidence of our culture diminishes, this loss should provoke us to question what else we can believe in, who we are as a society, where we’re from and which direction we’re likely to go toward in the future.

As a result of the demolition of traditional buildings due to urban development, my use of needlework aims to reproduce their visual qualities in order to preserve and to save them. To do so is to maintain their memories and the warmth that they once provided to their communities.

I like repeating small units of artworks in a large format, because whole structures such as these allow us to feel the process of life, asking us to get closer to it. It gives us strength.

I try to preserve time and memories in a slower way, by sewing together aspects of our culture. The precision and process of needlework, to me, mimics the flow of time. Piecing together each piece of thin black thread by weaving them together and breaking and re-linking them reflects the continuity of the thread of life. Each line that I make represents a story that builds atop of another. Every motion records my life and my emotions; these lines are like the lines that connect people and memories to one another. As time goes by and our bodies move, they become thicker and deeper.

—Yim Yen Sum, Artist, 2021