12th Jan - 28th Feb 2023 E-Gallery, MMU Cyberjaya
Collaborative Project by Lee Mok Yee, Okui Lala, Koe Cheng Gaik and Yeo Lyle
This traveling exhibition was shown at Batu Pahat (September 2021) and Pangkor island (December 2021), before arriving at Multimedia University, Cyberjaya.
Atrium FCM
1 Traces of Action
Leftover wood pieces from Shipbuilders
Open Studio
Material is viewed in this work as an artefact that leads us to a certain knowledge and past. As one of the four artists, Lee Mok Yee put it, "Material does not only provide a sensory experience, but also represents a collective knowledge and collects traces of actions."
The current installation was partly inspired by a project developed solo by Mok Yee in 2013, whereby he involved the local community in Pangkor island. Though that early project saw Mok Yee sculpting wood into boat miniatures, the work has gone through a process of deconstruction through this new version – detaching from any form but the original state of the found material.
In 2020, this time setting foot in Pangkor island as a group of four, the artists engaged in a collaborative investigation, which gave birth to a new work. They collected leftover wood pieces from an observed boatyard, and re-installed them in new settings; arranged on the floor, suspended in space, hung on the wall. Each presentation is site-specific, each time responding to an existing space, or rather creating a new space within space.
Meanwhile, marks from the boat production remain on the surfaces of the heavy Chenggal wood pieces. The fact that physical labour results in permanent changes on material is another example of how objects are extensions of our body.
2 From Wood to Action Camera I
During the pandemic, how do we transcend the physical experience of an installation piece to the virtual realm? How can weight and materiality be understood merely through visuals on screen? Stepping out of their comfort zones of working in direct contact with material, the artists experimented with possibilities of unveiling material qualities on screen; the object’s lightness or magnitude, the texture’s smoothness or roughness, and so on.
Taking the wood piece installation as a point of departure, the artists initiated a few footages which focus on the materiality of the wood itself - zooming in their textures, forms, and shadows. We then witness one of the artists holding the action camera, stepping in and navigating carefully into the space of the installation, and avoiding any touch with the wood pieces.
A few imperfections mark this piece, as involuntary twitches and imperfect stitches materialise in the final video. Comparable to the physical marks on the leftover wood pieces, the glitches too, are somewhat traces of the artists’ labour.
As part of their investigation in Pangkor island, the four artists also inquired information from a local master of boatbuilding, Hor Lai, who took them to the boatyard as his working environment. The comparison between one’s body and the size of the boat left a distinct mark to the artists, which inspired them to explore further the idea of scale.
The artists’ idea was to capture the body maneuvering within the half-constructed boat, hoping to portray its scale. Still under progress, the assembled wooden parts form a floating site that requires one to be extremely careful in order to walk on it, so as not to fall into the water below. Through this video, we observe as Hor Lai performs his vigilance, as he walks slowly yet with an easy manner on the construction, leading viewers to experience his “work space”.
4 Lightboxes of Rumah Haikao
In this series of photos displayed in lightboxes, the body becomes a medium to perform movements, as gates to enter memories of the past. One of the artists in the group, Yeo Lye is portrayed in the photos performing various acts of labour, based on re-imaginings of his late father and grandfather's daily routines as fisherman and boatbuilder.
Here, labour and weight are explored and felt through movement imitations, which are merely based on the subject's fragmented memories rather than his know-how on the performed tasks. "Fragmented memories", as young Yeo was never truly involved in and remained an observer while his father and grandfather worked. Thus, there is a lingering distance between the body and the actions, as Yeo performed movements familiar to his mind, yet foreign to his body.
The scenes in the photos are consistently set in and around Yeo’s family house, namely "Rumah Haikao"; one that is situated in Kampung Minyak Beku, Batu Pahat. This house was chosen as both the place where the subject exercised his bodily memories, as well as the first space of the series' showcase, as it is directly linked to the day-to-day rituals of Yeo's father and grandfather. Stories of the past embedded into this house found itself reactivated through Yeo’s bodily movements.
These photos also convey a dreamy edge, as multiple poses of the subject would be edited to appear in the same image, emphasising on the dynamic yet repetitive act of labour. Just like how memories lie between imagination and reality, viewers are left in this in-between state.
5 60
SíamThrough research in Pangkor Island, the artists unveiled the locals’ communal anthropometric unit, that is a unit system based on human body attributes and abilities. ‘Síam’ is a measurement unit which has a direct link to the human body and its proportion, and is traditionally used in boat and net-making in Pangkor Island. 1 ‘Síam’ is approximately the distance between a man’s outstretched arms, though its exact equivalent in universal measuring units such as cm is not uniform. Instead, it varies according to the specific size and proportion of the body that serves to measure.
One of the highlighted pieces in this exhibition is a video that demonstrates the act of measuring 60 Síam, which is the length required for a large net, according to local net-maker in Pangkor island, Man Nian. The subjects captured in the video are the four artists themselves, taking turns to stretch their arms so as to measure 1 Síam each, continuously in relay. The complete length of 60 Síam spans from their point of departure, the top of the town, all the way down the street to the spiral jetty.
A review on ‘Labour and Weight’ by Lee Mok Yee, Okui Lala, Yeo Lyle, and Koe Cheng Gaik by Amanda Ariawan
How we perceive the world and how we position ourselves in it depend greatly on our correlation with our surroundings; our ties to objects and spaces. Can I navigate this boat? Who inhabits this house? What can I create from these pieces of wood? We are in constant flux of measuring and figuring out our association with others, that it becomes embedded into our day-to-day lives. What is interesting is how this ontological understanding can be subjective, but also communal, culture-specific, and may be inherited from generations – as seen through the project ‘Labour and Weight.’ Initiated by four artists and cultural workers in 2020 - Lee Mok Yee, Okui Lala, Yeo Lyle, and Koe Cheng Gaik - this collaborative art research was conducted in various Malaysian sites, and delivered through a travelling exhibition, which has now arrived at Multimedia University (MMU), Cyberjaya. Gravitating towards stories from the community, the project also involves two masters; Hor Lai (boatbuilder) and Man Nian (net maker).
In Malaysia where the project was conducted, we take measuring as a very natural thing; from sensing the strength of the wind before flying a kite, to relying on a finger crease to know how much water to use when cooking rice. The casual Malaysian term “agak-agak”, which may translate to as “approximately”, indicates not an exact measurement based on official units, rather a communal understanding of a rough amount, quantity, length, or distance. This continuous awareness of estimated measurement is deeply ingrained to our body being the tool of measure itself. Equipped with senses, our body is a complex and relative instrument of measure. Thus, how our body experiences movement in space and our rapport to objects - to stand next to, lift, carry, surround, produce - would subjectively determine what is light or heavy, enough or lacking, and so forth.
This project is critical for the way it questions the body’s ever-changing role as a medium of labour. It also examines how this evolution transforms our sensibility towards different correlations - especially weightover time. Time is indeed a significant aspect to the project, as it also addresses inherited know-hows as well as bodily memories. What is the significance of labour in today’s society, in parallel to the screen culture? How can labour and measure be site-specific? These are just some of the questions inquired through the multifaceted project. The following paragraphs focus on highlighted works in the exhibition, which combine installation art, performance, mise-en-scene, photography, video and community-based practices.
The body is a measuring tape
Through research in Pangkor Island, the artists unveiled an anthropometric unit - a unit system based on human body attributes and abilities - that is used comunally by the locals. ‘Síam’ is a measurement unit which has a direct link to the human body and its proportion, and is traditionally used in boat building and net-making in Pangkor Island. 1 ‘Síam’ is approximately the distance between a man’s outstretched arms, though its conversion to cm is not uniform. Instead, it varies according to the size and proportion of the body that serves to measure.
One of the highlighted pieces in this exhibition is a video that demonstrates the act of measuring 60 Síam, which is the length required for a large net, according to local net maker in Pangkor island, Man Nian. The subjects captured in the video are the four artists themselves, taking turns to stretch their arms so as to measure 1 Síam each, continuously in relay. The complete length of 60 Síam spans from their point of departure - the top of the town, all the way down the street to the spiral jetty.
The distance between a man’s outstretched arms defines one’s world
The exhibition also displays a video recording of a participative performance involving tens of students demonstrating 60 siam. According to Okui Lala, “The idea of restaging this performance at MMU attempts to let the urban audience experience how they can use their body to construct something bigger than themselves instead of relying on a tape or a ruler. ‘Urban audience’ here refers to a mixture of students from Multimedia University (MMU) and USCI University who participated in the recorded performance.”
Weight of labour, weight of the past
In this series of photos displayed in lightboxes, the body becomes a medium to perform movements, as gates to enter memories of the past. One of the artists in the group, Yeo Lye is portrayed in the photos performing various acts of labour, based on re-imaginings of his late father and grandfather's daily routines as fishermen and boatbuilders.
Here, labour and weight are explored and felt through movement imitations, which are merely based on the subject's fragmented memories rather than his know-how on the performed tasks. "Fragmented memories", as young Yeo was never truly involved and remained an observer while his father and grandfather worked. Thus, there is a lingering distance between the body and the actions, as Yeo performed movements familiar to his mind, yet foreign to his body.
The scenes in the photos are consistently set in and around Yeo’s family house, namely "Rumah Haikao"; one that is situated in Kampung Minyak Beku, Batu Pahat. This house was chosen as both the place where the subject exercised his bodily memories, as well as the first space of the series' showcase, as it is directly linked to the day-to-day rituals of Yeo's father and grandfather. Stories of the past embedded into this house found itself reactivated through Yeo’s bodily movements.
These photos also convey a dreamy edge, as multiple poses of the subject would be edited to appear in the same image, emphasising on the dynamic yet repetitive act of labour. Just like how memories lie between imagination and reality, viewers are left in this in-between state.
Extending the body through materials
One of the most arresting pieces in the exhibition is an installation consisting of fragments of wood, displayed in an organic manner with the help of a structure. An approximate distance is kept between one piece of wood and another. Material is viewed here as an artefact that leads us to a certain knowledge and past. As one of the four artists, Lee Mok Yee put it, "Material does not only provide a sensory experience, but also represents a collective knowledge and collects traces of actions."
The current installation was partly inspired by a project developed solo by Mok Yee in 2013, whereby he involved the local community in Pangkor island in the production phase. Though that early project saw Mok Yee and collaborators sculpting wood into boat miniatures, the work has gone through a process of deconstruction through this new version – detaching from any form but the original state of the found material.
Back to Pangkor In 2020, this time as a group of four, the artists engaged in a collaborative investigation surrounding boat building as a passed down craftsmanship and skill on the island. This gave birth to new installation works; leftover wood pieces from an observed boatyard were collected and re-installed in new sites; arranged on the floor, suspended from a ceiling or structure, and hung on the wall. Each presentation is site-specific, each time responding to an existing space, or rather creating a new space within space.
Meanwhile, marks from the boat production remain on the surfaces of the heavy Chenggal wood pieces. The fact that physical labour results in permanent changes on material is another example of how objects are extensions of our body.
""During the pandemic, how do we transcend the physical experience of an installation piece to the virtual realm? How can weight and materiality be understood or sensed merely through visuals on screen?"
- Okui Lala.
Stepping out of their comfort zones of working in direct contact with material, the artists experimented with possibilities of unveiling material qualities on screen; an object’s lightness or magnitude, the texture’s smoothness or roughness, and so on.
Taking the wood piece installation described above as a point of departure, the artists began by recording the materiality of the wood itself - zooming into their textures, forms, and shadows. In the final result of the video, we witness one of the artists holding an action camera used to record the video piece, stepping in and navigating carefully into the space of the installation, while preventing himself from touching the wood pieces.
A few “flaws” mark this piece, as involuntary twitches and imperfect footage stitches are visible in the final outcome. Comparable to the physical marks on the leftover wood pieces, these glitches too, are traces of the artists’ labour.
As part of their investigation in Pangkor island, the four artists also inquired information from a local master boatbuilder, Hor Lai, who took them to the sea-side, where he is in the process of building his boat. The distinct comparison between one’s body and the size of the boat left a mark to the artists, which inspired them to explore further the idea of scale.
Thus, in a similar strategy as the previously-described video piece, their idea was to capture Hor Lai touring the artists (and the video vieweres) on the half-constructed boat. Still under progress, the assembled wooden parts form a floating site that requires one to be extremely careful when walking on it, in order not to fall into the water underneath. Through this video, we observe as Hor Lai performs his vigilance, as he walks slowly yet with an easy manner on the construction, leading viewers to experience his “work space”.
Displayed as recto-verso on a double-sided screen, the two videos also provide a compare-and-contrast between two outcomes of labour; that of the artists (the installation), and that of the local master (the boat).
Art as labour, labour as art
Finally, what might be intriguing is to question how the inquiry to labour has in fact been a great part of Lee Mok Yee, Okui Lala, Yeo Lyle, and Koe Cheng Gaik’s process in co-researching and co-producing the works. As artists as well as cultural workers, some of them maneuver between artistic expression and cultural production in their professional life. This natural switch between creation and organisation is evident throughout the process, as the artists constantly shifted roles in their teamwork. Instead of attributing roles merely based on their expertise, the responsibilities catered by each team member seemed fluid and would differ from one piece to another.
Flexibility is in fact a quality which strongly characterises ‘labour’ in the contemporary world. The rise of independent work, flexible contracts, and mobile offices enabled by technology are just some of the playing factors. The past few years however, have challenged us further to how the show must go on despite lockdowns and need for social distancing. Born at the heart of the worldwide pandemic, the project witnessed the migration from physical to virtual in the context of exhibition-making. This has altered what labour meant to the artists, as they picked up online communication tools to collaborate, and adopted the concept of hybrid showcase. From temporary physical exhibitions to a permanent blog (labourandweight.cargo.site), the project has culminated into a rich experience which lends multiple doors for the audience to access the works.
