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Mike Chang
Artist Statement:
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Orbital Curtains is a kinetic installation that occupies the center of the shop space at Design Orchard. The installation consists of two circular tracks and automatic curtains traveling continuously in loops. In response to the idea behind The Non Season, the work is inspired by rotation of the Earth around the Sun.
Earth’s rotational axis has 23.5 degree of tilt on its axis. It is the reason why earth has four distinct seasons as the earth travels around the sun. Singapore sits near the equator therefore its climate is not affected by the tilt. The sun is always high up in the sky year round in Singapore regardless of seasons. This phenomena creates uneasy friction because the fashion industrial complex requires labels and companies to continuously produce collections for the upcoming winter or summer. Whereas in Singapore we always either dress for the warm weather or for air conditioned spaces.
The central motif for the project is the circle itself: if we were to reframe ourselves from the Western centric or Northern Hemisphere centric "four seasons" fashion cycles, then we should beware of the model of concentric circles. Instead, we should shift toward localized circles or cycles. Meanwhile, the curtain has association with notions of change (as in fitting room), changing scene, to start, and to end (in theater), as well as the demarcation between inside and outside (architecturally and spatially).
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On view from 17th March to 10th April 2022.
Artist's Previous Works:
About the Artist:
Mike HJ Chang is a Taiwanese American artist and educator in fine arts. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts, both in the USA. Chang currently resides and works as an artist and art educator in Singapore.
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Chang’s process involves a curiosity towards conventions of seeing, resulting in shapes, forms and objects that claim a presence of their own. The impression given is of an alien observing and processing a landscape for the first time. Past projects such as Dog and Butterfly, Pilots and Suppose there is A combines architecture, furniture, and painting that reference spatial configuration such as Plato’s Cave, cinematic spaces, and the mechanism of the camera obscura. Chang questions what is seen and what is doing the seeing. We are given tools and conventions of seeing that may measure our sense of the world but can actually become instruments of distortion. The artworks explore ways of playing with these instruments rather than be subjected to them.
Chang’s works evoke an atmosphere of humor and at times of melancholy and their natural handmade texture avoids any sense of clearly defined forms. This characteristic embodies his artistic exploration of optical mechanisms that process our visual formulation, which are signaled by his use of playful images and objects.
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Chang’s recent solo exhibition Calendar of Dilation at Yeo Workshop deals with notions of disorientation, time dilation, seasickness, and the need for new markers and tools to locate oneself in this peculiar time.
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Socials:
Instagram: @booboatship
​Website: http://www.theatercats.com/
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