kangen

/verb/ to miss. to long for.

"Kangen" was created in response to my surroundings. Living alone in ametropolitan city, locked down at the hands of COVID-19, over 800km away from my family.

Kangen is an interactive, virtual work which explores the idea of home, particularly that of a childhood house, and the fractured yet enduring memories associated with such spaces. Kangen – meaning to long for or miss something habitual/repetitive – explores an immigrant household, with its fusion of Indonesian and English language and furnishing. Each door, each entryway, each sliver of conversation, each glimpse into this space portray the many components which make up a “home” and live on through memories beyond the physicality of the site.

The first hidden doors are the doors of my family home, providing access to the 6 main rooms of the house; 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet and the front door. These slight openings were based off photographs taken from facetime and zoom, providing solace while I was here and they were all there. These are followed by the actual physical appearance of the doors themselves. From the outside, they may all look the same, cut from the same wood, yet from the inside they show their true character, a succinct description of the inhabitant. Doors are simultanously an extrance and an exit, an intermediary between space, a shift in context.

The following section explores the house as a whole entity. As you move your cursor around, different windows become illuminated. In the same moment, audio can be heard; the layered conversations I have had with the inhabitant of that room over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some rooms, it may only be two voices; my self and the individual. In others it may be a collection of voices to indicate it is a shared space.

Finally, the publication of sheet music contains a notation of the "key knock" used by my family members to indicate when it is safe to open the door, due to the dangerous neighbourhood we live in. In the following staves are portions of text messages sent between family members, not only over 2020 but since moving interstate to live alone, with no connection to my new home. These messages are written in both indonesian, my maternal language, and english. "Kangen" is a word we used frequently, whether we were just checking in on one another, or updating each other on quotidien affairs.

intreo

exitus

"Intreo/Exitus" are two works which speak of the parallels between the ritual of baptism and burials. The gowns in “Intreo” are referenced from personal, family, baptismal gowns while the 50 clothing combinations in “Exitus” are each items of clothing worn by attendees to the funeral of a grandparent. The work seeks to explore the connections clothing has to events and the memories which they hold or their arbitrary nature to an onlooker.

sizes ranging from 210mm X 297mm to 420mm X 594mm. 2020.

The celebrations commence when the clocks strike 3 and 6! Click on the hands to move them!

Listen to the city come alive!

Raise the flag with pride!

Fancy a gondola ride?