Tina Lam

(0:00 - 3:52)

Sendy-Loo Emanuelle: Hi Tina.

Tina Lam: Hello Sendy-Loo.

SLE So, today we're here to discuss about your art piece. So, the first question that I had was can you explain the concept of your piece?

TL: It actually started many many years ago, all the way perhaps to my childhood. My parents are Cambodian Chinese refugees and they experienced a lot of trauma during the war and so they were always afraid of nature. So when we grew up I had this kind of vigilance where I was afraid to touch things because they would always tell me it'll kill you, it'll hurt you, it'll harm you. 

So, I always approached nature indirectly-through observation. I would imagine a lot. I would try to think logically about things, but somehow that didn't address how I wanted to be in contact with the mysteries of the universe. 

And so much later on, although I grew up in cities like most of my life, where there was a lot of light pollution, meaning that you cannot see stars and you almost cannot see darkness at night. At the age of 21 with friends we went hiking and that was the first time that I saw the Milky Way with my eyes. And that's the kind of experience where you somehow feel small but like you suddenly belong to something much greater than you. 

And that just overwhelming sense of belonging to like the darkness that surrounds us, I felt like it was a kind of comfort for me. So I always returned to these moments and then try to go back into forests now and try to deal with the fear that I'm feeling since I'm very young and addressing that by touching things instead of looking at things. And so for me it's very important to use my hands and my body to be in contact with a natural entity. 

I'll often take a material that I call cinefoil, which is a black aluminum foil, and I use that to mold natural forms like tree trunks and branches and roots, but also large rocks and boulders and really let my body be in contact with the unknown and with something that's really unfamiliar with me. And so it's a kind of therapeutic process. I have to confront my fears, you know, the insects are still really frightening to me, but I have to spend hours and hours doing this. 

So after a while it starts to feel like I'm part of something bigger and suddenly I can feel at ease, but it's always a tension between creating, the fear, but also like the wonder and the magic of that creative process. And so I bring back these shells, these sculptural forms back to my studio and I install them in different ways so that I can be reminded of my experience of being outside, being with the unknown and the unfamiliar, and yeah, content with those tensions of ease, but also of surrender and serenity and yeah, the curiosity that you feel and also how it ebbs into like wonder and magic.

SLE: Very interesting, and I really like the way that you find different ways of connecting with nature and also connecting indirectly with yourself.

(3:53 - 6:31)

SLE: So there's that type of communication that is very interesting and I understand that your work is linked to science. How is it linked to science? Can you explain a bit more about that?

TL: Yes, so I spent a lot of years studying science, so because of my curiosity of natural phenomena, I wanted to find a way to understand the inner workings of the natural world. So I studied science for many decades and as a chemist, I try to understand how molecules interact, how things come together to make new things. 

And after many years of doing that, I wanted to go towards the opposite, which is how do things not interact? How do things never interact? And so I stumbled upon these subatomic particles, which is essentially smaller than something that's contained in an atom. They're the parts that make up the atom, so those are subatomic particles. And physicists who study these very extremely small entities call those ghost particles.

And to me, that was really interesting because the ideas of ghosts and spirit and how we bring those ideas into the scientific world, and it's widely accepted. To me, that was kind of like a breakthrough because I always thought science was really logical, but somehow in the world of physics, they love borrowing these ideas. And so these ghost particles, they're called neutrinos, and every second, about 100 trillion of them just course through your body. 

They don't interact with you, they just pass through. And for me, that was a moment of revelation that there are things in this world that can just go through you and they don't affect you, but somehow if you think about it, it's almost frightening, but at the same time, it makes you feel connected to something that's as far back as the inception or the origin of the universe. And so I love these parallels between deep time, but also the instant being in the present and being with these millions and billions of particles that just go through you. 

And so I wanted this installation that I created to make you feel like there's something hovering above you, but at the same time, it's always in suspension. It's always between falling and flying. So yeah, the idea of suspension was really important.

(6:31 - 7:53)

SLE: And we see that going from that suspension and your piece is attached to the ceiling. And what type of movement do you want to create with the piece?

TL: So the kind of movement that I always envision is when I enter a space, I always locate where the windows are, because for me, and not just for me, but for a lot of living entities, we have photoreceptors, meaning that we have certain organism or organelles or small parts of our bodies that are actually affected by light and that actually aspire towards light. So if you think about a plant, its leaves will naturally gravitate towards areas of light. 

So I'm thinking a lot about that when I enter a space. And that's why I think it's important that when I enter, the parts of my sculptures that look more like roots always go towards the light. They always want to find a way to go towards the light. 

And the other parts naturally gravitate towards an area of darkness. And that is something that all living entities need. It's that balance between growing towards the light, but also resting in darkness.

(7:54 - 10:21)

So for me, I never know before entering a place how the work will look like. And actually, I like that because it makes me discover the space and it makes perhaps the audience also conscious of how they enter a space.

SLE: And so from what you understood is that you create the piece itself in the space. Is that accurate?

TL: In some respect, yeah. I bring them into the space and I lay them out. And after finding out where the windows are, where the areas of walls are, then slowly, little by little, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. And you start placing one thing that affects another that affects another.

SLE: And tell me more about the material that you use for us to understand exactly. Because I see the different textures and it looks very fragile. And at the same time, I think it has some type of stance. It looks strong at the same time. So can you explain to us a bit more about the material that you used?

TL: So the material is called cinefoil. It's a black aluminum foil that's about 10 times thicker than what you buy to cook or to barbecue. So essentially, it will retain its shape after being molded, but it could also be collapsed back. So that to me is super interesting is that we think about a material as being unable to be malleable or to deform because as a sculpture, once it deforms, it's no longer a sculpture.

Whereas for me, I think about it the opposite way. It's actually the wrinkles and the folds that hold the piece together. So just like every time I deform it, I remold it back based on the forms of the wrinkles that are present. 

So I can read it like a skin, like you know how the folds are within the skin and I try to retrieve these wrinkles. And once the wrinkles are returned, the form is recreated. So in my studio, all of these are folded up into small little pieces. 

And when I come into a space, I refold them back so they're kind of re-sprouting again. So yeah, so that's the material. It's really unique.

(10:22 - 13:07)

TL: They use it a lot in the cinema industry to cover light or to direct light because those lamps are extremely hot. And so you need a material that will withstand fire and heat and aluminum is perfect for that.

SLE: And it's very tactile. So from what I understand, so you could even fold and unfold without seeing the piece. Like you said, you feel the textures and you can, from back to where it started and when it unfolds and takes its shape, I find that it's something that is very organic, an organic process. And would there be a sound or music that would be linked to your piece?

TL: I think a lot when I'm creating about the water that flows around me, the wind also that kind of whispers in the trees, but also I've been really influenced by Swedish doom metal, which is a kind of droning sound that seems to expand across time, but in like towards infinity. 

And you feel like you're in the presence of one sound, but that's continuous forever and then ebbs towards silence. So for me, it's kind of important that moment of silence, like always aspires towards silence, a little bit like being in a field with snow and it's not silence, it's a kind of muffled silence. So I feel like between the sound that's kind of droning and towards a muffled silence, I want this kind of suspension. 

SLE: And the piece is very large in the space, it takes almost the whole space. Was that intended when you entered the space to see where would be the windows and the walls in terms of your creation?

TL: I intended to take up at least half of the studio space, sorry, the gallery space. And the reason being that I never get to have that amount of space in my studio. 

So experimenting with space that's larger than what I'm used to, it's like entering a forest that's larger than I'm used to in a city. And so originally, I brought as many pieces as I could fit. And eventually I ended up using all of them because I felt like the work needed to breathe and take up the whole space.

(13:08 - 14:29)

SLE: And the last question that I had was, we can see the piece, but in reality, the concept that you bring forward isn't visible. I wanted to know a bit more about how is it to convey those both parallel of creating a piece that we could see, but in reality, something that is invisible to the naked eye.

TL: Yeah. So I think a lot about space and about the celestial bodies and planets and how they surround us. And yet, when we look up towards the sky, especially when you're in a city, you can never see them. And yet they are surrounding us, millions and billions of them.

And so for me, that's kind of that parallel, that the piece is big, it's massive, it has a presence, and yet the origin of it is in the void, is in the emptiness that feels like we're being surrounded in. But I think a lot about Eastern philosophy, where we have the concept of darkness, the void, but also emptiness, that are one and the same. So it's going to get a bit technical, so I want to elaborate a little bit on this.

(14:30 - 15:27)

TL: In Western philosophy, we have the concept of duality. So one thing and the opposite. Whereas in Eastern philosophy, we don't have that. 

We have a concept called paradox. So a paradox is one and the same, and they're not actually opposite. One is needed for the other to exist. 

So darkness needs to be present for light to exist. And so although you see the whole sculpture or the installation as being massive and present, it actually is intended to suggest the void and the emptiness that surrounds us. It's one and the same. 

The fullness really harkens back or points back to the emptiness.

SLE: And what is the name of your piece?

TL: The name is And the Cosmos Returns to Claim Its Place.

SLE: Thank you so much, Tina.

(15:27 - 15:29)

TL: My pleasure, Sendy-Loo.