Wednesday 17 December 2014

10 Questions with | Euginia Tan

1. Tell us about yourself in a sentence.
I volunteer as tribute.

2. How did you end up in Curating Lab?
I've volunteered.... as tribute.

3. What has been your ________ moment of Curating Lab so far?

funniest moment is taking screenshots of all our group's discussions.
without them knowing.
they know now.
























4. What is it like being a poet in a curating programme?

fleeting curating haiku;
mastering facebook -
indomitable hell

Yes I'm one syllable too long.

5. Tell us about your work with Latent Spaces.

I just joined Latent Spaces not long ago really. And I don't know much about my bosses... they slip me my assignments in abandoned briefcases by dark stairwells, in code, and I have three days to decipher them or they send me a random torn page from my first book, day by day.....

Just kidding. I'm working with them for their Art Stage project.

6. What should I look out for at the collaboration with Art Stage?
Latent Spaces is doing a collaborative piece in an attempt to capture conditions of art production, 60 local artists have contributed to a collective piece of work titled Economy. Each invited artist has created one fridge magnet which will be strategically arranged in a grid on a single metallic panel. All artists’ contributions will be sold as a complete set of one edition at the art fair. Our Curating Lab participants Melvin and Bernice have contributed their works to this. Also our mentor Heman Chong but he’s already too famous so don’t put a link on his name.

Latent Spaces will also be selling Potong ice cream at Art Stage 2015, which has been an ongoing business venture they initiated at Haw Par Villa to help fund the daily operations of their gallery. The project, going by the tongue in cheek moniker Potong Ice Cream $2 has commissioned artist Ang Song Ming to create a catchy jingle for the booth in its spirit of effervescence.

7. What are you up to at present? / What’s next for you?
Junoesq is a new literary journal set up by Singaporean poet Grace Chia Krakovic, for female writers. I read at their launch in SWF. Here’s a link to my work:
http://www.junoesq.com/?p=332
From the same gods that willed the births of Ulysses, The Waste Land, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, please allow my third book to happen.

8. Favourite book.
The Outsiders by S.E Hinton.

*MEANINGFUL BACKSTORY SPOILER ALERT* I first picked this book up when I was nine, and I always assumed Hinton was male. Later on in another of her books, Some of Tim's Stories, I read an interview in which they referred to her as Susie. And I realized Susie was S.E Hinton herself. Here's an excerpt of the interview:

Q: Your given name is Susan Eloise. How did you become S.E.?
A: My publishers asked me if they could just use my initials because of the subject matter. They thought if reviewers picked up The Outsiders and saw that a girl had written it, they would read it with bias. The initials sounded great to me. I liked having a public name and a private name. At first, the reviewers would mention that a young man had written the book, but after a while I wasn't a secret. I was on television; I was on radio.

I'm not sure if this was the rationale behind J.K. Rowling's initials as well, but I like to think that it is. From a very young age finding out about this bias made me very aware about looking at work objectively, and this also heavily impacted me producing work as a female writer. People often neglect the fact that emotions are general consensus, applicable to anyone, they are not gender based. But we continue to be victims/bullies to a flawed imbalance that society has set. As a poet this gives me great room to build on that.

9. Favourite artwork.
Guernica, Pablo Picasso, 1937. Oil on canvas.

10. Favourite local art space.
Latent Spaces..... thanks for the raise, Kaifeng and Kaiqun.

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