10 Questions with | Kenneth Loe

1. Tell us about yourself in one sentence.

Either I'm poetically pregnant or my alliteration's asunder.

2. How did you end up in Curating Lab?

I have to thank my dear friend Joleen without whom my adventure through this fantastic terra incognita would not have happened nor been possible.

3. What has been your curate’s egg moment of Curating Lab so far?

The early conceptions (pun intended) of our final project.

4. Tell us about your work with the Centre of Contemporary Art, Singapore.

I’m working on the post-exhibition catalogue for Theatrical Fields as an editorial assistant. The discursive breadth covered by the exhibition, film screenings, symposia, artist talks and roundtable discussions in Umea and Singapore is quite extensive, both within and beyond the scope of theatricality - and I assist with the accumulation, selection and editing of the material.

5. What should I know about Theatrical Fields?

That “theatricality”, while necessarily summoning associations with the oft-cited “theatrical” as derogative, can be situated and understood outside of the context of theatre and the well-made play. My reaction, albeit a little knee-jerk, when I first visited the exhibition was shock - at the absence of recognisable drama, of the “Days of Our Lives” daytime soap opera register y’know?

It was initially tenuous for me - the links between contemporary art and theatre that the project seemingly tried to draw, the notion of live bodies vs mediatized bodies still very much a contested area in performance studies and performativity, how different the strategies employed by visual art and theatre practitioners both in the past and with the advent of digital technologies are, the often separate lineages and reference points of both fields, etc. Having spent much more time with the works, I would say Theatrical Fields delves productively beyond this dichotomy by alluding to the staged realities of everyday life through its own constructed-ness of the phantasmagorical.

6. Has your understanding of curating changed since being part of Curating Lab?

Most definitely! A heightened sense of awareness for one.

Image: meetville.com

7. What are you up to at present? / What’s next for you?

We’re in the midst of preparing for the next exhibition Moving Light, Roving Sight at Ikkan Art Gallery where I work at full-time. It opens on 22nd Jan next year and is the biggest and most challenging one that I’ve been involved in to date. I’d like to imagine 2015 would be slower for me with lots of time in between projects to read.

8. Favourite poem

The End Is Near The Beginning

Yes you have said enough for the time being

There will be plenty of lace later on

Plenty of electric wool

And you will forget the eglantine

Growing around the edge of the green lake

And if you forget the colour of my hands

You will remember the wheels of the chair

In which the wax figure resembling you sat

Several men are standing on the pier

Unloading the sea

The device on the trolly says MOTHER’S MEAT

Which means Until the end.

David Gascoyne

9. Favourite artwork.

10. Favourite local art space.

Image: www.articulate.com