Tell us about your journey as an artist

Like most Asian families, mine wanted me to study the most sought-after professions. Despite holding a Master's in business and economics, I managed to wriggle in my creative ambitions by going into advertising, but as I climbed the corporate ladder, it became evident that it was a profit, margins and numbers game and less about the creative process. 

I went to art school in my late 30s having no clue how it was going to pan out, but knowing that I have a deep love and curiosity for the arts. Art is the language that lets me express various layers of my identity and life experiences.

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How did the idea of drawing with a vibrator come about? 

It was a chance outcome while exploring a drawing practice involving machinic technologies. It was fated—my deliberations of my own relationship with sex and the desire to challenge the materiality of these pleasure bullets (vibrators). So here I am! This is my ikigai.

What were people's reactions when you first started using vibrators in you art? 

My work is usually met with a sense of bewilderment, sometimes with disgust. But I also have had mothers thanking me for taking this liberal stride, emboldening their daughters to take charge of their sexual desires.

As a society, we don’t openly talk about women’s pleasures unless it is to shame them or for capital gains. It is changing though, with the younger generation being more receptive to these concepts.

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Tell us about your choice of using mixed mediums and unconventional tools. Is the medium the message?

For the 'Her Pleasure' series, it was important for me to express the sounds and movements of the vibrators and therefore the use of moving images as a medium.

The unconventional drawing tools I attach to vibrators for mark-making are symbolic metaphors for women’s domestication and women’s labour. What kind of outcome would I get if I made an assemblage that looks like a vulva using a Daiso toothbrush holder, a kitchen scrubber and a pleasure bullet?

Layering and appropriating genres across Eastern and Western art canons are recurrent features in your practice. What inspired this? 

Art-making for me is an organic process. A lot of times it is about chance, flow and play. As a practicing Buddhist, I believe in process philosophy—an ontology of becoming that prioritises changes and movements. Reading is as important as play in my process. What happens in the studio while making art is my own world and I have complete freedom to create as I please. 

When I first started making marks with vibrators, I would use black ink and rice paper as a surface, reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy. The sexism in Chinese calligraphy became a point of research. Women calligraphers never made it mainstream and were criticised for showing aggression with strong gestures. Women calligraphy had to be neat, delicate, elegant. It is not just about calligraphy, but the behavioural expectation that permeated across time and all aspects of society. 

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The concept of the assemblage and American professor Donna Haraway’s cyborg identity are at the heart of 'Her Pleasure'. Could you tell us more about this?

The 'Her Pleasure' series is all about reclaiming space for female sexual pleasure in a society that does not give it any importance. It can be a strange coupling—the human body and the vibrator, but these kinds of assemblages of body and machine are what make us cyborgs. A cyborg identity provides us a way out of dualisms and fixed gendered roles. 

Donna Haraway ends her essay beautifully with the line 'I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess' and it speaks much about women’s identities—either goddesses or sluts, there is no middle ground. Stop chasing that perfection. Perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect everything… The best way to circumvent systems of age old patriarchy and androcentricity is not by being the praised goddess or 'girl-next-door' but by embracing imperfection and partial identities. 

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You mentioned reading and research as important aspects of your creative process. Based on your observations, is there a gap between Western academic theories and research and the lived realities of women in Southeast Asia?

I wouldn’t call it a gap. I can relate to Gayatri Spivak, Aihwa Ong and Sara Ahmed as much as I can relate to Donna Haraway, Amelia Jones or Silvia Federicci. Sometimes you don’t need big research, you can get all the information you need through the lived experiences of your female friends and acquaintances. For 'Membawang', I relied heavily on the conversations and experiences of my female kin. Lived experiences are as important as research papers, if not more; they are probably the foundation of the research.  

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Tell us about ‘Membawang’. Why did you choose to explore gossip in particular? 

It was during the pandemic that we all realised the importance of human connections. I was also thinking about women’s solidarity and their missed opportunities of connection. I picked on the trope of gossip, which is grossly misunderstood today and decided to upturn its meaning by bringing it to its original form—a gathering where women exchange knowledge, create memories and encourage each other. Unfortunately gossip has a bad reputation, but this begs the question, who defines gossip and why is it defined this way?

This was the starting point for 'Membawang'—a series of three short videos that borrow situations and problems from lived realities and marry these with feminist concepts of the cyborg, creative feminine energies, regional anecdotes and stories of womanhood.

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Do your works have influences from the places you live? How would you describe your body of work in Malaysia?

I think every place has its challenges. These challenges bring me closer to understanding my own resistances and society at large. In Malaysia, I have been fortunate to find an encouraging community of like-minded people. Suma Orientalist was one of the first galleries that gave me an opportunity to showcase. Since then, I’ve found ongoing support from the Backroom KL, Ilham, and Temu House.

What are your hopes as a female artist in Southeast Asia?

Our strength lies in numbers, being supportive of each other and creating opportunities will lead to even better work. And since everything is always changing, it is up to us to cyborg our way out of it.

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