she became my ancestor
Present Realms showcase, Singapore Art Museum, 2022
She Became My Ancestor developed during the SAM Residencies pilot program, 2021, and was showcased at Present Realms, Singapore Art Museum / Singapore Art Week 2022. It comprised the sculpture and design work below, Baibai Survey, performance an ornate tunnel to the other side, the Everyday Devotion gathering, and a Zoom discussion.
Special thanks to Lim Yeow Ann, one of the art world's many unsung exhibition setup heroes
Special thanks to Lim Yeow Ann, one of the art world's many unsung exhibition setup heroes
everyday devotion
While folding ingots* for ancestors, the group discussed ancestor worship, ritual and cultural identity, using collected responses from Baibai Survey as prompts. At the end, attendees were guided to each fill up a Taoist seal for an ancestor and make a blind drawing, sealing an intention, message, or gift for their ancestor within the intuitive scrawl. Salty Xi Jie Ng then helped burnt all the seals, ingots and drawings.
*Ingots are typically folded from regular gold and silver joss paper for ancestors. Folding ingots for ancestors can accrue more blessings as it reflects on the devotion of the devotee-descendant.
*Ingots are typically folded from regular gold and silver joss paper for ancestors. Folding ingots for ancestors can accrue more blessings as it reflects on the devotion of the devotee-descendant.
zoom discussion
Salty Xi Jie Ng discusses her work on Chinese ancestor worship and rituals with writer, artist and anthropologist Jill J. Tan, who researches death and funeral professions. The conversation will also revolve around socially-acquired knowledge in artistic research, recruiting non-human collaborators in artmaking, and engaging unknown domains such as grieving in public.
Jill J. Tan is a Singaporean writer, artist and researcher committed to collaborative practice and multimodal exploration through games, performance and poetics. As a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Yale University, Tan studies death and dying in Singapore and works with people in the funeral industry. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Ghost Proposal, Palimpsest, Mynah, Brack, City and Society Journal, the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival anthology Film Criticism Collective 2 ( 2017) and Resistant Hybridities: Tibetan Narratives in Exile (2020). Tan is an editor at the Society for Cultural Anthropology’s Visual and New Media Review and co-runs the publication and literary collective Little Study. For more information on her practice, visit jilljtan.com.
