D.E.A.R.

I moved to this place after poly but before army i think, i can't remember. When I first chose this room, it was actually the attic (3 storey house) that I shotgunned because my siblings were lazy to see the house. It is the biggest room in the house, and its awesome to have an entire level to do whatever with it.

The brass lantern lights in my room were salvaged from my old house, hand polished and restored by me. I like to work with my hands and build my own things. If I were to leave to go abroad for a long time, I would take my toolbox. Because those are the things I use the most. With that I can build and repair anything.

'Home' is now a place where I can be myself and be comfortable, a space where I can do anything I want. Also not just because I went overseas, but because I also hang around a lot with travelers and 'worldly' people.

------

Name: Jon

Occupation: Art management

Hyein : I think especially my bed represents me, did you see my bed messed up? it looks like it is messed up with no order, but I think it has a kind of order that only I can notice.

H : And a favorite memory of my room... actually I changed the structure of my room once... maybe a year ago? before that I felt kind of depression, but after that I was like reborn. My works and feelings became so fresh and encouraged, absolutely.

So I love my room now. I've never thought a influence my room gave before that, now I'm fully agreed to some kind of that power everybody say.

Me : When you go abroad, does your room remind you of 'home'?

H : Yup absolutely my room is my home itself... when I'm out, I relatively often recall a picture of my room and that gives me help. That soothes me I think, it's like an escape when life is busy.

------

Erin : I will ponder about this question, and I feel that my house in China is "home". Here, although I spend most of my free time at home, I treat it as simply a place to sleep.

Me : A place to sleep? E : A place to put my belongings. This feeling could be due to not having my family members around, or something else. It feels...

M : Let's say if you do not share the flat where you are currently staying, if you have the space all to yourself, would you still have the same idea?

E : Yes...

M : Because you don't have family members around.

E : Yes, and because I attend classes everyday. But back home it's different. It feels like I'm returning "home", and I feel really comfortable and can truly relax, and I can do what I feel like doing. Here, I would have to attend classes everyday, or I would think about day-to-day issues.

------

M : In whichever country you go to, after you return, do you look at your original house with a different idea or perspective? Do you experience any changes? For instance, now you are in Singapore, and when you return to China, do you feel...

E : I would feel familiar, I would feel like I've never left. 

M : Would that be when you return home, you discover things you hadn't known about yourself, like what is different?

E : I will think about the "me" when I'm leaving this place, and how i was like before I left home and compare where have I changed, what I've gained and how did it come about... 

------

Me : How has your idea of home changed after living in different places? 

Hanqing (HQ) : It's become something quite transient, I don't know if it is a good or bad thing to actually have a home. I think people are used to having a place to call home and it is about effectiveness - home is where the heart is stored and where problems can go away. However there is a different type of people now who don't necessarily have an anchored home and are perpetually on the move. Mine is something in between and possibly closer to the latter. If you define where your home is, it comes back to kick you and it offends people in each place you exist.

For example, my extended family back home think that China is no longer home to me, and they surmise that the "opposite" is true, that Singapore, where I grew up, is home. What happens when Singapore doesn't feel like home, then? A home isn't something sitting around waiting for you to come home to; it changes without you knowing and that can be quite surprising.

This question is slightly odd because I have never lived permanently in a place so there is no before and after. Growing up half my parents weren't Singaporean and I would fly to China by myself every now and then. So the idea of home probably was hinged upon the HDB flat I shared with my family, a very practical location where memories were created but not necessarily stored. You pick up different homes along the way, I suppose the only change is that I realise now that you can escape to homes you have never been - seek solace from other cultures and locations. Maybe Iceland feels like home and you've never been there, that's cool too.

———

A collection of maps are plastered on Hanqing's wall in her room in London. These are maps from all the various places we have traveled to together. It was like living a nomadic lifestyle, waking up each day to find myself in a new room. Which was pretty exciting at first, but at a certain stage of the journey I found myself yearning to retreat to my room back in London. 

I've tagged every room we stayed at, and It's interesting to see how the layout of each room seemed to match up with the owner's personality. I wonder what it means for a person with a nomadic way of life, how no specific place would serve to represent him or her.

HQ : Every time I return home my grandfather and I would set up my bed in the living room. It's always the same bed and even though there are years and years between my visits everything about the room is immediately familiar. The bed creaks in the same way and even the plants seem to be frozen in growth. It took me a long time to realise that everything in my grandparents house is not only well cared for but also made of really good quality like things were in the old days - you got furniture for wedding gifts and they stayed with you till you're in your 80s like my grandparents are. Even my grandparents are still in great shape. I'm not. 

M : Which item in your room do you think best represents you? 

HQ : The messy bedside table (which is literally a stool I have reappropriated) because I'm way more crap at keeping my things safe and secure and immaculate. I have everything that is permanent in my life on the bedside table - a planner, a Muji notebook, my sweet ass iPhone, the charger - as well as some other rotating cast members, like a good book I'm currently reading, a hair scrunchie, tissue to fight the hay fever. So yeah, the mess represents me. I come and invade this room and I absorb all the unconditional love and I leave, constituted of parts that keep shifting around and fucking up. Once in a while i get to go somewhere safe like here to get sorted out and clean my act up. 

———

Me : It's tough collecting the data for this project. Friend : No, it sounds easy enough to do. M : You don't get it, I've sent out a request to loads of people but I'm garnering so few responses... I feel like dropping this project. F : Why do you need so many? Just concentrate on those who are interested.  M : I think i need to curate the responses that I want. F : Then what exactly are you trying to achieve from this project?

... ...

F : Lately I've been feeling upset. M : What about?  F : That I'm losing my connections with all the friends that I've made in the past... it really saddens me... Each of them slowly moving away, becoming like strangers once again. It makes me think about my foster family, how I wish they were in the room with me, watching me as I dance to the telly when I was a little girl, and what I've achieved since then as a full time dancer.

... ....

I've been thinking about my method of acquiring data for this project. So far, I've been using online media such as Facebook, e-mails and mobile messaging to collect images and stories from others. However I feel that it has been lacking a personal touch, something that can only be felt through one-to-one interaction in person. 

1. Room in London

1a. The most significant thing in my London room is the décor that I built for my desk. After travelling with my flat mate across Europe, we were so inspired by the rooms that we had couchsurfed at that we immediately started revamping our rooms after we got back. I’ve attached notes and letters from friends, and quotes as well. The one I like most is an excerpt of an interview with Stanley Kubrick on mortality. It seems almost ritualistic that I glance at it from time to time when I’m working at my desk. 

1b. What I miss most about my room in London is admiring the view of our garden from my window. It’s like a painting that transform over time through the seasons. We’ve had BBQs, picnics, watched a movie (using a projector and a bed sheet draped over the clothes line), had a poetry recital, shot fireworks in the garden on New Years eve, and enjoyed lazy afternoons lying on beach chairs.

2. Current room in Singapore

2a. Since returning from London, I currently share a room with my eldest sister. I sleep on a slide-out mattress beneath her bed. Nothing much has changed during the 3 years that I was away, except it seems to contain more junk that we can’t seem to get rid of. I have always been envious when someone tells me they have their own room. I used to share a room with my parents till I turned 16, and moving into a room with my sister is considered a big step-up for me. Well, that is till I had my own room in London. I miss having my own privacy and decorating the space as I see fit. Also, adapting to an independent lifestyle abroad has left me yearning for a space of my own. 

2b. This room used to be my grandmother’s room until she passed away. Most of the items in this room belong either to her or to my sister. This wooden trunk that sits on top of the bookcase contained all of her possessions when she sailed from China to Singapore on a junk boat. My mom tells me it is at least a hundred years old. I wonder what it must have felt like making that journey into a foreign land, with a chest full of hope and dreams of a better life.

Perhaps I already know how it feels like, when I made the decision to travel abroad for my studies. While the experience didn’t meet my expectations of an education abroad, it has changed the way I think about and approach design. I used to have this perception that the environment was holding me back from producing good work, stifling my creativity. But after returning back home, I wish to change this mindset and to encourage others as well. 

------

As Ana Rodić’s online residency with D.E.A.R comes to an end, she shares her reflections with Something Human.

SOMETHING HUMAN: In your previous performance with MOVE W I TH (OUT), you have been interested in themes of connectivity and location. Could you please tell us more about the ideas in this project, and its relationship with your personal experiences?

ANA RODIĆ: It is all about communication and networking. It is important to be part of one's chosen networks, if you are dropped or you fall off from the network, you are alone, and your chances to survive are lowered.

In this project I was playing with the connection between people and spaces. As a digital character, I was doing stuff I have never done in person. I was faking becoming part of chosen social classes that I don’t belong to and I was enjoying the company of people I don’t know in real life. That was the adventure: faking, having fun, stealing...

SOMETHING HUMAN: As a writer first, how did you approach storytelling through stolen images and your own alter ego? What is the challenge in storytelling with visual material?

ANA RODIĆ: People love to look at pictures. They have less and less concentration for reading or watching videos - it is sad, but true. So I decided to play and to see if I could tell a story by posting pictures without words. And of course, it can be done. You can be funny and smart if you have something to say. It is not about the way you are going to say it, it is about what you have to say.

SOMETHING HUMAN: What process did you follow in choosing each entry and the look of your avatar, and why?

ANA RODIĆ: When you tell stories through pictures, the images must be very precise in style, colours and their  atmosphere. On this aspect I worked closely with my friend and co-worker on this project:  the Art Director Jelerna Grahovac.

Jelerna Grahovac: It was a challenge to visualise the digital Ana via pixel art. Ana is a really vivid and colourful character, so it was also very inspirational. My challenge in storytelling with visual materials was to find a meaningful abstract level, which yet contained touches of humor, silliness and absurdity. I adored this alter ego's trip, because it was like giving Ana's avatar another life to live, or two, or three … moreover, this was a kind of the freedom she had, to be somebody else, to see and to try different things. It was also liberating, especially when we all live half/slave lives. I felt a little of that freedom through Ana’s alter ego. In addition, I played a bit of "Let's Dress-up Ana" - a game I always loved when I was a little girl. The inspiration for themes and outfits were linked to Ana’s interests however I fed in with my ideas for each occasion on how Ana should look like.

SOMETHING HUMAN: Your residency lasted for three moths. What impact did this experience have on your practice as an artist?

ANA RODIĆ: Every experience is a kind of new “school”. It is always the adventure that tickles your curiosity, you take all your knowledge and jump bravely into something new. Rules are always shifting as time changes. It was a challenge to play with Facebook as your own media platform, to feel people reactions trough their comments and the speed of their likes. Also it was interesting to post on Tumblr first and then post chosen images on Fb to see if they are opening discussions or people were only looking at the images. Are Tumblr and Instagram new Fb? Is it all about lack of concentration, or the lack of the time?

SOMETHING HUMAN: You have just published a new book, what other projects do you have in the pipeline?

Room Revisited is an online art project by artist Calvin Tan, presented as Something Human’s fourth D.E.A.R. residency and will take place between August and October 2014.

"Everyone tells you about the culture shock of leaving, but no one tells you about the 're-culture shock' upon returning." Returning after living abroad for three years, the idea of reconnecting back to my place of origin is a strange feeling. Having adjusted to a way of living while overseas, adjusting again to life back home feels odd. I wonder if is the same case with people who have been constantly on migration, without a fixed "home". (Calvin Tan)

 Over a period of two months, the artist will investigate the meaning of ‘personal space’ with regards to the lives of migrants, and how people negotiate the transition between places when returning ‘home’.

 The project is generated from both the artist’s personal experience and the reflection on the themes addressed by Something Human nomadic project MOVE W I T H (OUT), that focuses on the shifting meanings of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ for migrating people.

 Starting from the place of his own ‘bedrooms- sanctuaries’ in London and Singapore, in ‘Room Revisited’ Calvin Tan will explore the potentialities of the D.E.A.R. online platform both as a networking tool and a personal creative blog. The artist will create a network of image and text-based interviews that engage other people who returned home after having lived in different countries, in order to investigate the role of private spaces such as bedrooms in their own lives.

Then suddenly she started to get some strange errors.

It was at the same time, when my life started to be fabulous, again.

…and my book is coming out. 

Mixed up emotions…