Exhibition Review: Counting the Days
Verdict: This exhibition overcomes some of the pitfall of exhibitions of participatory art projects. Its strength lies in the stories that weave through the gallery space, it takes you through slices of life of the migrants, their experiences conveyed by set designs that unfortunately do not do justice to the stories.
From the website:
‘Counting the Days’ attempts to connect various groups of folks whom, due to different circumstances, find themselves in a state of suspension in borderlands. In creative workshops, story-sharing and discussions, these folks co-create with artists and project team in different visual media that organise and present their stories of lived (and learned) experiences.
How should we see?
I must be honest here, I have always found all exhibitions of participatory art projects to require extra viewing effort to read through (literally). Finkelpearl (2014) hits the spot in explaining the weakness of all exhibitions of participatory art projects:
…the participatory moment had taken place prior to the exhibition’s opening, so the museum audience was excluded from the most interesting and engaging element of the works.
Both the community and socially-engaged arts often use the terms project, participation, process and etc. precisely because their primary focus is not in the end product, nor is the aesthetic mainly expressed through it. Instead, they focus on a process that invites inputs, collaborations and uncertainties. It is difficult for exhibition to make viewers understand that the participation was good without some darn good documentation.
I am glad to say that this exhibition is not primarily concerned with conveying how ‘fun’ or ‘meaningful’ the process was (documentation can easily be manipulated to give any kind of impression, but the main problem is that it usually is not interesting). Instead, the exhibition was filled with stories that were told and recreated in collaboration with artists. Therefore, the way to see this exhibition is to enter the narratives on their own terms, to engage with their chosen form; which is essentially what one does at any exhibition.
A reminder: Yes you can go around ridiculing these ‘amateurish bad art’, or you can dig in for interesting uses of the forms, and expressions that may even resonate.
Narratives: Threads of Lives
There are roughly 7 spaces, not counting the informational spaces at the introduction and closing. Approximately 4 to 6 stories in various written and audio/visual forms are broken up into several parts to be read/listened/viewed as one go through the spaces. The 7 spaces with various set designs including a toilet seat depicting the only personal space of one of the stories’ protagonist, an immigration counter set up, and a scaffold made with broken furnitures, all literally and metaphorically relate to the stories.
Of the various forms of narratives, the audio, still-frame film and hand-written stories somehow impeded my focus, but they can connect with different people and I was drawn to the neatly typed fonts in the plastic folders. The moment I saw the second folder I realized that the narrative would go on and I was hooked. I was eager to know the rest of the migrant lady’s journey.
The multiple narratives served more than choices for the audience. As I progressed through the exhibition, I had an overwhelming realization that I was only reading one story among countless others. This realization mirrors the reality that we can only focus on some stories, not all. This also overcomes the problem of compartmentalization of social issues, both in real life and in gallery spaces.
This exhibition does not serve up neatly packaged migrant stories for our consumption.
Set Designs: Missed-opportunities
The unfinished look of the immigration counter and the gate feels to be incomplete rather than to be hinting at certain ambiguities. At present, it reads like a neutral narrative device that signals a certain migratory stage, which I think is a waste of money and space.
I suggest two alternatives: A) a gritty and brutal realistic look, or B) a surreal-minimalist counter inside a brightly-lid white box (think matrix). Personally I like (B) because it would fit the curatorial words of “…a state of suspension in borderlands”.
Another difficulty of exhibiting participatory art projects
A second pitfall of exhibitions of participatory art projects is that we are somehow obliged to display too many works. When exhibiting our own artwork, we can easily withdraw a painting if it doesn’t fit with the space or the concept. But in such projects, either because we have made a commitment to display everyone’s work or we want to uphold an ideal of equality, which can simplistically overrides our judgement of an appropriate use of the space.
The participatory process has unearthed too many stories and issues to fit inside this exhibition.
Closing
Curatorial strokes dominate this exhibition, mediating between the participants and the viewers. It does not seem to strive for equality or equal representation of every single participant.
Yet, walking out of the exhibition, I felt connected to a couple of narratives I followed. I think this impact is better than most exhibitions of participatory art projects I have visited. The parallels of multiple narratives also conveyed to me the countless lives hidden in this city. As someone who strives to be concerned for migrant populations, I felt my eyes opened through this exhibition.
