BUNKER
Installation
Comforter (2023)
found and hand-treated sheep wool, biodegradable PVC, metal eyelets
114 x 118 x 2cm
BUNKER is a site of intersection between a survival bunker and kink pen. Acting as a porous conduit between their subjective sites of sensuality, Weixin Quek Chong and Léann Herlihy collaboratively manifested BUNKER out of a need for practical desirability. Function fondles form.
Gagging on apocalyptic paranoia—from the ongoing global pandemic to personal existential crises which engulf us—can one seek solace and safety from the comfort of their very own padded panic room? Luxuriating in the masochism of fear and indulging in the impulse to hoard-as-protection, one may almost asphyxiate in the fantasy of self-constructed safety; a dog-eat-dog world where the less-precarious can play at dominating an out-of-control reality.
This social practice of ‘self-perseverance’ tends to have a hasty halting effect: the cognitive recognition that a government will not protect you is prematurely anchored by a lack of depth due to the implicated de-prioritisation of collective scale action—that is, the point at which preparing for the potential risks brought about by environmental, economic and/or societal damage supersedes the more important task of advocating for structural and revolutionary change.
Based on and carrying forward enduring aesthetic and conceptual themes in both Léann and Weixin's work, BUNKER alludes to the paradoxical desires for escape and containment for safety.
BUNKER (2023) was exhibited during Singapore Art Week as part of the exhibition It’s Just Art Luv curated by Chand Chandramohan and Racy Lim.
Photographs by Niamh Barry.
Gagging on apocalyptic paranoia—from the ongoing global pandemic to personal existential crises which engulf us—can one seek solace and safety from the comfort of their very own padded panic room? Luxuriating in the masochism of fear and indulging in the impulse to hoard-as-protection, one may almost asphyxiate in the fantasy of self-constructed safety; a dog-eat-dog world where the less-precarious can play at dominating an out-of-control reality.
This social practice of ‘self-perseverance’ tends to have a hasty halting effect: the cognitive recognition that a government will not protect you is prematurely anchored by a lack of depth due to the implicated de-prioritisation of collective scale action—that is, the point at which preparing for the potential risks brought about by environmental, economic and/or societal damage supersedes the more important task of advocating for structural and revolutionary change.
Based on and carrying forward enduring aesthetic and conceptual themes in both Léann and Weixin's work, BUNKER alludes to the paradoxical desires for escape and containment for safety.
BUNKER (2023) was exhibited during Singapore Art Week as part of the exhibition It’s Just Art Luv curated by Chand Chandramohan and Racy Lim.
Photographs by Niamh Barry.
Comforter (2023)
[detail shot]
Cot (2023)
camper cot, biodegradable PVC, metal eyelets, nylon rope
195 x 65 x 45cm
Cot (2023)
[detail shot]
Cot (2023)
[detail shot]