- Documentation of process pages
- Documentation images of finalized piece
- Written statement outlining my ideas/ intentions with this piece
My intentions when creating this piece was to juxtapose the meaning of military to me. I decided to use the military grade canteen (water bottle) so as to represent a memory that I had whilst in the military of the ‘water parade’ ceremony that we had to partake in twice a day as a ritual done in our respective battalions. As mentioned in my process pages that I have included in this post, the water parade ceremony was not a good memory of the army that I had. I remember feeling as though it was a very involuntary act, just like the National Service in general in Singapore. Reciting the core values of the Singapore Armed Forces whilst being made to drink the water in the bottle was a symbol of indoctrination in my eyes. I created a sticker of Singapore’s skyline on the front of the army green bottle so as to showcase the beauty of my country, a vision for why we must serve or rather why we are made to serve, which is in order to protect our cityscape. On the back of the army green bottle I placed another sticker that I tried to make look like a label of an ordinary water bottle however I substituted the ingredients for the eight core values- (discipline, care for soldiers, professionalism, safety, ethics, fighting spirit, loyalty to country and leadership). On the other bottle, my intentions were to juxtapose the military. The words that I associate with military are standardization, strict regime as well as conformity. These were words that I wanted to contradict on the other bottle. I remember once having my sketchbook taken away from me during a routine search as drawing, even if it were during my leisure/ recess time was seen as effeminate which was linked to a sign of vulnerability in the eyes of the military. This was something that I could not wrap my head around. There was no area left for individuality. We were all made to conform to a certain ideology and way of thinking where there was no room for any objections. My implications therefore were to show how appealing and aesthetic the bottle could be as a metaphor for if they allowed us to grow naturally in our own areas. The flowers are a symbol of growth and beauty from our ‘own’ water that we are drinking out of the bottle not the water that holds these core values that were forced into our systems.
- A written reflection on the Bridge
The most challenging aspect of this bridge project was to create a piece that evokes emotion from within, often it is difficult to not look at the technicalities that a piece has to compromise and delve into myself to find the true implications behind my piece. One aspect that I found surprising throughout the making and conceptualizing process was thinking of what material to use an emblem for the military, I was trying to think of a first hand experience that I had faced and base it off of that in order for me to evoke more emotion within my piece itself. A few things that I have taken back from the critique that we had in class of my work was the ideas of juxtaposition between my piece, how I could have used the same color of bottles so as to maybe show standardization. It was good to hear the dialogue and conversation as I got to see how my peers as well as professors felt while looking at my work. I felt as though the meanings that I was trying to convey were successfully reached. I feel as though I successfully showed juxtaposition as I had two of the same bottles with very different markings done by them and placed them side by side. What may have been unsuccessful was probably the sticker quality, for some reason the UV print on the transparent sticker was a little blurred out and so the edges were not defined very distinctly. If I were to make any changes to this particular piece of work I would probably redo the front sticker, making it larger in size and maybe position it higher onto the surface of the bottle.
Additional thoughts/ feelings/ take-aways
I enjoyed this bridge project as it gave me the chance to look back at a very recent experience of mine and work through some of the ideas that I had running about in my head. I strongly believe that art is a form of expression and it was almost like therapy working on this project for me as it gave me time to reflect and speak about a wide range of topics and feelings that I had.
