Tik-Tik-Tik, 2023

Fabrics, threads, beads & timber pole

Dimensions Variable

Tik-Tik-Tik resembles the sound of the rain drops falling on the rooftop, the sound of the minute hand strikes, it is also the lyrics of an indonesian song sung by my domestic helper-Ana to my three-year old child at bedtime. At every passing minute while I am away from my child; she is away from her’s to care for mine.

As I juxtaposed our lives, I find the similarities between us visible yet often not considered. As women of our own minds, we have left our hometowns to discover our destinies, seeking marriage and betterment for ourselves and our loved ones. We crossed borders to foreign lands we once felt estranged from. The songs and telltales that write our stories traveled with us through continents, crossing paths-from the lush mountains of Sumatra, Indonesia to a small town in Johor, Malaysia, and across the straits of Johor to Singapore. These songs and stories were recited and shared among our children.

Through the laborious process of cutting, ironing, sewing, weaving and embroidery on fabrics, I seek to explore the woman's body as an instrument, a repository that contains songs and stories, bearing both beauty and scars. Using weaving as the main expression, which is often associated with women's natural power to create life through birth, I aim to represent the ultimate form of divine femininity, in an attempt to unite the experiences of everyday women from diverse cultural backgrounds, all of whom hold the cherished role of motherhood.