唔好俾我睇 [m4] [hou2] [bei2] [ngo5] [tai2]
Objectifs, Centre for Photography and Films
19 July – 18 August 2024
A solo exhibition of Donna Chiu
Curated by Zhuang Wubin
Chiu has always turned a blind eye to her mom, 唔好俾我睇 (“Don’t show me” in Cantonese) is her journey of realisation of her cruelty, and steps to open her eyes and heart to seek understanding. In the process of conceptualisation and art making for this project, Chiu begins to appreciate the effort and sacrifice her mom makes to deal with the unexpected reality. Chiu’s mom accepts what come by gracefully, always be contented and believes life is good as a whole.
Chiu’s work shows her misunderstanding and her attempts to see, sometimes strenuous. But no matter how hard Chiu tries, she will never be truly and fully understand what her mom has gone through. She hopes she can get closer.
唔好俾我睇 [m4] [hou2] [bei2] [ngo5] [tai2]
exhibition by Donna Chiu, curated by Zhuang Wubin
at Objectifs, Centre for Photography and Films
19 July – 18 August 2024
Sharing from Artist Talk on 27 July 2024
How it started
I come from a diasporic family. I came migrated to Singapore from Hong Kong (HK) about 30years ago and the rest of my maternal family is all over the world –
- my parents migrated to Toronto the day before the 1997 Handover, after spending more than 20 years there, they returned to HK in 2019, supposed to be for good
- my brother was the first one leaving HK. After completing his study in US, he got the Green Card and stayed there till 2017. He’s returned to HK, getting married, and supposed to be for good
- my sister and her family is the only one staying in HK all these years. They are still there
Due to the unexpected event in HK from 2019 onwards, my brother and sister-in-law have decided to move to UK. As my parents have decided to follow the son, they have also migrated to UK with them. During the transition, my parents have stayed in Singapore with me for about a year.
I’ve rarely spent more than 2 weeks with them during my adult life, so staying with my parents under one roof was quite a big impact on me. Not only I realised they have aged considerably, I also noticed a lot of tension between them which I’ve never witnessed during my younger days.
Towards the end of their stay, I had a solo exhibition in HK. Theme of the exhibition is diaspora and search of identity, I made use of my father’s migration journey and his images (including archival photos) as well as my own migration experience as source material. I always consider it as an exhibition about my father.
As there is an exhibition about my father, to be fair, I have to do one for my mother. And that’s how I started this project.
How she becomes who she is
But this project is not only as a “fair” treatment to my mom, it’s also my journey to understand her better. I was puzzled by my mom’s behaviour which I witnessed during their stay. I find it very difficult to comprehend her anger towards my dad, things which upset her are so trivial, such as him not placing the cup at the exact same spot she thought it should be, even just with 1 cm deviation. She has also become even more rigid on how things should be done, and lifestyle which does not follow her very disciplined and routine schedule is strange.
And our relationship has become tensed, and we quarrelled at time. And she’s always the one who apologised to me.
I don’t know what has happened to her, what drives her to behave the way she does. I really want to find out.
The title of the exhibition 唔好俾我睇 in Cantonese means “don’t show me”. It’s a phrased my mom used during a quarrel with my dad. Perhaps, I am the one who refuse to see her.
3 images
When I started this project, I could only find 3 images that I could use. By that time, my parents have already left Singapore. The fact that I had so little materials to use is because I rarely took photos of her when she’s with me. Perhaps I feel she’s not worthwhile for my camera.
I’ve done an abstract painting when my mom has contracted covid. Covid has caused sodium deficiency and as a result, she’s confused mentally. She has been mixing up what happened in Singapore with what’s happened in HK. I found the painting is exactly her state of mind, it’s so confused, it’s in a mess, and so this is a painting about her brain. Aesthetically, it’s nice, but it’s made with a very bad intention. And it’s how I saw her then.
During my search and exploration of materials, I recalled that there were a few boxes of photographic slides. They were from my parents’ old house in Toronto. My dad was planning to get rid of a lot of things (including the slides) before moving back to HK, As they are so compact, and I found it quite a pity to dispose them, I brought them back to Singapore. Nevertheless, I’ve just put them in a cabinet and never touched them for all the while, until in desperation for materials for this project, I finally took a good look of the slides.
To my surprise, I found a lot of images of my mom with me, when I was a toddler. I’ve never seen any of them in my whole life. There are so many of them. These were most probably the closest and the most intimate moment between me and my mom. They are so sweet, yet I have no recollection of them.
I made use of the images to explore visual representation of my refusal to see my mom. I put post it note on her face. This is quite a violent act of rejection. The outcome is the 2 images printed on the fabric in this show.
The night I was born
I was also in the midst of compiling a life book for my mom, and part of the process was interviewing her to document important events in her life.
She cannot remember most of the stuff, and perhaps, she does not feel what’s gone through in life is important. Yet, there is one thing she can remember vividly – child birth of me and my siblings, especially mine. She shared with me the details of the night I was born. I documented it, sent it to my brother with a few pieces of paper of my choice, I sought his help overseeing my mom coping of what she’s told me. After it’s done, he mailed her handwritten records to Singapore to me.
At the same time, I translated the text to English and have it typed on the same type of paper.
Both her handwritten version and the translated version of the event are part of this exhibition.
Mom’s perspective
I’ve told my mom that I was going to have an exhibition about her, and she’s very happy.
I am also keen to understand how’s life in UK from her perspective, so I’ve asked her to take photos with her phone and send them to me. I’ve shared with her that I would be using the photos in the exhibition too.
Despite the fact that she is a tech-phobic who rarely touches her phone and has never taken a single photo in her life, my mom has agreed to do it. Nevretheless, as phototaking/snapping is not part of her life, she has no clue what to take. As a result, I and my brother would give her ideas. E.g., I would ask her to take photos of her bedroom, the kitchen; my brother and sister-in-law posed during their daily activities such as mahjong, to make it fun so she would have some motivation to shoot. You may notice all her photos are in portrait format. This is because this is all she can manage for phototaking.
This is definitely not an enjoyable process but a chore for my mom. In fact, she felt very annoyed by me and my brother’s “endless” prompts of phototaking. Despite this, she still continued, because of her promise. The photos taken by her are showed in the gallery, at her eye-level – 141 cm.
Mom’s portraits
I want to draw mom’s portraits. As my portrait drawing skill is really bad, I had the idea of doing it as illustration, which maybe easier to manage. In order to illustrate her well, I had to practise, so I still had to draw her portrait first, so I can be familiar with her facial features.
To my surprise, the portrait that I drew was actually not that bad. Though it does not resemble her exactly, I manage to get her essence. I never expected that I could do this, thus I continued portrait drawing, and spent 2-3 mths completing 9 portraits.
It’s a very emotional journey for me.
I’ve never thought that I could draw her but actually I could. During the process, I at times could not hold my tears, and had to step away to cry before returning to the easel. I also notice the upper face I drew resembles my sister too, and she’s away from me in HK, so I cried again.
I realised that perhaps it’s not so difficult to understand my mom, if I spend effort, to a certain extent, I can do it.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about what might have happened to my mom, why’s the reason of her behaviour. I’ve also discussed with my husband who is more observant and a much more sensitive and understanding person than me. I think I’ve found some of the answers, to a certain extent.
I remember, before all of us left HK, she’s ever said to me, “regardless what happened, most importantly all of us, everyone in the family, must stay together.” This simple dream of her has never come true, even till today, and perhaps will never come true. She’s the type who does not like changes and needs a lot of stability. Yet, in her life, especially in the last 30 years, she has to cope with changes and changes. It’s not a life she desires, but she accepts it and she has never stopped her children from pursuing the life we want to live.
And she’s doing the best she can to cope, in her own way, and still be very contented and believes that life is good. To her, as well as to all parents, the most important thing is the children is OK. As long as the children are OK, things would be OK.
The window
I’ve ever asked her amongst all the places she’s stayed, which she most enjoys. To my surprise, it’s Toronto, likely due to the quality of life, and a solid social network she had there.
Amongst the photos taken by her on UK, I’ve inserted a photo taken by me, of the window of their house in Toronto. I hope that I can give her Toronto, in my own way with my best effort.
Imperfection
Life is full of imperfection. E.g., my portrait drawing and some of my painting are imperfect; technically speaking, my mom’s photos are also imperfect.
But this is the reality of relationship.
Even though what our attempts are always imperfect, but we still have to try. So through all the imperfection, we can move one step closer to each other. However, taking the step does not mean we can change the other person, and the point is not to change the other party, but to have an open heart to understand and empathise.
Only through an open heart, I can really see my mom.