| Introducing the Art of Ming Wong |
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| Culture | |
| Thursday, 27 September 2007 | |
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Ming Wong is an artist exploring issues of multiculturalism, language and identity, using digital media, performance and installation. Born in Singapore and bred on a diet of BBC World Service, US TV sitcoms, Hong Kong drama serials and Bollywood movies, he has since made London his ‘home' for over ten years. As a freelance artist he has developed projects for Serpentine Gallery, South London Gallery, the Photographers' Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, The Roundhouse, Film London, the British Library and British Museum. Ming was formally trained in traditional Chinese art - brush painting, calligraphy and seal carving - while at the same time writing plays for the English language theatre in Singapore, before relocating to London in 1996 to complete a Masters in Fine Art at the Slade School of Art, University College London, where he started working in digital media. A combined artist, performer and playwright, Ming's practice spans across cross-disciplinary spaces of theatre, film and installation, exploring the performative veneers of language and identity. Either by employing actors or acting himself, Ming has presented his personal versions of the works of Shakespeare, English literary ‘nonsense', or the classic English country house murder mystery, to look at what and how we speak and how we are perceived by others, especially when the ‘we' is all too often classified as the ‘other'.  ‘Whodunnit?' features a multi-ethnic cast who were auditioned by the artist according to the list of ethnic minority categories found on cultural diversity monitoring forms for Arts Council England funding applications.The cast comprises a diasporic spectrum of second or third generation British actors of Black African, Black Afro-Caribbean, Asian, East Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, Greek Cypriot, Eastern European Jewish and Irish descent. They portray murder suspects whose dialogues shift between a foreign accent and classic RP (Received Pronunciation). The shift in accents suggest transitions between complicity and hostility amongst themselves as well as with the figure of authority in the middle, the police detective. The identity of the murderer is not the question; the real mystery is, what is the true identity of the individual? At a time when 'cultural diversity' and 'multiculturalism' have become managerial catchwords, how does such 'ticking-the-boxes' categorisation limit the way we identify ourselves and others in terms of ethnicity, race or culture? More recent works draw from influences beyond the shores of this island. Taking cues from world cinematic history, Ming has started to re-enact scenes from foreign language films, such as "The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant" (Rainer Fassbinder/Germany 1972), "Welcome Mr Marshall!" (Luis Berlanga/Spain 1953) and films by the star of the Malay film industry in the 60s, P Ramlee.  In Four Malay Stories (2005), the artist portrays sixteen different characters from films by director P. Ramlee, a Malay Muslim who made over 60 movies from the 50s to 70s in Singapore and Malaysia.The scenes re-enacted by Ming were chosen for the frank depiction of social and sexual mores of the local community at the time (including scenes of adultery, profanity, corruption, drinking, smoking, gambling, nudity etc) which have now been censored by the authorities, in line with the prevalent conservatism in contemporary Malay Muslim society. Relying on his limited knowledge of the Malay language, Ming can be seen repeating his lines in repeated takes of the same scene, along with a simultaneous transcription and literal translation in English in the subtitles - as in a foreign language instructional video. The work traces the artist's attempt in adopting a 'foreign' language and cultural traits, albeit in ways that are deliberately nostalgic, melodramatic, poetic and outlawed. In recent months, Ming has begun to make 2-d work including prints and photographs, which are available for sale on his website. He is currently showing work in an exhibition entitled "Inauthentic" at the Agency Gallery in London until Saturday 6th October 2007. See http://www.theagencygallery.co.uk/current.html He has also been selected for a year-long artist residency programme in Berlin, where he has plans to develop new projects, best described in his words, as "polyglot origami". For more information, please visit: www.mingwong.org |
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