‘What if I want to water ski? And other questions’
The Substation
Singapore
June 2009
The first comprehensive presentation of ‘What if I want to water ski? And other questions’ was held at The Substation, Singapore in June 2009.
Sapiah Bee, Singapore, Digital Photograph Giclee Print, Size variable, 2009
“Victoria Cattoni’s engagement with ‘hijab’ (veil) may remind one of the blurring distinctions between the sacred and the profane in today’s age of consumerist global culture, media spectacle, viral as well as coercive marketing. Using her own experience in Malaysia and Indonesia as a starting point, Victoria simulates a safe, secure and non-confrontational environment for her audience to engage with ‘hijab’. In Victoria’s highly inclusive and audience-centred work, multi-dimensional patterns of perception determine multiple, if not contesting notions of hijab.”
From the catalogue essay ‘HIJAB’ AS A SITE OF IDEOLOGICAL CONTESTATION’ by Hasnul J Saidon - Download (112 KB)
ReDressing the Veil (excerpt), video performance, Singapore 2009, full duration 31min 29sec
This exhibition is from an ongoing project – ‘Re-Dressing the Veil’ - that was begun in 2007 in Penang in Malaysia, and has continued in Australia (Cairns and Mareeba) and Singapore. It has evolved as a creative and considered response to what I see as the over-politicizing and one-dimensionality of the depiction of Muslim women (in headscarf) in popular press and media. The current work, therefore, sets out to challenge these dominant representations.
Zuraidah, Singapore, Digital Photograph Giclee Print, Size variable, 2008
The exhibition has many threads. There are the photographs, a selection of which is displayed here. They by no means represent the scope of styles of headscarf, nor of the women who wear it. The photographs offer instead a very small glimpse of such diversity, foregrounding a more central purpose, which is to present a collection of personalised images that locate women in headscarf as portrait-able.
Re-Dressing the Veil, Video Still, 2009
‘Re-Dressing the Veil’, the main video in the exhibition, is edited from an interactive workshop run at Joo Chiat Community Centre in Singapore in 2008. Women who would not usually wear headscarf are invited to try on the tudung. The video is one of three to date, the others of women in Penang and Cairns. The nature of the performative workshop allows the women to explore how they see themselves wearing headscarf. In this reflective process, they begin to unveil their own perceptions of Muslim women in hijab within a safe and open dialogue.
Re-Dressing the Veil, Video Still, 2009
‘Fatima’, the second video, portrays a young Muslim woman veiling and unveiling herself with headscarf after headscarf, expressly demonstrating different ways of wearing it, while metaphorically suggesting the complexity of the garment with its myriad of readings and accompanying rhetoric.
Fatima, Video Still, 2009
Fatima, Video Still, 2009
‘What if I want to water ski? And other questions’, the books, invite direct audience participation The series of handmade books is generative, using questions from the book of the first preview of the work, to invite answers from audience in the second presentation. The third book, ‘What if I want to water ski? And other questions III’ invites audience to contribute their own questions and answers in this exhibition.
What if I Want to Water Ski? And Other Questions, Installation view, The Substation, 2009
What if I Want to Water Ski? And Other Questions, Installation view, The Substation, 2009
Download: Essay - Cattoni (88 KB)
Download: Essay - Saidon (112 KB)
View: Invitation
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www.youth.sg/content/view/7020/50/
www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/435114/1/.html
www.substation.org/what-if-i-want-to-waterski-and-other-questions/
Black and White Photo Portraits:
Digital Imaging by James Tan, Lateral Imaging, Singapore