#Ephemera: New Experiences, Greater Heights
In the tenth edition of Weekly Grind, I am going to recap on the amazing new experiences that I had from the previous week. For those of you who were not aware, I was very fortunate to be a part of two exhibitions in the same week. The first one is at Yale-NUS and it is still ongoing until next Tuesday, 7pm to 10pm daily. It is also my first time that I am directly involved in putting up my own work for the show which, of course, is a very valuable lesson for me. I learned that different layouts work for different kinds of story that you want to tell. I learned how imporant a good background is. And I learned so much more too such as the lighting, placement of captions, colour of text et cetera. Most importantly, I gained all of these lessons through my own mistakes. I tried different things and when it didn't quite work out, I learn from it. So I am glad that I actually have this opportunity to try to get myself more involved in the exhibition space.
A few days later, I participated in a pop-up exhibition called Ephemera aimed at showcasing all kinds of working artists. It was held at The Substation on Armenian Street and organised by Invisible Photographer Asia. The idea of this exhibition is that it will only last for exactly 18000 seconds hence the name Ephemera which refers to something that you can only enjoy temporarily. When I first stepped into the blackbox, I felt like I was completely out of place. The majority of artists present were largely conceptual, experimental and one was even performative. So there I was with my Hong Kong: In Solitude body of work in my hand, which fits into a very traditional photography genre, thinking if this is the right place for me to be in. But I decided to take my chances and still went ahead with it hoping that I will walk away with something valuable in the end.
Luckily enough, I did get to walk away with a valuable and yet simple lesson - learning to be a part of a community. I realised that no matter how intimidating it is to be in a new environment, these other artists are not there to eat you up. They are potential friends and even potential teachers too down the line. So learning to embrace this spirit took me quite awhile to get used to if you already know how much I try to stay away from having to socialise around. But stepping outside the comfort zone and making genuine connections with other people, especially those who are making art, is definitely worth the try and I am glad that I did.
If you would like to check out a really nice timelapse created by IPA of the event, you can click here.
So to sum it all up, I am really glad that I have had these wonderful opportunities to develop myself further, from dealing with printing my own work to setting up the layout and then subsequently being a part of a community. Hopefully with all of these new experiences, it would help me reach for greater heights in the future.
And now please enjoy this week's selection of photographs made in the past seven days.
