Transforming Biblical Passages into Diary Entries from 40 cities worldwide / Year: 2010
Dossier “Palanay Art Project” en Francais
My artwork is about transforming biblical passages into diary entries. The diary appealed to me for a couple of reasons. First, it has been my practice to write wherever i may be to express my thoughts and ideas. Second, My family set-up having working parents and the 10-11 year age gap I have with my siblings move me to write in their absence. And lastly, receiving the scholarship grant to study one full term in Paris, France was a good reason for me write even more. I use diary writing as an art form only that the content will emerge out of my intervention of a canonical manuscript, the Christian Bible. Having spent 17 years in a Catholic University, I constantly engage in questions regarding religion and the concept of the sacred and the profane.
In this process, i would buy a Bible and burn it or use cauterization as a responsive form of intervention in personalizing a Bible into a diary. I have set goals for myself and i intend to collect 40 bible diaries from 40 cities worlwide. It practically developed in the progress of my research and I found the changes of location in 15 cities in Europe and 5 key cities in Asia helpful to evoke a unique experience seen through my diary entries. My method combines a technical meditative approach of burning letter by letter and a childhood penchant for burning as a device to decorate the edges of cards.
Randomly opening the bible pages allowed me to contemplate on the words or on phrases that struck me most or that best describe my feelings and experience of that moment. I burn, or to be exact, cauterize, those letters and words that do not strike me as meaningful. Whatever is left becomes my diary entry of the day.
BIBLE-DIARIES
ARTWORK DETAILS
BURN-OUT SERIES
DIARY SERIES ARTWORK
INSTALLATIONS
SINGAPORE EXHIBIT PHOTOS