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What I've Learnt - Scotty So · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Drag Queen and artist, Scotty Seh, cuts a jaw-droppingly beautiful figure as his alter ego, Scarlet So, hungs on.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says Scarlett is the symbol of an oriental silhouette.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's the drag persona that allows me to become the beauty that I always wanted to see.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at myself in the mirror, I see the woman who I wanted to become.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible feat for such a young artist to feature in the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And drag queen artist and ceramicist Scotty Stowe is thrilled.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Scotty was recently mistaken for the prominent politician and chief executive of Hong Kong, Harry Lam, on an Italian news site.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then his life changed.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: He'd uploaded these images to Wikipedia.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: At the time he said, I didn't realise that when you have pictures on Wikipedia, they become part of this huge database of images that are free for anyone to use.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of the newspaper or news sites not wanting to buy copyrighted material often use this archive to find content.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Enamoured with the idea that an artist might somehow rewrite history by editing an archive, Zoe began uploading pictures to pages all over the website.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I put a picture of me dressing up as a burlesque dancer in the 40s, then there was one of me dressing up as a Manchurian lady, a noble lady with a huge headpiece.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So plugged from art school after just graduating, Scotty is quite mesmerizing and super talented with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: For the NGV triennial, Soh will present a series of eight porcelain face masks alongside six photographic prints.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The masks are accurate representations of the real PPE the world has become intimately acquainted with, such as the KN95 mask and the N95.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: The first mask that Stoh made for the series was the Kiha Glazed Respirator Mask, which also doubles as an incense burner.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It says, I wanted to play with this idea that this is something that is supposed to protect me, but has become this beautiful, fragile ceramic piece.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello Scotty.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very thrilled to have you on board to have a chat to us.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the first things I'd like to talk to you about is this wonderful uh backdrop that you have.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about that and how um it resonates your story.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so this backdrop is actually a backdrop that I used for the University of Melbourne art conference that I was talking about, my project that I did on Wikipedia, dressing up in different eras, women back in the days, and pretending those images are real historical images, and then pretending that I was there and therefore became a time traveler.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I found this footage of uh 1920s Japan and the the original video were edited to put color through AI software, and so I used the I used the video as my video backdrop and wear my um traditional kimono that I got from Japan to pretend I was there in the 1920s.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for our listeners, I'm actually speaking to Scotty with a quite a beautiful 1920s backdrop of people in Japan, I think in a marketplace.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really quite engaging and really is an apt background for somebody as creative and artistic as you are.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to do what you do, which is really a cross-pollination of many artistic forms.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to talk to us a little bit about that?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I moved here to Melbourne three years ago to finish my final year of um fine arts in Bachelor in 2018 at RMIT.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it would just be uh one year to finish my study, but then I stayed for longer to finish my honors year at the VCA.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um was that your honors in?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in what?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: In what was your honors in?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so once I finished that, I realized oh, I can stay here longer in Melbourne to become an artist professionally, to be a sustainable artist and just continue making arch.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But then the pandemic hit, which was quite a hard time.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: But a bunch of new uh project and arts involved in that year that got me into showing at the triennial at um NGV.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is really quite quite um quite an achievement considering you'd only been here for a short time.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You were born and raised in Hong Kong.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, why did you make the move to Australia and what inspires you about the Australian culture?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Melbourne, we are culture vultures here, as you clearly have um observed.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um why why Australia?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many places in the world.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when I was in Hong Kong, I often, when I was a little boy studying art there, I've always wanted to be an artist um ever since a little kid.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: But in Hong Kong, you get all this huge affair, you get all this huge um population of experts that love art, but then there's so little space for local artists to survive in Hong Kong.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's a hierarchy of um where you study, then became how much you can uh achieve in the art world.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so that kind of uh culture in the art scenes was very toxic to me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really enjoy that part a lot.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And also the space in Hong Kong just physically too small to create anything um big or conceptual.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: The art that can you know sell in Hong Kong is mostly just art that are either made by foreign artists or art that is just simply beautiful and no concept behind.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was very tricky for me as a student that wanted to explore more different formats of art, more ideas.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the final year of my study um at the Hong Kong Art School, I decided to transfer my study to RMIT because they're a collaboration school.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was very easy for me to just transfer to there.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: But then I had to do all the visa and stuff.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: But before coming to Australia, I already kind of had a taste of Australian.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had an ex that uh I met in Hong Kong who's from Sydney, and I had many friends in Hong Kong too in that expat um community who are also from Australia.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, the place that I'm living in right now is a friend who uh is living in Hong Kong, and I'm just basically house-sitting for him.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's worked out quite well for you.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me, in terms of your, I suppose, pushing of the boundaries, which is what I love about what you do, how difficult is that in being in Hong Kong now as opposed to, let's say, three years ago?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Has that changed at all?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it has definitely changed a lot.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: In Hong Kong, just even just three years ago, I couldn't really um put myself in drag and walk in broad daylight because people would think I'm a freak and no one would understand it is an art form.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: But here I was able to uh just walk around, not with not during the pandemic, of course, but I could just walk around in drag and people would be, oh, you look beautiful.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I just say, Thank you.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you do, you look very beautiful.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but and after the 2019 situation crisis in Hong Kong with the protests and how the police and the government treated the people so badly, and after now that there's the national security law, it makes it so much harder to actually make artwork though, even just to be in Hong Kong.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I had made a few artwork that is related to the situation, and uh I dressed up in drag as Caroline, the chief executive of Hong Kong, and put the image on Wikipedia.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: One of the news websites in Italy actually thought it was a real image of um Carol Lamb and they used it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's extraordinary, the power of art.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like um you if they if you say that it's an insult to um Carol Lamb, then you know I could go into jail if I go back to Hong Kong.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I can also say it was a because I admire her so much that I try to become her.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um making art about the politic became something that you need to be very careful with and not to tell the answer so clearly, but it kind of gives a challenge to the art making.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I found there's some space that could make the work even better.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think also what's interesting about that story is it illustrates that while your intention for the art was one thing, it actually became something else.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that can often happen with art, the the power of it to tell one story, but actually to tell you ended up in a situation you hadn't really anticipated that it would be picked up in that way.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a beautiful part of art making.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my artwork often uh contain different meanings, and I really like that sort of ambiguous ambiguous ambiguity, yeah.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So can you talk to us, Scotty, a little bit about what your art is?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So for our listeners, so they understand what some of your themes um and messages are behind your art and how they how you actually present those.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So my artwork, um just from the material, I kind of work in all sorts of different materials.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I use I do paintings, I do photographs, I do um live performance, um, I also do ceramic sculpture, insulation, uh, sometimes even sound.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's often I try to do a little bit of everything, um, get to know the process behind all these sort of um materials.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Then I can use different language and different that kind of material to fit the theme I want to talk about.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: The concept behind my work is often sourced through my daily living as a just a person, because I'm gay and because I'm like queer and uh Asian migrant.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: These became the little things that I sourced with, that I use them as tools.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I reflect these sort of different levels of life, um, different parts of it into my work.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I often don't think my work has to be something that clearly, you know, giving you the answer that, oh, gay rice, or you know, anti-racism.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I like to make work that has a bit of funniness and stupidity in it, but also have the sincerity of it being a serious artwork.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So some humor, elements of humor, but also, you know, some of your um artwork is quite potent and quite make people you like to make people think about issues and themes, such as the ones that you've referred to.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what are some of the challenges of entering the creative industries with some of those themes?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: How have they been?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: They've clearly been well received because you obviously have um exhibited at the train or at the NGV, but you've also had artwork featured in Hong Kong, China as well.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: You you clearly are um making your mark, but you are pushing boundaries.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: How hard has that been?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Have have you found that challenging?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I found that part kind of uh not as challenging that you would think.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I I do try to push that boundary by having my work very ambiguous, and there's a side of the beauty of the work um that I need to achieve the certain sophistication of the work.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, it kind of passed that boundary of like it isn't, it doesn't come across offensive or it doesn't come across um unfinished when I present the work.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so when the idea is something I think is stupid, but then that boundary uh that I push through as you know being stupid, the work being stupid, um, the audience would receive it as something serious because there's special consideration of how it's presented and also how it is being made.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I can see that, for example, you've got your physical artwork, but also you do participate in some really creative drag.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: How did you start this and sort of what inspired you?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And does that is that an example of what you're talking about?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where there's an element of um satire in what you do, but it's also it makes people think about some of the themes, be they LGBQTI or so it's actually um I was inspired by Pauline Pants Down, the famous drag queen from Australia who um portray as Pauline Hansen.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the songs I really loved.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's just that sort of you know, turning something as a politician, Pauline Hansen, as serious as she can be or she wants to be.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um the drag persona kind of take her as a jerk and kind of merge it into something very camp.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's a message behind the performance of that sort of drag performance.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's it's not just about making her, you know, as a camp uh character, but there's also a criticism behind the videos.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got inspired by that and also the report drag race, of course, the franchise television show, which as a little gay boy saw that on the TV, then realized, oh, drag queens are not just freaks.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And drag comes in so many different forms.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's drag in kabuki, there's drag in Chinese traditional theater opera.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to use this character who I developed from my Chinese name, Scarlet So Hangson.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: My Chinese name is So Hang.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So Scarlet So Hangson.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided to only wear Asian clothing because uh in daily life as a boy, I can wear all this western nice, you know, modern-day clothing all the time.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: But if I get to be in drag and be this beautiful goddess, I want to be able to wear something that isn't just a regular gown.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be wearing something that represents the culture, but also showing different silhouettes that isn't just you see in um daily modern day.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: In my drag persona, I always wear the chanz arm, um, which became then a symbol of um Asian woman a lot of the time.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of perceived as a sexual fetishized clothing.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I wanted in through doing that drag performance, I want to reclaim that space of the clothing and to use it as a way to show that yes, it is you know, fetishized, it's kind of you know, hugging, very body hugging, very appeal to this sexual desire.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: But in the same time, it is a very beautiful garment and the craftsmanship to have a tailor-made chanzam is so hard.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I so I decided to then later on started to learn how to sew my own dress.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask you that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did you create, yeah, your own?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the one the photographs in um the triennial, so they all self-portray I did uh in my bedroom, some with the helps of friends, some are not.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some I set up a tripod, but all the clothing and uh a lot of the accessories, I made them myself to try to portray that sort of traditional garment.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And as you see the images that are referenced through different eras, you can see the clothing because from they came from robes to shorten and became just short leaves, body hugging clothing.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's you, that's where you can see this sort of different type of silhouette in traditional garment.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which and the transition, yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it really what you're saying is it it shows the transition through history of this garment and and then you putting it in these uh definite um ordinary spaces of sorts, actually helped to focus on those themes.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, because often that when I wear this chanzam or chi pao and trying to have my friends uh to try to put it on and wear it together with me, lots of my friends, especially in the art space, um, they get really scared of the colour uh the cancel, the cancel culture and being accused of cultural appropriation.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: But in my perspective, I see this as a uh cultural exchange and a cultural experience that we do it with appreciation and understanding.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you look at the transition of the clothing, it's actually because there was the westernized and the modernization influence in this clothing that they became they went from a rope to this body hugging with Western tailoring technique into the dresses.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so that kind of a way for me to present that this is actually something that we can all share together, we can all experience together.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I think it would be wrong if you to try to claim that saying this is if you're not from this culture and saying that this is my culture.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's totally fine and it's beautiful to experience these things together too.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love your reference to exchange because I think that a lot of people are somewhat paralyzed by obviously the anxiety around cultural appropriation.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what you've highlighted there is there is actually capacity for an exchange to occur that is not actually cultural appropriation.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very important point to distinguish.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I really hear what you're saying there.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're quite active online in calling out and sharing news about, as a separate issue, about Asian hate, or you know, have you always been an upstander in this way?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And do you ever explore this in your work?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And have you faced firsthand racist experiences living in Australia?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think as an artist of colours, uh, rather I put you know the racism in my work or not, my work would often just be read as about race, racial problem.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would try not to, I'm trying not to really just focus on this part of who I am as an Asian person, but more as a contemporary artist.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: I often think that I often imagine that if I were just a white boy from Fitzroy, I would probably still do the same sort of work, except the poetry would be as a skater boy with his you know family poetry, I guess.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I try to just uh some of because there are also work of mine that isn't about race too, there's uh or queerness, there's work of mine about space and ready-made objects that I play with a lot too.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think to just simply exist and work as an artist of color is already a way to sort of inform, inform and educate just by your being and by what you create is what you're saying.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is what I understand you're saying because because really you can, and I suppose that comes back to the power of art and its capacity to change the way we see things.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And however I make any kind of work, uh as a contemporary artist, I'm already occupying that space that I can occupy, and therefore, often just gonna be a way for me to try to you know push that boundary.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Last year when I was um wearing the mask in March already, where because we could a lot of the people from uh Hong Kong and China, they can read the news from those regions and then seeing that, oh, there's like a mysterious case.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And coming from Hong Kong, have already experienced SARS in 2003.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's gonna be something as a pandemic.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I always starting to wear a mask already, told my friends to you know, find this thing, try to, you know, cover your face, walk away if someone sneeze and cough in public.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I was kind of considered as like a freak or widow when I when it started.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: My friends would have debates with me about these things.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: This thing is just a code.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So many of them.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Even those ones who in the art industry would argue with me saying, Oh, are you being racist to Chinese people?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, this is a pandemic, this is a virus, that they don't care what race you are.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I was wearing the mask and the protective gears on the street before the lockdown, I would get people coughing right in front of me just on purpose.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then even I got caught by a bunch of high school kids just saying, Are you co-fit?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, I just I I just didn't understand that.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: It it goes to show though, I mean, I think everyone knows about masks now, but the fact that you are so informed, prepared.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to actually support and educate the people around you and were met with that sort of objection.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying that culturally that had an element of cultural resistance that they saw you as being maybe hyper-vigilant or coming from a place that they don't understand.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they understand it now, don't they?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Even when before uh COVID, a friend of mine, uh, when I was at uni at Visa, a friend of mine got sick, uh, just a bad cold.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she insists to still go to school and you know attend class.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked her, why are you not wearing a mask?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she just said, Oh, uh, people don't wear a mask if you get cold, right back in the day.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they would just, you know, let it be.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that just shocked me so much.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was a cultural shock because they think that often it's only people who are very, very sick that they would wear a mask in public.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: But in Asian culture, um, in Japan, in Hong Kong, people would wear a mask for you know the dust, or even just because they had a bad day of skin, or they don't want to wear makeup, or even just, you know, there's that sort of respect of space that if you're sick, you don't want to spread the germ and also you don't want to be so close with people.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I came here and when the pandemic started, um, there was that cultural shock again.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just try my best to educate my friends or just to tell them what it was like when I when we had uh SARS in Hong Kong.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because half a year at that time we were locked down.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was locked down for half a year.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go to school for half a year, and so that was within me, is a part of my history.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, therefore, I then you know made this collection of masks wearing with a garment matching masks to kind of link those history again and also to create ceramic porcelain masks, which you can burn incense inside.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they sound very oh, I love those.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um they sound beautiful.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And are they actually are you selling those or are they actually selling I sold them all to the NGV?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's all in the collection now.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's showing right now on the first floor at the Asian um gallery at the NGV next to some Iwe's mask and other um ceramic artifacts.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty special.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're next to Iwei.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that shows the calibre of what you're doing.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's quite beautiful.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously, we can't attend galleries at the moment, but in time, hopefully we'll all be out and we'll be able to attend and go and see your wonderful exhibition.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you speak about a very important um reflection there because it's actually been, you know, quite common in Asian culture to wear masks and as you say, to protect for various reasons.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, even growing up, I remember seeing certain Asian people with masks.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something I really thought about, obviously, until the pandemic hit.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's made obviously everyone here, certainly in Australia and in fact globally, reflect on that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea of a historical context is, I think, really important that, and your ceramic masks are an ode to that.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And in the same time, when I make them, of course, they're reflecting this sort of experience and this sort of uh racist problem that I experience.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: But in the same time, there's also sort of me making the work into an incense burner.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: So turning a respirator mask into an incense burner, that process to me is also literally stupid.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's no function except as an incense burner.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the incense also then linked to that sort of Asian myth, the mythology of medicine, that sort of hype of the Asian people.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I tried, I tried to put these two together too, and also I guess linking the 2019 crisis in Hong Kong with the tear gas and all of that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: That something as a protective gear became a material that is just so vagile and but somehow in the same time beautiful.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's that sort of level of camp and irony in the work.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you feel the work as oh, it's a mask for about the pandemic or it's a mask about the protest.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is, but actually that image of the mask, particularly in the protest context, being such a thin veil to try and protect against you know the gas which was, you know, which was being sort of poured upon the protesters.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: What you're saying is that there is an irony in that because they're trying, it's like trying to protect yourself against something that could, to be honest, can probably seep through pretty easily.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how protective and effective they are, but it's a it's not literal, it's sort of figurative, but it's a really interesting.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And even that sort of power behind the politician, that sort of unseen power, and to use this vagile object to represent that, I think like there's that sort of play in that, which I love in my work.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very interesting.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see this exhibition.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: As somebody now living in Australia, I assume you will stay here for a while.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you certainly will at the moment.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: What is sort of a piece of advice that you would give other young artists and also the community here?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: How would you speak to the local community from Hong Kong that is living in Australia and has always been very close to Australia and close to our hearts?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: What has Australia given you that you resonate and that you value and that you'd like for others to know about?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think to young artists who try who want to be um professional artists in the future that can sustain themselves, I think to just be brave and to really try to get yourself out there.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: It took me so long to be that level of confidence too.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the events of you know, openings and connections that the unit can provide is quite a lot too.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: After graduation and stepping into the art world professionally, I realized that these are the kind of things that you need to, you know, grab on if you have it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And often I just tell people that you have to be prepared all the time.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even if you are not, don't let people know that you're not prepared.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just pretend you are, because uh there's often um chances I see I got to meet uh directors or curators in different museums and galleries, even all the way back when I was in Hong Kong.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And my work wasn't ready by then, but I try to pretend present myself as a prepared person, and I'm not.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay because isn't that the nature of art too?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: To be to be fluid and to be, you know, it's evolving.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think anybody, any artist is ever definitive, this is who I am and what I am.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is an evolution, and you're clearly, you know, an example of that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that resilient that you need to have that sort of, I'm not saying that uh you can't, you can't you just ignore your feeling, but there's certain uh professionalism that there is within the, you know, you have to make it through.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: If there's any era in the in the work, you have to already immediately think about a solution to that and just solve the problem instead of oh freaking out.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: It happens to me too, uh, that I freaked out.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I often just tell myself that you know, there are friends of yours you can that can provide helps for you.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't drive, but then I can, if something happened and I need to, you know, drive the work somewhere, always like you know, contact your friends, Identify after, pay them even.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's better.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's help out there that you can ask.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you just have to, you know, get through that issue, and the work would eventually be good.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem would eventually be solved.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you just have to, you know, work it through.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my advice that I can give to young artists.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's great, Scotty, and I'm so glad that you actually have continued to work through and to evolve.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure we're gonna see a lot of your artwork in the future, and I can't wait to see what you actually do next.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, thank you so much for joining us on the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And take care and continue to create.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, and thanks for the listener.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Bye, Scotty.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind and curious.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Love death.