ABOUT THE WORK

When I’m bored I stare at lights. I go as close to them as possible and open my eyes as big as I can. It’s an overwhelming experience, almost mystical. It’s also addictive. In those short moments I try to comprehend the soft gradients, the sharp rays, complex shimmers and these strange somewhat greenish orbs that appear around me. I stare at them long enough for my eyes to develop impressions that stay in my vision after I look away. They stay for longer if I do not blink my eyes. I try to drag this experience out for as long as I can, appreciating the shapes and the colours that pulsate rapidly across a spectrum, from purple to green like deep-sea squids. Eventually they flicker and fade with each blink.

Yesterday, 26th December 2019, at 1:24pm, the moon fully obscured the sun in an astronomical event that happens every 20 years. Images in the news depict crowds gathering across Singapore all looking up towards the sky, some with their phones raised and some with their hands shielding their eyes. Despite warnings not to look at the eclipse without proper equipment, people couldn’t help but look. I don’t know why we were all staring so intently at the eclipse. Perhaps some of us think that we might not live to see the next occurrence, especially not with the accelerating rate of global warming. Some news outlets joked that this was the most united the country has been about something – the eclipse, not global warming. I can’t help but imagine us going into the new decade more blindly than before.

I imagine myself as an insect. It is night time, I am leaving the forested area and I come across a round orb that I can only describe as having a semblance to the moon. But instead of being unattainable and infinitely far away like the moon, I am actually getting closer to this one. I don’t know if I’ve reached it but as I fly closer I am gradually enveloped by white emptiness. I look around and realise I can no longer see my wings, nor my feelers, nor my hands, and slowly I feel I cannot see anymore. I am bathed in an intensifying warmth and I hear the droning voice of angels. This is the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt. This is the greatest moment of my life. I am never ever going to see anything more beautiful than this. I imagine the end of the world to look something like this.