Care Package #2: Ang Kia Yee

A songbird called Tiresias (双目失鸣) comprises a red hat and a video demonstrating two ways of wearing it. Conceived as a costume item for a performance that doesn’t yet exist, the red hat is a desire for a sign, an incantation for the future, and an offering for a ghost it doesn’t expect will arrive. Perhaps like Mark Fisher it considers the future lost; still it anticipates a performance full of energy and colour.

The Chinese title, 双目失鸣, is a pun on 双目失明 (to lose sight in both eyes). Instead of 明 (sight), a homophone 鸣 (cries, calls, sounds (mainly of birds but also of other animals)) is used. The title thus translates as: to lose cries/sounds in both eyes. The divine language of the birds (鸟语) is invoked, as is augury, the practice of interpreting omens by observing the behaviour of birds. Augury was one way by which Tiresias, the blind prophet, gathered information; he understood the songs of birds.

As a part of Care Package by Grey Projects, A songbird called Tiresias (双目失鸣) was made through a process guided by intuition, improvisation, and a focus on the recipient. The handsewn hat that has emerged seems to be an amalgamation of Chinese wedding veil, Victorian bonnet, and hospital scrub cap.  

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Ang Kia Yee is a writer and artist based in Singapore. Her practice is rooted in slowness, intimacy, and intuition; and spans poetry, fiction, gestures, movement, and performance. She moves in search of an emotional imaginary that is expansive, expanding, and true, which includes species and spectres beyond human beings.

For more of Kia Yee:

@kyatos (IG)

kyatos.com