Interviewed by Samantha Yap for Sites of Convergence

Looking at your works, it's obvious that you have an affinity towards (re)mixing visuals, playing with the way textures and patterns overlap. Where did this interest in patterns come from?

Patterns are everywhere, it’s part of our everyday lives. Functional patterns, like tiling, speak a lot to how things are organized since they create friction and enable stability. My mind gravitates towards these systems of organization, a system of how things go. I’m interested in how patterns create a sense of a whole, visually. Patterns also evoke curiosity, much like trails that lead you away, like how tiles or the veins of a leaf direct you elsewhere. In terms of my own practice, I also see patterns as a natural extension of the body. It’s there if you look at biology, just think of the working of cells, the way our hair is textured. 

For you, the way patterns are defined then is largely by repetition?

Yes, it’s through repetition that everything comes to be created and in that sense, my work brings these systems of organization into focus. 

You work along the lines of creative production and direction which can be rather broad and nebulous fields. Could you share more about your recent project and your creative processes? 

I recently worked with the singer-songwriter Charlie Lim on a collaboration for the Puma Suede 50th Anniversary exhibition. He gave me a lot of creative liberty to create a vision that was drawn from his love for denim and Hokusai prints. It was also influenced by my own passion for fabrication and patterns. For this, experimentation was key and I worked with the shibori dyeing technique that uses clips to tie certain areas that restricts the flow of the dye. 

It goes back again then to your interest in systems, like with using the shibori technique, what you’re doing is organizing a kind of intervention that ironically produces an organic outcome. You play with different systems or techniques of creation to introduce elements of chance. It’s interesting also how the dye is taken as a “reactive” element rather than one that is inert. 

Yeah, the dye has a life of its own and that was something that directed my experimentation which continued beyond the shibori technique. From there, I continued the dyeing process with the idea of smocking where pieces sewn together create a kind of visual system. But when the dye drips, it either seeps or retreats, there’s an unpredictability that I enjoy.

Going back to your work, what you do can be characterised as "dressing" up characters and environments, imbuing them with distinctiveness and personality. It's also an interesting interplay between what's inside (personality, interiority) and what's outside (appearance, clothing, facade). Do you think the second skin should always reflect what's on the inside? 

With my work, there is still to answer to a brief so definitely, the outside usually reflects what’s on the inside but that relationship is also quite interesting, when we think of how we suggest a character’s mental space through their manner of dressing? 

With Charlie Lim’s music video, Light Breaks In, where I did the costume design, it was a story of a guy who had to take care of his senile mother. The brief for the mother was quite specific. She was someone who had the capacity to be soft but was also described as “Diane Keaton in a suit” with her own crafty and eccentric nature. I dressed her up largely in layers, specifically men’s clothing that is only revealed later, much like how both caring and cruel parts of her can make themselves apparent with time. 

Clothing really do suggest at interiority then. I’m curious, why did you choose her to dress her up in men’s clothing? 

Working with the director and the musician, there was also the need to hint at how there wasn’t any signs of a “lady” there. The use of baggy men’s clothing was really the most direct and visual response to hint at how there wasn’t really a sense of a “mother” there in this character. Another thing is also that the mother also always has her head covered, a rather literal suggestion of how she’s much like a prisoner of her own mind. Later in the video, she dons on this mesh hat where some of the buttons are either sewn or glued on. So, as she moves, these buttons would start to fall off. 

There’s a performative element there in the character’s interaction with your costume.

That interaction really pulls out certain aspects of her character. We can consider how the button has a rather maternal association especially when you think of how mothers would help to mend their children’s loose buttons. Except in the case of this character, this maternal touch is sometimes lost.

How familiar must you be with the material to construct your visions and what kinds of contextual information are important for you?

I would say the storyboard and script comes first. The script describes the characters and the content. The storyboarding is important because you’re making a costume that is specifically for film and not for theatre. Details of the costume then becomes even more important. With the storyboards, I can get a better sense of the way the camera is following the character. For instance, is there a scene where her hand is more prominent and if so, do I need to make something to be worn there? 

Working with briefs is perhaps part and parcel of any creative's job but there is always arguably a kind of "signature" that differentiates one creative's work from another. So, what do you think is your "signature" and how do you weave that in?

I guess my distinctive “mark” is about a kind of excessiveness, where additional elements are included even though their presence may not be necessarily make the most sense.

What you do then is quite furtive, you’re trying to sneak in these unorthodox elements, your own little impressions. I suppose that’s how you “incorporate” your signature into your commissioned work. Like for instance, the clothes peg pin that you had on Dot from the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources’ new web series. 

Yeah, so it is kind of unorthodox but it is still subtly relevant to the key message. For the clothes peg pin, it may seem a bit strange but in terms of the message of climate change, it can be related to the very practice of upcycling.

To end off, what projects do you have in the pipeline? And what kind of projects attract you?

I’d be working on an upcoming web series for Viddsee and another fabrication project for Japanese artist Daiya Aida that is showing in The Artground. For that, I will be fabricating animal patterns into a giant rolling ball for children. 

As for projects that interest me, I go back a lot to performance and patterns. I’m drawn to anything that interacts with the body through material and physical forms and keen to explore and engage the body as a “canvas”.