Tele-tales: Exchange shows by Sparkground Art (London) and EYA Emerging Yong Artists (Toronto)
Part 1 in London (Cookhouse Gallery) on 12-15 Nov, 2019
Part 2 in Toronto (Robert Kananaj Gallery) on 15-20 Dec, 2019
I am so honored to be selected to participate in this Tele-tales Project. It is a collaboration project with Toronto artist, carrying out two different projects, exhibiting in two different cities. The aim of this project is to promote discussions by emerging artists from a global range of evolving art scenes, creating chances for young artists and curators to cooperate as a community through the cross-border project.
With the theme “Tele-tales” suggested, I immediately inspired by a novel “ A Tale of Two Cities” written by Charles Dickens, a story of a pair of doppelgängers in two cities.
Here’s my proposal:
Doppelgängers Project/ A Tale of Two Cities
Project Background
Doppelgängers Project is inspired by a historical novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It is a story about two strangers, Carton from London and Darnay from Paris, who physically look alike. This coincidence enables Carton to stand in for Darnay, who has been sentenced to die on the guillotine.
Back to reality, do we have doppelgängers? With 7.4 billion people on the planet, that’s only a one in 135 chance that there’s a single pair of doppelgängers. It might sounds unlikely to find your twin stranger but why sometimes people keep telling you they saw someone that looks “just like you” if that’s so statistically unlikely? The issue here is that although individual facial features may not be exactly the same, the overall arrangement may be similar enough for an uncanny likeness.
People in London and Toronto, two big international cities with diverse cultures, can they find their doppelgängers on the other side?
Proposal
Doppelgängers Project is A Tale of Two Cities 2019 version - Londoners meet Torontonians. The intention of the project is to help the Londoners to search for their potential doppelgängers in Toronto, creating conversations between them, sharing their views on their own cities or any global issues, which they would like to discuss.
How? Artist from London will firstly invite people from different ethnic groups and characteristics, invite them to ask questions to their potential twin strangers in Toronto. The participants will have their portraits send to Toronto team. Artist from Toronto will base on the portraits to look for their potential doppelgängers in Toronto, and request them to respond the questions asked by their twins.
To make the project more interesting and creative, the doppelgängers whom both artists propose are not limited to human beings, they can be anything, i.e. animals, architectures, daily objects etc, depending on artists’ interpretation of the subjects which they are inspired from both cities.
The purpose of the interaction is to investigate the similarity and differences of cultures, languages, thoughts and habits in two different cities while they are sharing the similar “DNA”. The project might be a welcome way for both participants and artists to introduce some humor into the dialogues while sharing their unique insight into the issues and attitudes of an era.
I am paired up with an artist based in Toronto, Meghan Ross. Her art practice induces a systematic, intentional and rigorous process to ask questions that lead to unexpected contemporary connections.
After discussing and exchanging ideas, we together came up with a proposal:
Tele – Tales Proposal by PUI PUI IP + MEGHAN ROSS
Introduction
Two artists living in two different cities are challenging the lure of the doppelgänger hunt. The intention of the project is to help Londoners and Torontonians find their doppelgänger in the opposite city through questions, objects, people, animals and humor.
After reading each other’s original proposals we realized we had a similar direction we wanted to go. Both were photo based and our questions we wanted to explore and address paralleled with each other very nicely. We collaborated to expand those ideas and themes and created a beautiful blend of the two original proposals for the Tele- Tales Open Call.
Proposal: The Tale of Two Cities (working title)
Both artists will photograph 10 subjects (people, nature, animals, objects, etc) in their own city in the hopes that the other artist will find their doppelgänger. Each photograph is paired with a question. These questions help us find the subject’s twin. Once each artist receives the photographs and questions from the opposite city, the doppelgänger search begins.
For the London show, the photographs will be scattered around the gallery on the walls, the ceiling, the floor and maybe even on the furniture. The size will resemble postcards, representing the search for the subjects look-a-like across different continents. Since there is a 1 in 135 chance that someone will ever find their own doppelgänger, this proposal is quite a challenge. Being the doppelgänger searcher is one thing- being the searchee is quite another. This challenge is given to the viewer as they search for the series of photographs that are hidden across the gallery space.
Both artists will continue this challenge of finding each other’s doppelgänger for the Toronto show. Once we agree on our most successful match Ross will print both images and place them on top of two Roomba Vacuums. She then prints each image out again and cuts them into confetti. This confetti will be scattered around a room for the vacuums to clean up. Once both Roombas clean up the mess, the vacuum bag gets emptied out and Ross assembles the tiny pieces as close as she can to the original sizes of the photographs. The effort of finding identical twins in two different cities is blended together to create one image. This last image will be a assemblage of Pui Pui Ip and Meghan Ross photographs, thus creating a new whole. Maybe then our true doppelgänger match will be revealed?
Images: https://www.ippuipui.com/the-tale-of-two-cities
