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An interview with Panni Poh Yoke Loh By David Hancock October 2007 |
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Panni Poh Yoke Loh is an artist who has come to prominence with her socially engaged practise. Over the years she has instigated a number of projects that have raised awareness of a number of issues including Ecology, Distribution of wealth and the plight of the Tibetan People and employed strategies to bring a diverse range of communities together. Each of these projects is presented in such a way as to engage the public creatively, yet she underscores each of them with a message that highlights her interests in the global society. Working with these communities she incorporates their ideas and creative output into her own practise, exhibiting a collaborative ensemble that opens her process to a wider audience. I first worked with Panni Loh in 2005 during her Whisper Residency at Chinese Arts Centre. During the Residency Panni constructed a large-scale Chinese garden in the project space that transformed the urban sprawl of Manchester into a rural paradise. Isolating local landmarks within the installation, she highlighted some of the issues that become overlooked during the fierce regeneration of the city and its loss of green spaces and relocation of communities. This is an issue that seems to effect more of us each day as other cities in the UK follow Manchester’s lead. Since her Residency at Chinese Arts Centre Panni has continued to develop her art in new and unique ways, which will culminate in her exhibition at Sylvester Space. The exhibition will attempt to bring her multi-faceted practise together for the first time, showing a wide range of her works from Installation to Photography to Live Art.
David Hancock: - You often use your work as a way of bringing people together for ‘one-off’ projects that are specific to a time and place. What do you hope to achieve through these events and what do you see as their legacy?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- Mostly they happen at times when I feel highly motivated to raise issues that I consider pertinent to the time and place within which they happen. For me it is key that other people are involved and in my planning the fact that others embrace the idea and welcome the opportunity is all part of the creative process. Their legacy is in the effect they had and in the memory of those who participated or witnessed them. I also document them digitally by photograph and video as well as writing about them, all of which extends their life and audience.
David Hancock: - In specific reference to the ‘Peace servings’, where you brought Religious leaders from Burngreave together, what did you hope may come out of this project after the ‘art’ part had finished? Do you see your role as an artist going beyond the actual event or does it end at the close of the project?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- Some of the people were religious leaders and others weren’t, all were in some way different to each other. After the actual events I tend to keep in touch with most of the participants and for Peace Servings interviewed some of them 6 months later. I hope that people involved will develop new understandings and relationships from the events. However the choice is theirs. If appropriate I also invite participants to take part in further events and so my relationship with them grows.
David Hancock: - There is a strong undercurrent that runs throughout your work that highlights your own political beliefs. How do you feel about the relationship between Art and Politics and what do you feel that it is able to achieve?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- As an artist I am concerned about my part in society. I think that if artists create socially responsive work their own ethical values are bound to enter into the equation. If I feel strongly about something I simply feel empowered to create an art piece that relates to those issues. For me art is a vehicle for change, it is also part of creativity and keeps us live and vital.
David Hancock: - I have a great deal of respect for you taking your work out to wider audiences, working with a variety of communities and age groups. In doing this you avoid the pitfall of ‘preaching to the converted’. In order to effectively communicate with these audiences, how do you ensure that your message is not lost or watered down?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- In my PhD research I address some of the issues that I have covered in my work. My developing research abilities are therefore growing my ability to articulate my work in academic circles and to speak about it at international conferences to audiences who are not necessarily ‘popular’. My motivation is to make my work matter, to make it matter by communicating to the general public. I appreciate that as we are all unique individuals each and every one of us will take away different meanings from any given work. However if I have been able to engage with audiences or individuals who may otherwise feel excluded from art I am pleased. If I can then develop the relationship with them by them feeling invited to look at further works an important development has taken place that I note and work on.
David Hancock: - I have recently been looking into the idea of faith in my own practise and I am aware that this is something you have been looking into for a while now. As Art’s relationship to spirituality goes back millennia, do you feel that your work is in anyway a continuation of this tradition?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh: - I think so, in terms of art as related to a universal spirituality rather than separate spiritualities. I think it is rooted at a similar core. For me it is also specific to us living on earth and how we care for the natural world.
David Hancock: - In a society where spirituality has declined to the point where the majority of the population are agnostic, and where the Church of England is in danger of being surpassed by migrating religions or spin off cults and sects, do you feel that there is a role for spirituality in our society, and through its art and what do you see it being able to achieve?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- To me spirit is about life force energy that we all have within us as does the natural world. It’s important that we sustain our vitality and spirit, some seek to do this through organised religions or spiritual paths, I think there will always be a need for this. Throughout history humans have looked to answer the questions of life about why we are here and if there is life after death. I think these questions will always be a concern for humans and organised religions and spiritual paths for some people give some solutions. The artistic expression of spirituality to me is a reflection of life force energy, it shows we are alive and awake and interacting.
David Hancock: - Having recently curated an exhibition on the theme of contemporary faith, I have come to notice a fixation with mortality in a number of the works I presented. Do you think that this suggests that there is a deep-rooted sense of the spirit within us, which may only manifest itself in times of grief or desperation or do you feel that this is the legacy of a religious doctrine and this is how we communicate our fears using a symbolism that we are familiar with?
Panni Poh Yoke Loh- Humans are living beings concerned with survival, mortality is therefore a human concern. It is hard to separate contemporary human expression with forms of expression that have gone before. However many of us are currently aware that we are in danger of our home earth remaining habitable to us. I think however that our deep rooted sense of spirit manifests not only in times of desperation but in ecstatic times too. I think our deep sense of spirit, whether or not we refer to it in that way, can also manifest in simple acts of human kindness. However I think it is at all times best to be aware that humans are trying to survive as they are not always kind to other living things.
David Hancock is currently Residency Coordinator at Chinese Arts Centre. He is also a practising artist represented by the Agency, London. |