Rirao

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A proposed design for a fictional island by Debbie Ding.

The World

The central premise of my world is that instead of moving milimetres at a time, land masses are able to move a few metres in a year. This explains why Los Angeles was able to detach itself from US and Rio De Janeiro was able to detach itself from Brazil, and for them to float together to form Rilao.

In this world, all islands are in constant danger of floating into and joining other landmasses. Larger islands are prone to losing parts of themselves to the Drift. Thus, the countries in this world experience geopolitics in constant motion.

Nicholas Bourriaud in The Radicant:

"To be radicant: it means setting one’s roots in motion, staging them in heterogeneous contexts and formats, denying them any value as origins, translating ideas, transcoding images, transplanting behaviors, exchanging rather than imposing (...) The immigrant, the exile, the tourist, and the urban wanderer are the dominant figures of contemporary culture."

In his keynote speech to the 2005 Art Association of Australia & New Zealand Conference:

"Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This “reloading process” of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world."
"Altermodern" is a word that intends to define the specific modernity according to the specific context we live in – globalization, and its economic, political and cultural conditions. The use of the prefix ‘alter’ means that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end … The core of this new modernity is, according to me, the experience of wandering – in time, space and mediums.

The Island

I envision Rirao as a new transnational space dominated by the Asian “Other” - the orientalised Americas, the Asianised West. Its name in Chinese is "日绕", which means “the sun revolves around it”. The initial mispronunciation of its name in Chinese has become its dominant pronunciation. The increase in Chinese/Asian Migration into Rirao not only results in cultural displacement to both the migrants and 'native' populations in Rirao, but there is also the danger of reductionist condensations of what it means to be oriental or asian. Ethnicity, race, and nationality are all performances.

This is not strictly about being Asian or presenting something that is "oriental" as opposed to "occidental". It is hard for me to know what I have to do as a so-called "chinese" or "southeast asian" or "singaporean", or the relevance of my so-called asian "heritage" - just as it is equally hard for me to unlearn my westernised education and years of studying continential critical theory.

I suspect that in the end, in our attempts to articulate a topsy-turvy model of a western city dominated by the Asian "Other", Rirao is not really going to be Asian. It is going to end up being a non-place, a terrifying altermodernity.

Rirao at the Venice Biennale 20XX

The Venice Biennale is a monumental, sprawling all-year affair in which countries display their art, presumably to one another, in various pavilions and venues in and around the city of Venice. Every two years, it becomes a global meeting point, a prestigious and international stage for cultural exchanges and discourse, but also a place of contradictions, in which artists might be seen more as representatives of their country, effectively tasked with producing and showing work for displays of some form of national identity, even though national borders are very tired and outdated boundaries for one’s imagination, and artists may also be migratory, of mixed heritage, or may not even necessarily be rooted or resident in their countries of origin.

Looming over this, is also the larger question of who, or which national agencies gets to decide which artist and which artworks have the ultimate ability to represent each nation. Whilst it is certainly not a straightforward issue, the selection process at work at the Venice Biennale also has the ability to produce some interesting artistic results, for this system does allow for each country (or region, or group of people) to approach it from very different ways, allowing for the possibility for alternative narratives, and even minority and counterhegemonic voices to be heard on an international stage. On the other hand, one could perhaps read a decision not to participate as selective mutism, or perhaps as a kind of statement on its own. However, these are only speculative readings.

My project is concerned with curating/designing Rilao's submission for the Venice Biennale.

References

Ideological Guide to the Venice Biennale 2013 - The Singapore Pavillion

In 2013 there was no Singapore Pavilion. However, there is an interesting entry written for it in the Ideological Guide to Venice Biennale, a work by artist Jeremy Fernando.


ON A MISSING PAVILION; OR, EVERYWHERE THE LITTLE RED DOT

It is in front of you. Tall, broad, strong: wider than any other. The pavilion beyond all pavilions. Only you cannot see it. Not because it is not there. But because, at any one point, someone is blind to it. Today it is you. Perhaps it even chose you. But let me see it for you.

You walk in. Quite immediately, turn. Not because you choose to—it is just how the path blows you along. A certain lightness; one not usually associated with a place known for harshness, being calculating, methodical—draconian even. Ironic considering it is a place of transit, movement, flows. But, it is not a flow for the sake of drifting, not an appreciation of flowing. Instead, it is the embodiment of the very moment of art—not of aesthetics, let alone beauty, but the transfer, transmission, transaction, of the works.

The pavilion doesn’t need you to see it. It has disappeared. For, it is no longer needed: the biennale itself is Singapore.

From http://venicebiennale2013.ideologicalguide.com/pavilion/singapore/