Project Framing Balikpapan (PFB) is a work that evolves out of an encounter between a local frame maker in Singapore and me. I first met Maricar when he had just returned to Joo Chiat road after a year-long hiatus, and I was looking for a frame maker to frame up two artworks. The artworks were originally belonged to French visual artist, Gilles Massot, and they were given to me for my care when the artist left Singapore after living in the island-state for forty years. The artist had participated in the Singapore’s contemporary art scene from the early 1980s and continues to contribute to its development up to today. He had acquired the original artwork Journey of A Yellow Man No. 2 directly from the late Singaporean artist, Lee Wen in the 90s, and this belongs to one of the two artworks that were gifted to me. The other is an untitled photomontage made by the artist himself (Gilles) in Balikpapan, Indonesia in 1992.
During the height of the Covid-19 in Singapore, the pandemic has shuttered many small local businesses, and Mr. Maricar is one of them. He had suspended his frame making activities for a year before returning to resume his practice. It was at this time that Joo Chiat road is brimming with new businesses and cafes, sprouting out all over the place. Compounded by the ongoing inflation to what is already a waning trade, it is, without a doubt, Maricar is finding it difficult to keep up with the rising costs post-Covid-19. For many years, the frame making workshop has been the meeting place for the local community. As can be seen from the objects and personal belongings left outside on the pavement––Ah Tat (90s), who is a friend, is literally eking out a living on the street, by fixing up faulty convection warmers for neighbouring vendors. These observations has reaffirmed my interest for the streets as our most fundamental public spaces, where social practices that are in line with specific local contexts are made possible, but is, however, obfuscated by gentrification today.
Ah Tat (90s); Maricar’s friend, 2022
The locals who frequent the workshop comes from a generation of Malay communities who used to live in the Kampong in the area before their eviction in the 1980s. To begin with, the region was originally inhabited by one of the earliest Malay settlements in Singapore and is also known to Malays in the Malay Archipelago such as Brunei and Indonesia. One could claim that some of Maricar’s friends, who have referred to themselves as the “real locals,” are the remaining indigenous people of the neighbourhood today. As I listened to Maricar’s friend Jamal, he was conveying about his experience as a child, how the communal riots broke out between the Malays and Chinese in front of Maricar’s workshop out on the street. While it wasn’t my attempt to historicise this encounter; the background, however, does provide a rich context for an engaged art practice to take place.
I started learning how to make frames with Maricar, and it was only after some time I’d moved in with him in the workshop that we began to fabricate some thirty picture frames together, all resized, and cut from used frames left over by his customers. The recycled frames will be hung up on the second floor and we will seek to gather his community of friends and customers to contribute artwork to the empty frames. In the end, we will endeavour to organize an open house for the public, and the contributors will be invited back to adopt an artwork as a gift.
To the end, the project ultimately took an unforeseen turn––Maricar and his neighbours were asked to move out of their premises in no time. We had repurposed the recycled frames by juxtaposing waste debris from the destruction of the building with mixed-memorabilia leftover by Maricar from the removal, and reconfigured the project into a sculptural-installation for a secondary audience. Currently nomadic, Maricar is looking for a place to carry out his trade as a frame maker in Singapore.
Film excerpts: Project Framing Balikpapan (the film), 2022
Special thanks: Gilles Massot, Wei Leng Tay, Jeremy Sharma, Woon Tien Wei.
© 2022
