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Asia

Ren Zi
To the Cardinal Gods: Central Axial Consecration (Site 6)

2017-2018
To the Cardinal Gods - Central Axial Consecration (Site 6), 2017-2018
To the Cardinal Gods - Central Axial Consecration (Site 6), 2017-2018

To the Cardinal Gods: Central Axial Consecration (Site 6) is from a 2017 series made by Ren Zi during a residency in the Arctic Circle. The work reflects upon the serious ecological issues we face today. During the residency Ren Zi was joined by other artists, scientists, architects and educators exploring the high-Arctic Svalbard Archipelago in an interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavour to create work addressing such issues. Taking the form of a series of photographs, the artist drapes rocks and icebergs with patterned textiles, building totemic objects around them; ‘so redolent of a sense of Southeast Asian-ness’ writes Louis Ho, ‘that it functions almost deliberately as a signifier of too much significance’. The charged motifs against the barren backdrop of the arctic, link the landscape to both a post-apocalyptic vision of the future and a mythological reimagining of the past.    

Ren Zi turned to art after having spent his working life in the business of words, having previously worked in advertising. He channels the mutative influences of popular culture, science and the multi-cultural strains that weigh upon the consciousness of his native Singapore. In his work, he focuses on the role memory plays in our sense of identity and of the world. This comes from having majored in psychology and from the sense of loss that grew out of growing up in a country whose past has been all but erased. Far from nostalgic, his work seems more like open-ended stories. They juxtapose scenes and figures from personal memory, history and mythology as invitation to weave your own connections and conclusions.
Biography
Ren Zi
Born 1976, Singapore
Lives in Singapore
Details
84.1 x 59.4 cm
Chromaluxe Dye Sublimation Print on Semi-gloss White Aluminium
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