Personal Stories

The quote “creativity takes courage” by Henri Matisse aptly describes the selection of works here.

By Kath Fries www.kathfries@gmail.com

‘Hold dear’ reflects on the death of my father. My emotional experiences of wrenching loss and continuing love are poetically nuanced in this bound, bronze-cast magnolia branch. The casting process involved the branch being burnt out from the inside by molten metal, so the remaining bronze piece is a stilled memory of the growing, living budding branch. When my father died a Buddhist friend gently encouraged me to try to ‘be with’ my intense grief, to experience it fully, and eventually to allow it to pass. To love deeply whilst also being present with such an emotional gamut is a difficult path, but it is also grounding, expansive and freeing. To ‘hold dear’ is to hold gently and openly; to truly love is to allow for impermanence and change.

Sandalwood and Burgundy

2017. Poetry

By M.S. Turberfield m.s.turberfield@gmail.com

SANDALWOOD AND BURGUNDY revolves around the ideas of inevitable loss, impermanence and absence. I wrote this when I was sixteen, having grown up with my father always traveling for work, and yet also being the main connection I had to my faith as a child.  Consequently, my relationship with my father & my relationship with my faith is intrinsically linked, and if not, one and the same. 

This is something that might change with time, however was indeed the case at the point when this poem was written.

Almost Home

2019. Poetry

By M.S. Turberfield m.s.turberfield@gmail.com

ALMOST HOME was written when I was eighteen, and as I entered into tertiary education I started this deep search for identity, sparked by a sense of unfounded homesickness I couldn't shake. I felt very drawn to visiting the Chinese Buddhist shops around my school, because the images and statues of the Buddhas felt extremely familiar and yet completely foreign at the same time. 

This poem was attempting to capture that moment in time, the dichotomy of nostalgia and alienation; and the brief, sudden sense of wholeness when I stumbled upon a Tibetan deity. 

By Chu Hao Pei https://chu-haopei.tumblr.com/whitebuildingordination

During an eight-week Pisaot residency with Sa Sa Art Projects, I researched conservation practices in Cambodia. I met with some activists, environmental protection organisations as well as Buddhist monk groups who work on various environmental conservation projects. In particular, I am interested in the act of ordination - wrapping of monk’s robe - on trees as a religious and political gesture to protect the forest, which has been practiced throughout Southeast and South Asia. Concerned with the confrontation and conflict between conservation and development, I explored the monk’s robe ordination and discussion on protecting the White Building’s community in light of the residents-government negotiation on the building’s onsite redevelopment - the White Building is subject to a takeover plan by a Japanese firm, with the support of the Cambodian government. Due to the implication and political sensitivity of the monk’s robe and ordination within the context of Cambodia, the monks and village chief did not approve (ordinating White Building) and hence, the installation was unrealised. Seeking an alternative artistic expression, I ‘ordinated’ the studio and presented in the form of cut out photographs, video and a sound installation, revealing the barriers throughout the process and how the installation would have been imagined otherwise. White Building (originally known as the Municipal Apartments), which was part of the ambitious Bassac River Front cultural complex that lay on reclaimed land along the Bassac River. Designed by Cambodian architect Lu Ban Hap and Russian architect Vladimir Bodiansky, and inaugurated in 1963, the White Building comprised of 468 apartments, and was the first attempt to offer multi-storey modern urban lifestyle to lower- and middle-class Cambodians.