29.09.20
This is an excerpt of my keynote/response to Chang Gao’s Public Intimacies and Supernormal Stimuli and Simon Dodi’s Both/And at Collisions 2020:
‘In this pandemic, I have been thinking about how distance has become a form of care.
I am not only 7 hours away from the pink clouds of daylight that signal a new day in Singapore, where my family and friends are. I am 13 hours and 14 days in quarantine too late for a family funeral.
Hugs that once brought comfort are now experienced as unwanted intimacy.
Touch can be such deadly self-gratification in this pandemic where distance is appreciated as consideration.
Food is no longer synonymous with reunions but perhaps it is warmth in-lieu of that which cannot be conveyed in person. I cannot be there for funerals in person, so I send curry puffs instead.
Beyond the oceans that separate us, a rainbow lights up the tears and worries that fill the sky between us. In this pandemic, distance is not a void or absence – it is filled with care.’
At the end, I asked people to think about the support they would like to receive and to create an abstract gesture of support. And then to make one small adjustment so that our gestures connect across the screens.
This is a part of the picture we made:
one:lab 