EXHIBITION

Void is the first collaboration between Hin Bus Depot, a community creative hub, and Blank Canvas, an independent contemporary art platform, both based in Penang. The artworks in Void are drawn from the personal collection of Leong Kwong Yee, the founder of Blank Canvas.

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum; but is it always possible to fill a gap? Some artworks in Void strain powerfully to claim victory over a void; other contemplate poignantly ways to acknowledge, even honour, absences which cannot be overcome.

These artworks span a spectrum of media and invoke different moods and responses. He An pays tribute to his father and his favourite Japanese actress through stealthily acquired neon signs. Trevor Yeung reminisces about an unrequited opportunity through still image and a plant installation. Joshua Serafin’s video work captures the emergence of a new deity to protect and champion a marginalized community. Jessica Kairé meditates on how a public monument can be remembered and maintained through interactive soft sculpture. Vunkwan Tam questions purpose and form through his readymades in the form of two stacked Ikea baby chairs. And Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s charming yet rather macabre tiny human-shaped bell performs its function only through its missing head. 

Yet, while disparate in media, tone and scale, the artworks in Void do cohere in their contemplations of the different manifestations of a void, in turn physical, emotional, spiritual as well as metaphysical – a hole in our heart, a missed connection, a lapse in memory, a lacuna in knowledge, a dearth of being.

In exploring the concept(s) of void, the show serves also as a metaphor for the roles which Hin Bus Depot and Blank Canvas play within Penang. They are committed, in their own ways, to addressing the gaps each perceives in the art scene in Penang.