Moments Communicated
By Baba Emeric Lau
Chris Yap Wooi-Hoe reflects on life as an artist and then some
“I was miserable in Paris! It was gastric flu. I couldn’t venture far from the hotel, you know, because I never knew when I would suddenly feel I had to go…and when I did, maybe only a fart would come out…”
The self-deprecation and candour above is typical of artist-photographer Chris Yap, the man behind The Peranakan Magazine’s cover photograph (Issue 3, 2011). Over cranberry cookies at Light EDITIONS gallery, Chris readily offered up juicy moments culled from his life, such as his unfortunate illness while in Paris in October 2010 to attend the opening of the Baba Bling exhibition at the Musée Quai Branly, where a segment of his works for the NUS Baba House, a series of five photographs exploring gender, symbolism and change in Peranakan culture, was shown. His was the only work there by a living artist.
Chris’ initiation into the world of photography came very early in his childhood. He had two uncles, TM Chua and CK Chua, both of whom were established photographers. They would pose him for photographs. “The photos they took of me filled up so many albums that they occupied this much space!” His hands trace out a sizeable two-shelved commode. Chris would also spend time in the darkroom with his uncles where he subconsciously absorbed the know-how of film processing.
Upon passing his ‘O’ levels, Uncle CK Chua gave him a present – his first SLR Camera. This ignited his passion proper for photography, and after a series of starts and stops, he finally bit the bullet by using his hard-earned savings from moonlighting jobs to buy a photo laboratory. For a few years in the mid-90s, he went on a self-discovery of sorts, venturing to New York, then driving up to Montreal and even going to Europe, shooting portfolios for models and taking on jobs that came his way. He returned to Singapore and decided to concentrate on the finer side of photography. When CD imaging technologies arose, Chris was one of its first local proponents, and this led him to work with the National Archives to digitise about a million archival images. He was also responsible for creating the digital standards for ISO grading. In the early years of the new millennium, Chris left his position there to help in the managing of Objectifs, Singapore’s first art-centric Centre of Photography and Film-making.
“In 2008, Jean Wee of the NUS Baba House contacted me and asked if I would be interested in creating a work for its gallery.” She had worked with Chris before at SAM (Singapore Art Museum). “I had no idea where to start,” he recounts. It was through extensive research that he came to recognise that his mother’s family practices qualified him as coming from a half-Peranakan household and that he had a personal connection with the culture. However, for more than a year, he was unable to make any progress despite amassing a huge amount of knowledge. “I always knew that I wanted to create a photographic work, but how to could I do justice to everything that I’d learnt?” Having worked in theatre, he felt inspired to write a script, and then the various elements just fell into place very quickly. “It was serendipity!” Chris exclaims. His Taiwanese neighbour paid him a visit wearing a sarong kebaya she’d bought in Indonesia, and raving about the Peranakan culture there. Chris immediately decided to cast her as one of the “characters” in his photographs. “Peter Wee also put me in touch with several key personalities, and fortunately they were all amenable and available to do the shoot.” Within a fortnight, he had translated his story into a series of tableaux which were then shot at Baba House in under a week.
Looking back, Chris shared that his past has a huge bearing on his current work. “I’m now an artist of so many disciplines. From music, to painting to photography, to installations, to top it off, I’m also a digital master print-maker, all self-taught., and my practice and gallery, Light EDITIONS, springs from my passion for strong, communicative, evocative images.” He believes in the interconnectedness of artistic disciplines and of culture in general. “I identify strongly as being Asian and Singaporean, but also see myself as a global citizen, able to view things from multiple perspectives.” This view opens up a complexity of meaning, and from there stems the possibilities for building an understanding of the language of visual communication.
Rather abruptly for most, Chris is now pondering retiring from photography almost completely. “I have a love of the land – a yearning for a pastoral life,” he mused. “My godparents are Japanese farmers in Yamanashi, which is two hours from Tokyo. Luckily, they weren’t affected by the earthquake and tsunami.” The life of a farmer may be an unconventional career change, but it remains a form of artistic communication – this time, through nature.
