Ztampfilicious

paper-thin porcelain feathers

A Flash Back: Paper-thin porcelain feathers… Fresh from the kiln on 11.11.2012 in my JCCAC art studio.

So yes, I’ve been crazy busy for the past few weeks working non-stop on various art-related stuff… From fitting out my new studio space to setting up art exhibitions and helping with the art gallery! All these left me exhausted with no time nor energy to work on anything else. Hence Ztampf! has been hibernating. But worry not, comes summer… Ztampf! will wake up with new zing!

Here are some pics to get a glimpse! More, better pics will hopefully come up soon :)

In case you have been wondering why I have been very quiet lately, well… I am participating in a group exhibition put together as an accompaniment show for the ARTHK12, featuring works by contemporary Indonesian artists: Earthly Evocations. My interactive art installation “Freedom Is A Collaborative Effort” is part of this show which opens in about 30 minutes from now! Exciting!

Freedom is a Collaborative Effort.
Yes, that’s what I believe. This is the title (and the theme) of my latest artwork, currently showing at a group art exhibition in my hometown Jakarta, Indonesia: “Motion/Sensation” Kinetic Art in Indonesia. August 4 – 21 2011, Mon – Sun 10:00 – 21:30 at the Exhibition Hall, Lower Ground Floor, East Mall, Grand Indonesia.

It is an interactive kinetic art installation. Pull the thread and the wings will flap away. The more people participate, the more vigorous the wings will flap! Freedom is not a static state, you have to continue working on it to keep it. Click the photo below to see the wings flapping in a little clip I made with my iPhone!

You can go to http://art.liefhung.com to see more of my artworks.

Wondering where have I been gone to? Looking for the  Ztampfever #51? No, it hasn’t been released yet!

I have just been back to Hong Kong after a 5-week trip to my hometown Jakarta, Indonesia for my solo art exhibition ‘Corporeal Dream’. You can read the review in the Jakarta Post here (in English) and another one in Tempo Weekly here (in Indonesian). To view the exhibition and the works shown there, click here.

While in Jakarta, I got to spend time with my old folks and my old friends too! It was especially wonderful since my older brother and his family who live in Toronto is visiting as well. Oh and my youngest brother and his lovely wife have just been blessed with a super adorable baby boy too. So you see, plenty to take over my life and took away my time and energy from Ztampfing! But don’t worry, I’ll get back to it very soon :).

Until then!

Find out about my art project the Dream Archives here: http://art.liefhung.com/blog/about/

You scrappers might be interested to learn that part of the Dream Archives will involve some “Universal Scrapbooks“.  And the fun part is… you can participate! How? Well, stay tuned for the invitation to participate with the detailed information which will be posted in the Universal Scrapbooks Category in the Dream Archives blog. Subscribe to ensure you don’t miss it.

I made this a while ago as a mascot for my Dream Archives art project out of copper and aluminum sheets. It is now perched on our door. Everytime I see it, it seems to beckon me to take a peek through its single eye – which is the door’s security spy hole. What do you think?

Oh so many things to catch up! I’ve been on a 2-week trip to my home town Jakarta, Indonesia for a collective exhibition I was invited to participate in. I enjoyed my time in Jakarta meeting old and new friends, getting some of the gossips on the local artscene, spending time with my old folks and my youngest brother and his expectant wife.

The exhibition itself is called: “Latitudes in Transit: Indonesian and Mexican Women Artists“, organized by the Embassy of Mexico in Jakarta and shown in the National Gallery there. I have three works in this exhibition. Just click the image below to see them. To see works by some other participating artists, check out this album on my Facebook. There are some really interesting arts there! All by women artists! Enjoy!

Once back in Hong Kong, I’ve been busy with a new art project, for another collective art exhibition in a gallery in Jakarta. I had a friend visiting and staying with us for a week too. Between this and that, I haven’t got chance to work on any new Ztampf! stuff… But don’t worry, I’ll start working on it soon ;)

So on Monday, 21 July 2008 we were working on the exhibition display. I got there to early – and the others were late so I ended up waiting for quite some time. Fortunately the gallery is situated near a lot of restaurants and supermarket so I could hang out somewhere munching some snack :).

Guess what! I met a fellow digiscrapper in person for the first time ever! Yup! Who is she then, you might ask. Well, it’s none other than my dear former Z!Girl, Matisha! She happened to be in Jakarta with her family for a vacation so we decided to meet up and she offered to document the process of me setting up my work for this exhibition. I happily accepted her offer and boy, look at the photos she took… they’re just amazing. I love her angles – she’s a great photographer! And she’s such a nice person too – I immediately felt familiar with her like we’ve met before. Well, we met online and been in touch for a few years of course – but still, meeting in person is different. I’m so glad we met :).

Here are some of the photos she took:

She had to leave before we finish setting up so unfortunately there’s no wonderful documentation for the rest of the works but I am very happy with what we have now. Thanks for your great photos, Matisha :). I really appreciate them!

We finished setting up for the day by around 10:30 p.m. There were still some minor adjustments to be made. My new painting was yet to be stretched on a frame too.

The last photo here was taken by Hendro Wiyanto, the curator.

So I’m back in my parents house in Jakarta, in my old room that keeps on changing here and there whenever I come back.

I left my home in Hong Kong at 7:15 a.m. to catch the 7:30 a.m. airport bus and I got to the airport on time. I checked-in online the day before, not sure what to expect. Got to the airport with my luggage and my rolled painting to find a very long queue under the sign “Self Check-In Drop Off Bags”. Hmmm… I thought it supposed to be shorter? Turned out that the queue moved pretty fast – faster than conventional check-in anyway. I was happy as my suitcase got checked-in without any fuss although it’s a bit over-weight and that they let me carry my painting to the cabin (it’s 54″ long, about 2.5″ in diameter).

The flight itself was pretty uneventful. I was hoping I could sleep all the way through the 4.5 hours flight as I only got less than 2 hours sleep the night before but there were too many interruptions so I arrived in Jakarta totally zonked. Had to wait forever to get my suitcase. I was beginning to get worried when it finally appeared. Pheeew!

The driver from the SIGIarts Gallery met me up and took me to the gallery in Jl. Mahakam in Kebayoran Baru straight way. It’s a brand new gallery with nice, spacious white space. Rachel, the owner of the gallery came out to welcome me and introduced me to the staff members whom I’ve been in contact with by emails. They’re all very friendly and some were acually from the same art institute I graduated from. Nice! To my great relief and joy, Rachel offered to take me for late lunch which I instantly agreed too enthusiastically.

Lunch was terrific! It’s at a Menado restaurant not for from the gallery. They had a live music playing Menado traditional numbers there – very unusual at 3:30 pm! The food was fantastic: spicy grilled seafood in traditional Menado manner – just what I like best! And it was very cheap too – especially compared to Hong Kong but even by Jakarta standard it was relatively cheap. I will definitely be back there. I should have gotten their name card – I forgot the name of the restaurant now, it’s in Menado language which is very different from the Indonesian. Next time I’ll make sure to get one!

We had a nice chat during lunch too, the topic ranged from art and exhibition matters to some hilarious personal anecdotes. The opening is on this Friday, July 25th – and I’m looking forward to it! Click the images below to see them larger:

Now that we’re both full, we went back to the gallery. Hendro the curator was already waiting for us and we proceed with discussion about the placement of my works. I am the only one showing three dimentional objects in this exhibition. The other artists are Ugo Untoro (paintings), Jose Legaspi (paintings) and Melati Suryodarmo (photographs of her performances). They are such amazing artists, it’s my honor to have my works shown alongside theirs.

So I unpacked some of the works I brought with me from Hong Kong and re-assembled them. It wasn’t easy to decide the placement of each but we managed to have some kind of preliminary arrangement which might work. Tomorrow we’ll start the real setting up! How exciting!

It was dark by the time I got to my childhood home by 8:30 p.m. It was good to see my parents again. Last time I saw them was in December last year. They’re both well enough and we enjoyed a nice chat catching up. They enjoyed the things I brought for them too :).

I just wanted to share with you all the thank you letter I wrote for the Freeman Foundation who has funded my Artist in Residency at Vermont Studio Center. I had such a wonderful time there – far beyond my expectations…

Oh boy… the last few weeks flew by so fast! Lo and behold… today is my last day at VSC! All the residents are leaving tomorrow morning! It feels so weird… especially for those of us who have been here for almost 2 months. We’ve made wonderful friendship with many and we’ll miss each other’s company. It’s all good though – we are ready to get back to the ‘real world’ out there. VSC is an ‘alternate world’, an ‘all-positive bubble’ where everything and everyone is good – a truly great place to be, but we can’t stay here forever.

So I have posted all my art supplies and tools in 2 heavy boxes back to Hong Kong by post yesterday. 1 box filled with my canvas and small copper wings was also posted to Hong Kong. I won’t need them for the rest of my trip. My paintings and the big copper wings will be shipped by UPS to Jakarta – for a group show I’ll be in in late June there. Right now, I’m in the laundromat – doing my last laundry here. Later today, I will have to pack the rest and the clean up my studio…

There are so many things I would like to share with you all! Where to begin…
Last previous Saturday, April 12th was a very special day! First, me and Thu, another Freeman Fellow artist are having a work-in-progress show and the opening was on the evening of April 12th, right after dinner. It was exciting! We both dressed up a bit to appear a bit different than our daily shabby-artist-look. Dessert and wine along with some fruity snacks were provided and everyone seemed to enjoy both the show and the food :).

Here are some photos from the opening – there are more in my Facebook Photo Albums:

Oh, my laundry is done now… I gotta run – will try to post more later today!

Wow, it’s been quite a while since my last post eh! There are too many things to do with so little time! The unsteady internet connection here is not helping either. But here I am! There are many things I’d like to share with you. I will divide them into several posts – so watch out for a stream of posts soon (that is, if things go according to plan!).

But first, I want to show you this:

The snow has started to melt away! I took this picture yesterday afternoon – it was such a beautiful sunny Sunday!

And now, in my last post I told you about the Bread and Puppet Theater who came to town and that I was volunteering to help with their show here. So here’s the story:

Me and my two friends were among the first VSC volunteers who arrived at the Lowe Lecture Hall. They were unloading – so we helped them a bit. There were a few old leather suitcases, musical instruments, a sewing machine, a few head masks, etc. Peter Schumann himself is a very unique, interesting old man in his 70’s. He’s so full of energy and ideas. His warmth and unpretentious manners are wonderfully embracing. There were only a handful of his crew there and you can tell from their appearance that they’re some sort of artists – they’re beautiful in unusual ways and they dressed in their very own unique way. Interesting people.

So, after all the volunteers have arrived – there were 12 of us – Peter gave a short introduction about his troupe and what we were there for. Turned out they were there not as Bread & Puppet Theatre, but as Lubberland National Dance Company! And guess who were to be the dancers? Peter himself with his 6 people and … the rest of us: the VSC volunteers!

It was extraordinarily fun and inspiring! The show consisted of 6 dances; and Peter explained the theme/meaning of each. The overall theme is basically political critic on the election… although it’s not always obvious. Then we started rehearsal right away… he gave instructions and showed examples of the kind of movements we expected to do, and we followed. It sounds impossible but we did rehearse for about 2 hours only and that’s it! There were a lot of freedom for us in term of how we ‘dance’ – although of course there were some directions that we had to follow, i.e. point your finger and move around, move your body gently as the followers of the Goddess of Sleep, prance about – run as if you were being chased, roll on the ground, freeze the moment the cymbals bang, etc. etc. I really enjoyed it! The atmosphere was so relaxed and playful and fun. It’s so liberating to move and dance like that! I loved it!

The first dance depicted the battle between the Money People and us, the people. We’re riding ‘horses’ – which were brooms held upside down. The brooms were made from sticks and branches like witches brooms. This first dance was really hard on my left injured knee and on my breath. I was relieved that the rest of the 5 dances weren’t that vigorous although still involved a lot of movements. There were very little props and there weren’t any costumes except for a few puppet masks.

After the 2 hours rehearsal, we all went to have dinner at the VSC’s Red Mill – this includes the whole Lubberland National Dance Company crew! Afterwards we went straight back to the venue to do a brief overview… refreshing our memories about which dance follows which. So exciting! By 8 p.m. the Lowe Lecture Hall has filled up and it’s show time! It’s opened with a unique performance by Claire of the Bread & Puppet Theater; she’s telling a story with a kind of sing song way – with a help of a hand-painted story board. It was hilarious! And of course political. Then it was the dance show: ours. I had a marvelous time! I surprised myself that I was not nervous at all! I enjoyed every moment of it! It was a success too!

(yes, the photos are blurry – I’m still waiting for the official documentation…)

I felt so happy! And I received unexpected high praises on my dance… For the next few days afterwards people kept on telling me how beautiful and graceful my movements were; how their eyes were just drawn to watch me amongst the rest. How I was so into it, how my face and eyes were so expressive. Many even asked me if I was a professional dancer! One of the newer writer residents who is a trained, professional dancer even asked me that. When I told him that I’m not, he said that my movements looked like a pro and that I definitely have it in me – that I should perhaps consider developing that, adding that to my work or something. I wasn’t expecting such responses… of course I was pleased but also a bit embarrassed at the same time. I’m especially pleased because the movements are mostly my own too! My mother would be very happy and proud when I tell her – she, the real dancer!

After the show they served warm home-made bread with garlic spread. So yummy! It warmed both our belly and our heart! At the foyer, they had postcards, posters and mini publications of the Bread & Puppet Theater and I got a couple of booklets for my step-daughters: How to Make Junk Instruments and How to Make Puppets – I hope they’ll like it!

Then… we rushed back to the Dance Party! Yes, the residents were hosting a Dance Party at the Kahn Barn Drawing Studio that night! It was so fun and exciting! The girls were all dressed up and made up their face – we felt so preeety :). I felt like I’m back in college years – with my art school friends preparing for the Fancy Nights… Oh good ole’ wild days! Jason who brought his iMac to the residency use it for the sound system – playing a dance mix from his iTunes. Such eclectic music to dance to… it was great fun! What a super wonderful Saturday it was!