Substation Chapbook #2 – A Spectacular Liberal Exception

BrackMag’s second issue: a collaboration with Unseen, a 2 year art project by artist Alecia Neo, that provides a platform for seven youths living with visual-impairment to explore self-identity and their dreams.

This special issue coalesces relationships, conversations, debates, and experiences around the two-year long project that is UNSEEN:Constellations, through personal accounts, including: Justin Lee’s post-conversation circle commentary on sustainability, Qian Wenyi and Megan Miao’s allude to image-making, Jay Koh points out the axes of power in its “participation”, Seet Yun Teng considers the project from an insider perspective as a project assistant, while Mok Cui Yin offer different ways of imaging the production of Unseen: Shift Lab, a collaborative project that took place in Kuala Lumpur with Dialogue in the Dark Malaysia. Unseen: Shift Lab was a collaboration between artist Alecia Neo, theatre director Christopher Ling and musician Ng Chor Guan.

Both contributors and Unseen participants reflect to “see” the threads of  – equally via its participants and its potential audiences – what makes a socially engaged work, and what produces its communities. As editor Nasri Shah elucidates, the ‘constellation’ is only discernible in retrospect.

About BrackMag

BrackMag is a compact publication that aims to bridge art, audience, and context, becoming a great resource and engagement for anyone – artists, researchers, community workers – interested in art and its social interrelationships.

About Alecia Neo

Working primarily with photography, video and participatory workshops, Alecia develops long-term projects involving a variety of individuals and collaborators, overlooked communities and their spaces.

She is also an Artist Lead with Brack, a trans-border arts platform for socially engaged artists. She was awarded the Young Artist Award in 2016.