CONVERGENCE by Wei Leng Tay

Comprising 65 images, Convergence is an intimate look at segments of the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaysia. This book questions and records the changes current generations experience as they grow increasingly distant from their grandparents’ homeland, as attitudes and values shift with each generation. It also looks at how this Chinese community has evolved with characteristics shaped by the co-dependent history, and social landscapes particular to Singapore and Malaysia. Convergence explores the ways of life and relationships of these people and reflects the ideas of race, heritage and language that are ingrained in the community.

Read an interview with Wei Leng Tay and her thought process behind this book here.

About Wei Leng Tay

Wei Leng Tay is an artist working with photography, audio and video that are made into installations and prints. Her process begins with conversations and interactions with people she meets, which inform the images and forms the projects take.

As she works with various parties on her projects, she reflects on the significance of this interaction for both herself and the other party, and how this relationship, however transient and brief, can be articulated in the work. Her works are usually based on how desires, personal relationships and histories are tied to family, society, and the state, and migration. They also reflect on the politics of perception and relation: Who is looking and how is one looking? What is being heard? Why does one, as viewer, maker, participant, feel certain ways about the work? In this way, the works also consider the impossibility of representation and knowing, adding another dimension to the complexities of identity and sense of place or displacement dealt with.