Aparna Nori in conversation with Woong Soak Teng on 'How to Climb A Tree'
Thu 25 Jul 2024, 7pm to 8pm
Objectifs Annexe
Free admission. Please RSVP here
Aparna’s deeply lyrical photobook, ‘How To Climb A Tree’, explores photography as a means to temporally anchor the affective nature of memory through experiential arcs, and shared spaces. This personal, intuitive image series episodically documents a timespan when her 10-year-old son was living in a boarding school in India. What emerges is a collaborative project between mother and son drawn over five years of communication, wherein the images become meditative, introspective traces of places and moments that felt like home for both of them. Through the visual explorations, the artist takes liberties to re-enact and find alternative imaginings to moments that could not be documented. Interspersed with handwritten letters and illustrations, the book examines how a physical absence or distance can be expressively redrafted through emotional awareness.
During this talk, Aparna and fellow artist Woong Soak Teng will converse on topics such as the process of conceptualising the book, narrative concepts, the nature of memory, rootedness, and playfulness, articulation of the feminine gaze, as well as the performative aspect of the photobook.
About Aparna Nori
Aparna Nori is a photographer and visual artist based between Singapore and India. Aparna draws upon personal memory to have a dialogue with the quotidian. Her response is articulated through a range of mediums including alternative photographic processes, installations, video, digital photography and the book form. As a pedagogic extension of her practice, she continues to design and facilitate workshops to teach photography, bookmaking, and alternative photographic processes.
Aparna is a member of Women Photograph, an international forum of women and non-binary photographers.
About Woong Soak Teng
Woong Soak Teng (b. 1994, Singapore) is interested in human tendencies to control natural phenomena and nature at large. Her current research includes the human experience of living with spinal deformity, and the role of image-making and representations of human bodies in the medical field. She is part of the art collective, DASSAD, and has participated in festivals and exhibitions internationally in Auckland, Copenhagen, Dali, Greece, Tokyo, Shanghai and Singapore. Her accolades include the Steidl Book Award Asia, Objectifs Documentary Award 2021, Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography 2018 and Singapore Young Photographer Award 2018.