I aim to conduct artistic experiments that confront discomfort through my work, based on an intuitive and critical attitude. My work often begins with everyday conversations or chance observations, gradually expanding into structured and complex questions. I prefer a direct and honest approach to expression, and I hope that even if the audience feels somewhat uncomfortable, they will use those feelings to engage in reflection, dialogue, and new questions.
My master's project, Manifesto Vol. 1, critiques the systemic tokenization of artists of color in contemporary art institutions, inspired by reflections on the 60th Venice Biennale and its theme, “Foreigners Everywhere.” Through a mosaic crafted from Venetian glass, critical postcards, and a parody of a typical tourist photoshoot, the work blends public art with everyday spaces to challenge audiences to rethink multiculturalism, representation, and the autonomy of artists in shaping their narratives. It questions how artists of color are often framed as representatives of identity or nation, rather than as independent creators.
This project challenges audiences to reconsider the language of multiculturalism and the politics of artistic visibility. It asks: What does it mean to be visible, and on whose terms? Who gets to speak, and who is spoken for?
Thesis
Link to thesis
Master Exhibition plan
Manifesto Vol. 1 is not merely the text of a declaration, but a work that explores how it exists. The piece is installed as typographic posters on the walls of the Skylight Gallery, with copies of the declaration stacked below, allowing viewers to take them freely. This participatory structure transforms viewers from passive observers into active agents, expanding the act of quietly reading the manifesto into taking it out, sharing it, and rearranging it.
This project is a critical intervention brought into institutional spaces, critiquing the very structures within these institutions, particularly the white cube, and its neutrality and complicity in the simplified consumption of identity. Nevertheless, this work is intentionally executed within that space. I embrace this point of conflict as part of my work.
Manifesto Vol. 1 is not a work that remains solely within the gallery. I wanted to push this manifesto outside the gallery, outside the institution, and into the midst of everyday life. Therefore, I plan to screen my video work Oh! There’s a Typical Asian Tourist! on a vertical monitor installed next to the school reception. This monitor is originally used to display school events and announcements. Students simply pass by and check the school events. Within this screen, I will insert a portion of the video where I held a banner and performed on a gondola in Venice. This video will naturally appear between the announcements. This video screening experiments with an expanded definition of “public art.” Public art does not necessarily have to be in a square or on an authorized wall. Rather, this intervention infiltrates the flow of institutionalized daily life and functions as a subtle break point that disrupts that flow. This is not simply a way to show my work to more people. It is a question.
“Why are some voices easily heard, while others must interrupt to be heard?”
Performance is no longer a one-time act at a site but seeps into the form of repetitive, mindlessly consumed information, reenacting the voices of Asian women holding banners and shouting between announcements.
Sometimes, inserting oneself into everyday scenes we casually overlook can be more effective, and this monitor is precisely such a space within the institution, where people seldomly recognize it as such. I insert my voice, my gestures, and my questions into that space. Between the institution of school, the venue of the reception, and the language of management in announcements, my performance is inserted like a kind of noise. But that noise is precisely my position and my strategy. Just as I appeared in Venice without an invitation, I appear on this monitor without one either.
Thus, the manifesto is no longer just a sentence written on paper, but is attached to walls, infiltrating monitors, and is handed to viewers. Typography, video, installation, and intervention these are all attempts to transform language into visual and spatial experiences. The manifesto speaks not only through its content but also through how it is written and where it is installed, demanding that viewers read, pause, and respond.
Ultimately, this project is an attempt to explore the art institution from outside its Western context and reveal my position as an artist through interaction with that institution. The manifesto exposes the burden of representation, the paradox of inclusion, and the dual logic of an institution that appears to embrace diversity while controlling it, constantly asking the following questions:
Whose voice does the artist speak—how, where, and to whom?
This question is both the one I ask myself most often and the one I push away most often in my work. This is because it does not allow for a simple answer. Some days I feel that I am speaking my own voice, but other days I wonder if I am speaking on behalf of something or someone else, or if I am borrowing someone else's voice.
Artists speak. They are asked to speak, invited to speak, and needed to speak. Especially nowadays, when the word “diversity” is used more and more easily, we are often asked to tell “our story.” But that request always operates within a certain framework. How to speak, where to speak, and to whom we speak are implicitly determined. If I step outside that framework, my voice is either not heard or edited to fit back into the framework. Often, I end up saying what they want to hear rather than what I want to say.
At such times, I revisit this question:
Whose voice am I speaking right now?
And where is this voice reaching, and to whom?
This question becomes even more complex when my work is exhibited in an art institution. I want to shout my language in the silence of the white cube. It is my voice, but at the same time, it is a voice that has been tuned to the way that space allows. So I perform in Venice, insert it into monitors, stick it on walls, and distribute it as postcards. As I do so, I ask: Whose ears is this voice reaching? Is it reaching the intended audience, or is it being repackaged within an entirely different structure?
“Whose voice does the artist speak—how, where, and to whom?”
This sentence is both a question and a direction for me. It is a declaration and a hesitation.
Timeline / Budget
Timeline
-January to February
Research and making plans
-March to April
Write a thesis
Prepare a solo exhibition at Akademierommet
-May
Making Poster and Print
Making Poster Card and Print
Edit Video file
Budget
-Digital Prints for poster 4000 kr
-Print for Postcard 1000 kr
-Installations and interior props to Skylight Gallery 1000 kr