(Click picture to view the album)
13 May – 3 Jul ( Fri – Sun) Tunnel, Esplanade
Created in collaboration with the children from Jamiyah Children’s Home
Familial problems and social conditions often neglect, entrap, and render children powerless. Inevitably, they would have to enter society one day, hopefully with the realisation that happiness is within their control. Organisations such as Jamiyah Children’s Home have continually tried to help such children mend their broken dreams and give them hope for their future.
Joo Choon Lin has been organising art activities for these children in the past year, the result of which is the development of this installation featuring stop-motion animated film Too Big in the Tank. Metaphorical to broken dreams as well as the deep emotional and spiritual struggles of these children, Too Big in the Tank portrays a fish’s desire to make its way into the sea, which ultimately represents its sense of nature, home and security.
Short Synopsis:
WIO has estimated that the dramatic figure of 200 million young and extreme vulnerable children without parental care has been reached. … This unprotected group of more than 200 million orphaned and abandoned children is estimated to grow within the next five years to around 250 million. In 2015, it is predicted, 400 million children and young people will directly or indirectly fall into this category. They have no or limited access to education, food, medical care and family love, and are defenceless against abuse, exploitation and child labour… When children are neglected and forgotten, they grow up too fast. When irresponsibility becomes the rule in a society, its whole system of morality alters. Children establish their own laws, their own hierarchy, and their own methods of distributing wealth. On the one hand, these children grow up very fast. On the other hand, they never really mature; they stay in a strange intermediate condition.
The artist started thinking about making a film about the subject and wanting to tell a story in an almost semi – documentary manner. In the film, the character was confused by the strange situation he stumbles upon. The director toyed with some thoughts along the storyline and gets some inspiration from the selected orphanage. For example, the fish tank in Jamiyah Home. Some objects are selectively chosen to symbolize a connotation. Too Big In The Tank title is metaphorical and trying to show the feeling resembling a fish of wanting to leap out and make its way to the sea, their nature, their home and security.
Installation View
(Click Picture To View Ablum)
In the film, I have my inspiration for the storyline from the home through daily interaction and conversation with the staff and the children. In the film, I selected materials, objects and symbols that are familiar to the children. I saw the fish tanks placed in the lobby of the home, the children playing football during their free-time, a cabinet filled with soccer trophies, so slowly I tried to piece these objects and activities all together in the film.
Through the conversations with the children, playing football is something they enjoy to do and their favourite pastime. It is their passion, so my intention was for the children to use favourite hobby football as a form of language for expression. The character in the film is kicking a ball into the wall, trying to break it down this somehow shows their frustration about their plight.
The superintendant always mentioned to me that the children come with broken dreams and from broken homes. This is also mentioned in a video interview I had with him. So therefore there are many scenarios of walls breaking down in the video, and it represents the broken dreams and homes, and the deep emotional and spiritual struggle of the children.
The conversations and time spent at the home all helped to form the backbone of the script and storyline of the film. The title and the video itself “Too Big in the Tank” is metaphorical, trying to liken the children to fishes in a tank. The fish desires to make its way into the sea, which is their nature, their home and sense of security.
I do not have any specific reading about some of the sequences in the film, like the part when the fishes are hitting into the walls. It may be read that the fishes are the children themselves trying to escape from their broken homes. They keep banging their heads into the walls, trying to get out of the room desperately, and implying a certain kind of domestic situation that is not in their favour. The room is the extension of the child’s imagination and he is looking into his broken home and into his situation. The cracking hole on the wall acts as a transition of bringing him to his imagination. Near the ending parts, you can see colours of rainbow emerge in the room as the fishes are banging their heads into the wall, there is a kind of desperation but there is also a sign of hope. The rainbow colours represent hopes, so as to repair their broken dream. It transforms their heartbreak into hope and courage, turning adversity into strength.
During the filming with the children, it is done with just one take. This is to prevent from a sequence to be taken too many times, because they will feel awkward to retake as they are not professional actors. I prefer something more natural and have the character to be at ease with himself, enjoying the process and be more spontaneous. The film is done in such a way that it gives the impression that everything seem to be inside a tank, with a glassy, reflective, translucent outer layer with water droplets in the frame. And the cracking glass with hand print again shows the desire of the children to break free.
The script is inspired by lyric writing. Playing with words that have different meaning, using connotations. Connotations are words that may carry emotional implications and associations. Connotation allows great depths and subtleties of meaning to be expressed in the few words. Choosing the right words in song writing has a lot to do with considering not only their literal meaning, but also the connotations they have for you and for your listeners. Rather than saying everything you have to say through literal statements, the results will be more subtle and artful, more concise, and often more memorable.
The entire of the installation and video seem to have an overall feeling of being quite enjoyable to view, however the undertone of the work begins to prick the conscience as the viewer tries to understand the work further.
I realised that the local people are covering their objects, plants, cars and traffic pole with blue sheet to protect from the heavy snow. The blue sheet presented an interesting element in everyday life and I wanted to borrow its form and materials to integrate them in my film.
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