Vain Efforts Ming Wong in Conversation with Sally Lai

Vain Efforts Ming Wong in Conversation with Sally Lai ing Wong was born and grew up in Singapore. He studied Chinese art and wrote plays for English-language theatre in Singapore before relocating to London to Mstudy for his M.F.A. at the Slade School of Art. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Singapore. Drawing on his interest in film and his experience of working in theatre, Ming investigates the performative veneers of language and identity in his work. Coinciding with his solo exhibition, Mononoaware, at MK Galerie, and the culmination of his residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, this interview explores some of the ideas behind his recent work, which often involves him reenacting scenes from foreign language films. Sally Lai: I am interested in the notion of films serving as an entry point to cultures, something you have explored in your work. Can you say a little about how you began thinking of this idea and how you see films fulfilling that role? Ming Wong: I became interested in the notion of “national” cinema, when moving images on celluloid were employed to tell stories that “belonged” to a certain group of people who were usually defined by the language that was spoken, a language other than English. A Spanish film for the Spanish, for example, or a Japanese film for the Japanese, etc. Of course, this was limited to a certain period of history, before globalization and its homogenization of cultures took effect, and before capitalist modes of film production and distribution began to influence how films are made and for whom they are made. Today we have “world cinema” for the world, mediated by multilingual subtitles on DVD releases and marketed and measured by international film festivals. Nostalgia is not a motivation when I look at these movies; rather, I explore how these “national” films affect the culture of a certain people defined by the language they speak—how the powerful, persuasive, and pervasive medium of film embeds itself in the collective psyche of a nation. Sally Lai: When did this start playing out in relation to your work? Ming Wong: The starting point in my own work, when I began to deconstruct selected films by re-enacting/re-interpreting scenes from them, coincided in mid-2005 with my re-engagement with the art scene in Singapore, where I was born and grew up. I had been based in London for almost ten years when I had an invitation to collaborate with an artist friend, Khai Hori, in Singapore for a two-person exhibition. Khai bears the label of Singaporean-Malay-Muslim artist. By that time I often had been sensitized to such cultural labels; I myself had to play the ethnic-minority card in London during the years when the U.K. arts scene began to have serious aspirations of cultural diversity (along with all the pitfalls, sidesteps, dead ends, and turnarounds of this tumultuous journey). Sally Lai: The work you made with Khai Hori, Four Malay Stories, drew on a period in Singapore film history (the late 1950s and early 1960s) that was particularly interesting in terms of bringing 21 Poster for Four Malay Stories, 005/06. Courtesy of the artist. together different cultures and for its references to the films from other countries. Can you say more about that work and what it was about films from this period that interested you? Ming Wong: Four Malay Stories consisted of a series of re-enactments of four classic films from the Singapore film industry that flourished in the late 50s and early 60s before Singapore’s partition from Malaysia and its independence in 1965. This was a unique chapter in the history of world cinema, one where immigrant Chinese film producers hired eminent film directors from India to work with indigenous Malay theatre performers in the making of films—slapstick comedies, historical epics, melodramas, horror movies, musical romances, etc., that referenced 22 films from Europe, America, India, China, and Japan. The language used was Malay, and the portrayals were of Malay Muslim characters. Together with Khai I watched many of these films —films that my own parents grew up watching in the cinemas built by the Chinese producers all over Malaysia and Singapore at the time, films that I recalled from black-and-white television during my childhood. Sally Lai: What was the nature of your collaboration with Khai? Ming Wong: Khai interpreted the films for me, not just for the language (as most of them had no subtitles), but he also highlighted the scenes and lines that have persisted in the collective psyche of the Malay community. Children would imitate gestures, scenes, and lines from these movies— certain lines have evolved into quotations that pepper Malay conversations. I gave myself the task of learning and re-enacting these gestures and lines. Sally Lai: So it was genuinely a collaboration, which not only allowed Khai to facilitate with his translation of Malay but also to add his perspective on social history? Ming Wong: Working with Khai opened my eyes to a whole new dimension of my perception of Singapore. I felt the “Malayness” of Singapore’s history, and of my own youth, was becoming too easily overlooked at present, and its complexities—I mean of the Malay-Muslim duality, with its political evolution and uncomfortable links with its indigenous cultural heritage—became a focal point of my interests. Sally Lai: Can you elaborate on this duality and fascination with “Malayness?” Ming Wong: A large part of Singapore’s Malay social history preserved on celluloid is today inaccessible to the general public: many of the depictions of the Malay characters are deemed “unsuitable” by Muslim authorities. Scenes of alcoholism, adultery, nudity, gambling, profanity, etc., have been censored. Many films have not been shown since they were first released and are languishing in archives. I took it upon myself to include some of these “lost” scenes in my reconstructions. Four Malay Stories brought together a series of gestures, lines, and scenes from a comedy, a historical epic, a melodrama, and a thriller. Different takes of each shot were included, and I can be seen repeating my lines in my butchered Malay pronunciation over and over again, along with a transcription of the lines in Malay and a literal translation in English. The effect is not unlike a foreign language learning video, although the content is deliberately melodramatic, outdated, or outlawed. I played a total of sixteen different characters from four films, male and female, young and old. Sally Lai: Can you say more about playing multiple characters and what you think the effect is of that? Ming Wong: Let’s take, for example, Semerah Padi, which for me is an existentialist film from a Malay Muslim perspective. It is a mythic historical epic touching on religion, morality, and corporeal punishment, where the hero-warrior protagonist fornicates with the village chief’s daughter who happens to be betrothed to his best friend. I play all of the characters, so I fornicate with myself, betray myself, and punish myself by whipping myself. It flattens out the individual dynamics, which I think focuses the work back on to the original material itself. Well, that’s one way of looking at it! 23 Sally Lai: One element that I think is particularly interesting about this piece (and your collaboration with Khai) is that it relies on your limited knowledge, as opposed to extensive knowledge, of a language (in this case Malay). In a sense it relies on you being an outsider in relation to the culture and language. In the process of repeating and repeating in Four Malay Stories and Lerne Deutsch mit Petra von Kant (Learn German with Petra von Kant) is there a danger that you will become too good and lose the position of being outside? Ming Wong: Yes, I was conscious of the fact that the work can be done only once, only at a crucial time when I am still unfamiliar with the language, so the imperfections are all there. Once I begin to have a better grasp of the language, it wouldn’t work as well anymore. This transient quality is important to me, when I am caught on camera with my own vulnerability and fallibility foregrounded in the performance. Sally Lai: This lack of familiarity is something that has also been the starting point of your Lerne Deutsch mit Petra von Kant (Learn German with Petra von Kant). Can you say more about that work? Ming Wong: In preparation for my relocation to Berlin in 2007, I researched German film, in particular the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I adopted Fassbinder as my teacher and guide to German language and culture, starting with Learn German with Petra von Kant (2007), which pays tribute to the protagonist of Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972). In a green dress and curly blonde wig, I imitate the emotional outbursts of my alter ego Petra von Kant in a scene where, Stills from Learn German With Petra von Kant, 007. drunk and disorderly on gin, she lets loose a tirade Courtesy of the artist. against her mother, daughter, best friend, and missing lesbian lover. This was made prior to my move to Berlin, when I had barely a grasp of the German language; it was a case of parroting the lines, intonations, emotions, and choreography of the actress Margit Carstensen, who played the title role. It was my attempt to be as “German” as possible. Whatever that means! What is it to be “German?” Certainly the cheap blonde wig, laboured pronunciation, and ethnic miscasting adds to the incongruity of “Germanness.” But there are moments when I get as close as anyone can get, and that’s the point.

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