2017
three-channel video installation
This video installation cherishes the unusually nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of the character Chomel in the celebrated Cathay-Keris film Sumpah Pontianak (1958). Born deformed, her main curse is to have craved love and the “normal” life only available to a beautiful woman. When the curse of her beauty backfires, she is transformed into a pontianak (female vampire) and persecuted for her presumed evil. But is it really a curse? Empowered, she is able to act against injustice, fight supernatural evils, and fly to the rescue of her family. In Chomel’s many faces, her daughter Maria recognizes a courageous and loving mother, while Chomel also wins the respect of her son-in-law and her village.
In the vein of Mary Daly’s fierce feminist re-writing of “hag-ography” and “crone-ology”, this work reclaims the position of the Pontianak. The woman who is aged, wrinkled, unkempt, disabled, outside conventions of beauty, powerful, and therefore feared or loathed. A Great Hag of History, long-lasting one. A witch intractable to wooing, who haunts the hedges of patriarchy, frightening fools and summoning Weird Wandering Women into the Wild.
Pontianak positions available, all welcome to apply.
Created for the Esplanade Library/Asian Film Archive Co:lab filmxdance series, 13 March 2017.
three-channel video installation
This video installation cherishes the unusually nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of the character Chomel in the celebrated Cathay-Keris film Sumpah Pontianak (1958). Born deformed, her main curse is to have craved love and the “normal” life only available to a beautiful woman. When the curse of her beauty backfires, she is transformed into a pontianak (female vampire) and persecuted for her presumed evil. But is it really a curse? Empowered, she is able to act against injustice, fight supernatural evils, and fly to the rescue of her family. In Chomel’s many faces, her daughter Maria recognizes a courageous and loving mother, while Chomel also wins the respect of her son-in-law and her village.
In the vein of Mary Daly’s fierce feminist re-writing of “hag-ography” and “crone-ology”, this work reclaims the position of the Pontianak. The woman who is aged, wrinkled, unkempt, disabled, outside conventions of beauty, powerful, and therefore feared or loathed. A Great Hag of History, long-lasting one. A witch intractable to wooing, who haunts the hedges of patriarchy, frightening fools and summoning Weird Wandering Women into the Wild.
Pontianak positions available, all welcome to apply.
Created for the Esplanade Library/Asian Film Archive Co:lab filmxdance series, 13 March 2017.
Co:lab filmxdance, Esplanade Library, 13 March 2017
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Work-in-progress, Dance Nucleus, February 2017
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