Kar-men Cheng

Kar-men Cheng is an artist, researcher, and writer based in Singapore. Her art is informed by her research background in education sociology, and intimately intertwined with personal histories which she seeks to understand. Her work often begins with social relations as material and transforms into various mediums, such as sound and video installation. Recently, she has been focusing on the power dynamics of familial relations, examining her own home and its relationship to wider societal structures and geopolitical tensions. 

Most recent projects include research and written content for When is Enough, Enough? The Performance of Measurement, Singapore Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale 2023; two artworks for Beauty Meta World, Spatial Anatomy’s virtual activation of Beauty World Shopping Centre, supported by Design Singapore; and “Shopping for Culture in a Single-owner Society” in the book The Singapore Mall Generation.

Sprawled across the protective casts are hand gestures calling for peace, locked together in mutations of multi-limbed inaction. Multicoloured hands are bound in a process of homogenisation. Their peculiarities are clamped inside the diplomatic handshake. They’ve made the news, and are performing in different contexts. 

The heart of this work lies in the saying “that’s the way the world is”, a sentiment the artist frequently hears in response to bad news. Underlying this phrase, she discerns a coping mechanism– a wrangling of tenets to massage away the cognitive dissonance between our sense of humanity and evidence of an unjust world order. 

There is a resignation that there is a natural order for change to occur and survival mean going with this flow. Choosing to yield offers a sense of agency and control. It seems easier to change ourselves than to envision a different world. Yet the seemingly safer path erodes our sensitivity to our needs and the needs of others.

In exploring these nuances, this artwork invites reflection on the interplay between self-preservation, the parts of ourselves we sacrifice in the name of maintaining control, and our complicity in “the way the world is”.