FAULTS IN THE BREAKROOM
I am Keisha Yan/ Fed, a narrative artist based in Melbourne and Singapore. Currently, my interest is in exploring the overlap between the natural world and the industrial one through absurdist and surrealist scenes. These explorations occur in a variety of mediums, typically with clay, watercolour, and found objects. When installing these works, I often incorporate the site and its overlooked features, so as to imbue them with mystique. In my developing practice, I hope to create complex and engaging narratives that ignite a childlike fascination with our mundane everyday.
I’m inspired by surrealism and absurdism. Hand in hand, they encapsulate the horror and humour in the brutal reality of life. Yet, they act as a source of mysticism that makes the everyday far less mundane. Artists like Jan Svankmajer and Sean Tan really nail this uncanniness and I’m especially inspired by their narrative works.
For The Universal Time Loaf, I inserted a speaker into a loaf of bread playing a looping sound piece and placed it into the communal fridge inside Building 37’s sculpture studio. It became a sort of real world easter egg, where people who cared to seek out the source of the noise would find, alas, the universal time loaf. It’s in the same vein as artworks like the interactive work Project Neurocam and video work Local58 TV.
When I’m making, I often end up letting the natural qualities of a material influence my making process. I often choose to emphasise these qualities, like the forms recycled clay take when they’re scrapped from previous works, or how a material unevenly absorbs different paints. The lived experience of my materials bring new potentials to my work. They act as equal partners and agents in my creative practice, turning this process into one that is collaborative.
Faults in the Breakroom is a work featuring multiple sculpted animal-plant hybrids fixed into obscure and liminal parts of the site’s architecture. By inserting these stylised forms into unnatural contexts, I hope to create humorous moments that emphasise the absurdity of, and potentiality for, mysticism in everyday living.
