Margaret Tan Ai Hua

 

Born in 1970, Margaret Tan Ai Hua is a performance and installation artist who situates her practice within a feminist context. She works with a wide range of media from objects, performance and installation to new media.

She is the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award (RMIT) in her Bachelor of Fine Arts.  She was the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award (RMIT) in her Bachelor of Fine Arts programme and became one of the first Artist-in-Residence with the Cyberarts Initiative, University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore. She is currently tutoring (part-time) on 'New Media Arts' for the School of Computing, National University of Singapore and lecturing (part-time) with the Department of Art Theory and Art History in LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, offering courses such as History of Performance Art, Issues in Performance, History of Installation Art and Domesticating Space: Constructing the 'Home'.

 

Trikho

In 2003, she collaborated in a show with Lynn Lu in a show titled Trikho at the Alliance Francaise gallery. Trikho explores the versatility of hair and its sensuous and organic properties in mediating psycho-social introspection, communication, and interactivity. Other works of Margaret include Eat Away, and Virtual Bodies.
 

Eat Away
Hilton Singapore (10 - 12 Dec) 2001

An interactive work about the breakdown of gender stereotypes and an embodied experience of art. In Eat Away, Margaret Tan offers to her audience the act of tasting and eating. For the artist, the sensual quality of chocolate conjures notions of richness, excess and indulgence. Shaped into male and female figures, the artist invites the audience to test out their own responses, being suddenly made aware of possible choices and thoughts that may be conjured up by the act of consuming.

For Margaret Tan, the aesthetic experience is to be induced by way of facilitating audience to act out and think up possibilities and meanings. Chocolate is chosen, according to the artist, as it is a sensual ingredient. The work, which also extends to the actual “eating” of the chocolate figures, suggests a place of indulgence, away from the cooking hearth that is a private space, into a more social space (the hotel) that is yet, a “home”.
 

Virtual Bodies in Reality

In Margaret's work, she explores issues concerning the existence of life in virtual space and the moral and ethical implications of human action on virtual objects. This work consists of male and female virtual bodies. The man, Joseph Jernigan, was a prisoner on death row. Joseph's body and the body of an anonymous woman were donated in 1986, for scientific research to the National Library of Medicine in the United States' Visible Human Project. They became the 'Adam and Eve' of cyberspace. The actual human bodies of the couple were systematically sliced by a cryomacrotome and then imaged by Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technologies. The images were converted into computer data files and `reconstructed' slice by slice to form the bodies. Viewers are allowed to interact with the work by viewing it from different angles, using the mouse to `hit' different parts of the body or `heal' them with one touch of the mouse.

 

Other Exhibitions

Apr 2001 Project 2: Too2 : Exhibition of works by full-time and part-time staff from the school of Fine Arts, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Earl Lu Gallery

Mar 2001 Maintenance Performance (Women @ Work): Performance Artist in collaboration with Faith Wilding, Revenue House, Singapore

Mar 2001 Women Beyond Borders (Singapore): A cross cultural project and touring exhibition connecting women from 36 countries around the world, Sculpture Square, Singapore

Jul 2000 AWARE day: Performance Artist for the open-house at AWARE, Association of Women for Action and Research, Dover Crescent, Singapore

Jun 2000 Tracking Time: Installation Artist (Collaboration) for Doppio-Parallelo, Clifford Pier, Singapore Arts Festival 2000

May 2000 Scratch: 7th RMIT Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Exhibition, Earl Lu Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

Mar 2000 Art in Alternative Spaces: Space C: Site-Specific Contemporary Art Exhibition, Raffles City Shopping Centre

Sep 1999 A Self of One’s Own: Feminist Art Workshop and Symposium, BA Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

May 1999 Edge: 23rd Diploma in Visual Arts Exhibition, LASALLE Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

1995 Sprout: Foundation Student Exhibition, LASALLE Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

1996 Reveil: Foundation Student Exhibition, LASALLE Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

 

Others

2001 Secondary School teachers (MOE)

2001 Featured in d+a design and architecture (Issue 002/2001)

Apr 2001 Speaker for forum Women, Art & Community (third session), The Substation — Guinness Theatre

Mar 2001 Featured in The Straits Times for Women Beyond Borders (Singapore) (24/04/01)

Mar 2001 Featured in The New Paper for Women Beyond Borders (Singapore) (09/04/01)

Dec 2000 Speaker for Who’s Afraid of Contemporary Art, on the topic of "Performance Art", Singapore Art Museum

Oct 2000 Featured in Arts Connection, a quarterly newsletter of LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts (Oct-Dec 2000 issue)

Oct 2000 Featured on Arts Central under Arts Central: Battle at Waterloo (3-part series), Episode Three — "Does Singapore have what it takes to be a Renaissance City?" (1/10/00)

Sep 2000 Image of work used for the cover of My Book of Days, for the Shirin Fozdar Trust Funds

Jul 2000 Featured on New Inspirations under Inspired Moments (4-part series), Arts Central, for Tracking Time, Installation Artist (Collaboration) for Doppio-Parallelo, Clifford Pier, Singapore Arts Festival 2000 (16/07/00)

Jun 2000 Featured in The Straits Times for Tracking Time, Installation Artist (Collaboration) for Doppio-Parallelo, Clifford Pier, Singapore Arts Festival 2000 (01/06/00)

Jun 2000 Featured in Lianhe Zhaobao for Tracking Time, Installation Artist (Collaboration) for Doppio-Parallelo, Clifford Pier, Singapore Arts Festival 2000 (04/06/00)

Jun 2000 Image of work used for the cover of Text & Subtext Contemporary Art and Asian Woman, a book of essays in conjunction with the conference and touring exhibition

May 2000 Featured in Lianhe Zhaobao for Art at Alternative Space: Space C, Site-Specific Contemporary Art Exhibition, Raffles City Shopping Centre (22/05/00)