By CHIN JIAN WEI

Yim Yensum is one of the Malaysian artists taking part in this year’s IOTA event, themed as Codes in Parallel. Yim is an artist known for her contemporary textile and embroidery works, which can be sprawlingly large, sometimes taking up entire walls of space. Yim says, “If you look at my work, you will see that they’re made of a lot of small units. I like to combine small units to become a huge art piece. To me, this progress is similar to the process of life. The cell is split, it grows and changes, and that creates a lot of possibilities in life. I also prefer using soft materials like fabric or textiles because it is like our second skin. When we are born, the first material that we touch is fabric. It’s also a metaphor for care. We make clothes for the people we care about. The needle used to make clothes is also interestingly contradictory. On the one hand, it can make clothes, blankets and things to protect us. But on the other hand, it can be sharp and make you bleed. To me, that is like the conversations and relationships between people. The words that we speak can be warm, but they can also be hurtful.”

The art piece that she would be bringing to IOTA is Threshold of Memoirs, a piece of embroidery art that uses black and gold yarn on gauze, spanning several walls of gallery space and seems to depict a panorama of a city. “This is an ongoing project,” Yim says. “I first started in Kuala Lumpur, where I was born and live in. It continued with the next city I visited, which was Leipzig, and now I’m continuing it with Fremantle, Australia.” As one observes her artwork, one can see how the individual, intricate windows connect to form a street, then a small town, and then a city. According to Yim, this depicts the interconnected nature of everyone, and our constantly changing environment.

Interestingly, the work is sold piecemeal. Collectors are allowed to buy certain sections of Threshold of Memoirs, leaving large blank sections along the cityscape. This is also a demonstration of change, and how commercial activities can transform architecture and people’s lives. “When we live in the city, things keep on changing,” Yim says. “New buildings pop up and are demolished, sometimes without our conscious realisation.”

Furthermore, Yim was inspired by traditional Chinese long scroll paintings when creating her artwork. “When you view the scroll paintings, you open up the scroll with your left hand, opening up the future and the unknown. You also unfold it with your right hand, representing the past. When I display Threshold of Memoirs, the audience is invited to walk along the artwork. It’s 44 metres.” The colours that make up the artwork are also steeped in symbolism. Black represents memory and the accumulation of emotions, while gold represents desire, money, and power. “A city cannot exist without development. But if the city only concentrates on developing, the city loses its soul and dies. The most important thing is that these two (aspects) need to be balanced and intertwined.”

Yim says that Codes in Parallel invites audiences to decode and understand the layers present in the exhibitors’ artwork. “A lot of people think that textile is just craft work and just concentrate on the colours and lines, but textiles are more than that. The exhibition invites the audience to understand the meaning of the artwork itself.

“It’s difficult for me to explain myself,” Yim says. “This is the reason why I make art; sometimes I have so many thoughts in me, and I can’t express them with language so I try to convey them through my art.” She had always been like this since childhood, constantly doodling and creating art. The journey towards a career in art has not been easy. “Artists only earn money if someone collects our work, so I worked multiple different jobs in a month. It was a busy life.”

“Making art makes me feel like I exist,” she says. “I can know who I am. I feel very satisfied and I can find inner peace. I’m not making art to give people an answer, but I instead use my art to ask questions. This is also a way for me to seek an answer.”

Yim will be exhibiting at Holmes À Court Gallery @No.10 in Gooyaman, West Perth, Australia. Check out her Instagram and IOTA artist profile to see and read more about her art!

In 2023, MyCreative Ventures through CENDANA supported the pre-production costs for four Malaysian artists to conduct research for new artworks to be showcased at IOTA24. This collaboration with the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial Inc. (IOTA) in Perth, Australia was part of the Partnership Initiatives programme.

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