An apprentice gives us a sneak peek at what went on behind the scenes for Red Hong Yi's Memebank Exhibition.
By CHAN HUI QI | Photos by ANNICE LYN
One of the most astonishing highlights of the CENDANA Apprenticeship Programme for me was Memebank, an exhibition and parody project created by Studio Red Hong Yi by highlighting the related issues of money-printing and today’s economics.
The exhibition was launched on Jan 21, at APW Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur. The goal of the project was to provoke questioning of the current systems and to encourage a deeper awareness of financial literacy, education and cryptocurrency.
Memebank was an exhibition inspired by a “banking” theme with well-designed props such as the Memebank banner, ATM machines, red carpets, copper-etched money printing plates, mini banknotes and a team of “spoof bankers” who were ready to serve visitors at the exhibition.
The space at APW was curated with a display of six copper plates and canvases created by Red Hong Yi as well as thousands of limited hand-printed mini banknote artworks with dedicated designs suspended from the ceiling.
The Studio Red Hong Yi team put in a great effort to transform the bare room into an engaging, interactive exhibition space within a couple of days. The preparations for Memebank were made months in advance starting from designing the copper plates. Managing the Memebank exhibition from scratch was definitely not an easy task for us apprentices. It was an exciting yet challenging project for all of us to be involved in as it required skill and knowledge from different professions in order to put this Memebank Exhibition together successfully. These skills included placement of artworks, photography captures, lighting adjustment and projection within an indoor area as well as circulation of human traffic within a designated area, and many other details like these.
All of us in the team – there were 12 of us – were assigned with dedicated Memebanker roles during the launch of the Memebank to serve and provide visitors with an exclusive experience throughout the Memebank Exhibition.
For me, it was a successful exhibition! It was great to see people engaging and wanting to know the story behind the Memebank Exhibition. They enjoyed touring around the space and I was enlightened by my own experience as a Memebanker in this exhibition. Hard work definitely paid off and I was really proud to be part of this Memebank project.
Chan Hui Qi is an apprentice with a background of Bachelor Degree in Architecture exploring possibilities other than Architecture by joining the Studio Red Hong Yi under the CENDANA Apprenticeship Programme. She has an interest in designing and exploring the arts which she believes is able to drive emotions and deliver messages.