Art of the Rehearsal.

Art of the Rehearsal is an immersive three-channel multimedia video installation by multidisciplinary artist Sarah Choo Jing. This panoramic artwork depicts traditional dancers across various cultures practicing along the back lanes of cultural districts in the city. Reflecting on the rigorous and intense training behind the performance, Choo seeks to bring out the consistent determination of the performers. The emphasis here is on the process rather than on the final outcome.

• Multimedia video installation, 2017, Gallery 10 at the National Museum of Singapore, size variable

Wear You All Night

A momentary place of transit; the Hotel can be seen as an empty shelter. An oxymoron on many levels, this place is ultimately representative of space between boundaries; wakefulness and slumber, working and restful, solitary and inhabited, lust and apathy. The housed rooms permeate, both a presence of absence, and an absence of presence as travellers check in and out. Reassuring duplicates, the rooms pervade an enthralling sense of anonymity amongst the lone occupants. Drawing a parallel to the Hotel, Wear You All Night is characterised by a tacit acknowledgement - and in some cases, desire- of the existence of transient and temporal connection between individuals.

• Double channel video installation, 2017, size variable

Nowhere Near

Nowhere Near depicts a panoramic composite of documented scenes across Paris, London and New York. Isolated characters from various cities were photographed from a distance; then pieced together to form a potential narrative in a space which belongs nowhere and everywhere at once.

• Single channel video installation, 2016, size variable

Flights of The Mind

Flights of the Mind presents an intersection of ongoing trajectories on a journey. Taking on the role as an anonymous voyeur; Choo observes and re-presents constructed coincidences and happenings on the Mass Transit Railway in Hong Kong. Taking the viewer through time, the artist patrols the space between the real and the constructed, the actual and the imagined; between intimacy and estrangement. Through observing actual characters and moments in time, she presents a composite of documented footages; suggesting a potential narrative within an increasingly isolated urban aquarium. Occasionally chasing and often searching for a temporal connection with strangers, Choo emphasizes on the very act of waiting and exemplifies on the deliberate slowing down of time. There is an uneasy recognition that the encountered scenes are lacerated culminations of the past, present and future. With a clear absence in communication, estranged passengers are taken from one point to another, in-between moments; in-transit.

• Solo Exhibition at Art Projects Gallery, PMQ Building, 2016, photography and video, size variable

He paused, looked over and said;

He paused, looked over and said; is an interactive multimedia installation depicting 9 local Artisans across Singapore. Through documenting then compositing the footages, Choo seeks to understand and re-present potential narratives behind their craft. At the same time, she invites viewers to participate in creating their personal narrative through dictating the placements and sequencing of both people and objects. This Artwork is commissioned by Pernod Ricard Singapore for the Icon De Martell Photography Award Exhibition; held in conjunction within conjunction with the Singapore Night Festival.

• Multimedia Installation in Immersive room at The National Museum of Singapore, Variable size, 2014.

Waiting for the Elevator

In her recent work, Choo seeks to reflect upon issues of social alienation and isolation through potential narratives in Everyday scenes. Waiting for the Elevator is a Multimedia Installation that depicts a composite of documented events, projected across the Esplanade Tunnel. Through working closely with Filmmaker Mathias Choo Rui Zhi and Sound Artist Teo Wei Yong, the artist brings uneventful and overlooked aspects of lived experience into visibility. In Waiting for the Elevator, Choo reinterprets observations of individuals at void decks across Singapore then re-presents them to her viewers. Drawing on normally unnoticed, trivial and repetitive actions, she reflects upon the social purposes of these sheltered environments. The composited panorama ultimately exists as a non-space; an accumulation of fragments over time.

• Multimedia Installation in Esplanade Tunnel, Variable size, 2014.

Wonderland

Wonderland depicts a digital composite of images taken at a carnival. The ‘fun house’ presented, De Grosse Irrgaten ; directly translates to ‘The Great Maze’. The artist is reflecting upon the function of the ‘fun house’ as an attraction and a spectacle within the setting of a theme park. A space designed to entice yet confound the participants, ‘The Great Maze’ serves as a form of entertainment/play, sought after by various individuals.

• Archival Print under Diasec, 1.74m x 0.85m, 2014.

Puddles in the City

Puddles in the City is a series of 5 images depicting a moment in time where street performers are captured when they are no longer performing. The role of the Performer/ Entertainer is indeed fascinating. Taking on a different persona each time, the entertainer is dressed as an Icon and becomes an object of attraction. At the specific moment when they no longer consciously perform, do these entertainers stop becoming representations of icons? Who is the spectator and who the performer? When, or does the performance come to an end?

• Archival Print under Diasec, 1.50m x 0.75m, 2014.

It was a Tuesday, like any other Tuesday

It was a Tuesday like any other Tuesday depicts a single channel video composite. Here, the actions and routines of 12 individuals living within the same apartment building have been documented from the artist’s bedroom window. These potential narratives that occur within the window frames have no specific storyline, and are instead open to interpretations.

• Multimedia Installation in in Room. Single channel looped video, 64 seconds, Variable size, 2013.

The Hidden Dimension

Solitude has become a significant issue in today’s society. This is ironic when contrasted against a highly populated city, such as that of Singapore. How is it possible, that despite being surrounded by people, we are so much alone? In her recent work, Choo reflects upon this phenomenon. In The Hidden Dimension she questions the effectiveness of the relief offered by daily routines. Seven members of her family are depicted engaged in trivial acts of self-occupation. At exactly the same point in the film, in an unexpected cadence, they simultaneously break from their self-imposed Sisyphean distraction and look out into the audience and each other.

• Multimedia Installation in Immersive room at The Institute for Media Innovation .Multi-channel looped video, 65 seconds, Variable size, 2013.

Between Us

Between Us explores the topic of isolation obliged upon us by our jobs. Seven professionals; a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic, a clerk, a hawker, a teacher and a shopkeeper are pictured busy in their work environments. In a slow fade, the environment disappears and they are left in a forbidding, grey, concrete space.


• Multimedia Installation in Immersive room at The Institute for Media Innovation .Multi-channel looped video, 60 seconds, Variable size, 2013.

After

A Portrait of Brother.

• Archival Inkjet Print on Canvas, 1m x 1m, 2013.

Antique Lady

• Archival Inkjet Print on Canvas, 1m x 0.7m, 2013.

Commodification

• Archival Inkjet Print under Diasec, 1m x 0.7m, 2013.

Mom and I

• Archival Print under Diasec, 2013.

A Portrait of father and brother

• Archival Print under Diasec, 0.7m x 1m, 2012.

Disillusioned- A conversation between Painting and Photography

One of the most debated issues within art today is the contradiction between reality and fantasy. Throughout the history of art, the choice of medium in artists’ works has also been a crucial point of discussion. The 16th century saw paintings as the closest representation to reality. Of course, the discovery of photography in the 19th century led to another alternative method of presenting/recording such a reality. Disillusioned: A conversation between Photography and Painting, is an attempt by Sarah Choo Jing to build upon a dialogue between both Photography and Painting, through the use of multimedia art pieces.

• Solo Exhibition,2012.

Quidam

One of the most debated issues within art today is the contradiction between reality and fantasy. Throughout the history of art, the choice of medium in artists’ works has also been a crucial point of discussion. The 16th century saw paintings as the closest representation to reality. Of course, the discovery of photography in the 19th century led to another alternative method of presenting/recording such a reality. Disillusioned: A conversation between Photography and Painting, is an attempt by Sarah Choo Jing to build upon a dialogue between both Photography and Painting, through the use of multimedia art pieces.

• Archival Print under Diasec, 1m x 0.8m, 2011.