The series View From This Side (2022) represents the final segment in artist Wei Leng Tay’s experimentation with a bag of family photographic slides. These slides date back to the 1960s and 1970s, at a time where Singapore and the region were emerging as new independent nations, and families—including the artist’s parents—were actively moving between these newly formed nations in search of a better life. But these slides captured not just the energy and spirit of that period; they are also materially a record of the effects of time and climate, as evident in their colour shift, dust, and spotting. As the artist puts it, “A white cardboard slide mount starts to appear like a chalkboard. An idyllic horizon burns like it is lit by fire behind a gird.” Viewed from this perspective, these source materials are not simply photographic images that recorded the surface of a point in time (e.g. the 1960s and 1970s), but are “photo-objects” that continue to record time and its effects.In Untitled (PWD July 70), the artist focuses on the inscription on the cardboard mount of a photographic slide. Presumably, this text refers to both a place or event, and a point back in time. But presented in this portrait orientation allows for a different reading of these marks. Perhaps, if viewed from this side, they might come to mean something entirely different in time to come.
