Palarell Parking

Palarell Parking, 2007
3HDV Video projection Installation, 1min 20 sec loop
Special Thanks to Ben Rood, Sinclair Lonsdale, Richard Harling, Han Niu, Tu Neil, Glen, Rua Acorn, Tina, Jim Speers

I wanted to make artworks effortlessly. I was in the process of trying to find simplicity and flow within my art practice. And then I stumbled upon this project.

My mother has been practicing Tea ceremony since she was ten, She has also been teaching it for the last 20 years or so. As a child, I always asked her what it meant to engage in such a boring ceremony, sitting and drinking tea in a Japanese tea room. She could never tell me, or may be she didn’t want to spell it out for me. So I grew up watching this crazy exercise once a week.

In this film, I am parallel parking my pseudo American looking Toyota station wagon (which I inherited from my grand father in Japan) between a Jeep and a Rover. The video was shot on three HDV cameras, all attached to a long steal rod, creating a very wide shot to be viewed on three video projections.

I see a beauty of movements and forms, in parallel parking. I feel this act require me to have a mental picture of each movement and space before I park; every movement is calculated and imagined.

I guess I come from a culture that honours things we communicate beyond words. Whether I like it or not, in Art, everything you see signifies meanings. I believe meaning is like an afterthought at the end of the day. However it is inevitable that we construct meanings within a given context. And we cannot escape from meanings. I am learning to be playful with meanings.

Please enjoy drawing meanings from what you see. Or catch yourself interpreting it. May be that is why my mother never told me what everything meant in tea ceremony, from each movement to details of each items.

Exhibitions

Art Chicago, USA1-4 May 2009
Creative New Zealand 1 May - 31 May 2007