... A Year In Java, Jimmy Ong.

Jimmy Ong (@ayearinjava ) 'Raffles Chunam (Tamil)' 2020 Chunam (river sand, water, lime, egg whites, tayir, ghee and bellapum) plaster on paper mache, wire mesh, rattan stand, plaster and lime on paper marche with wireframe 110 x 50 cm Artist's Collection "Even as Singapore neither officially glorifies nor denounces its modern founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, his name has endured as a brand synonymous with excellence across sectors. These include education (e.g., Raffles Girls’ School), aviation (Raffles Class of Singapore Airlines), and hospitality (Raffles Hotel). Meanwhile, unlike nations that topple statues of colonial figures, Singapore has filed Raffles neatly into history: acknowledged, but rarely scrutinised. This pragmatism sustains a telling silence, sidestepping critical engagement with the violences of colonisation. Jimmy Ong rejects such silence. He does so by bringing Raffles down from his plinth. In 'Raffles Refuse / CatchAll Containers' (2019) and 'Raffles Refuse / Plastic Bag' (2019), Raffles’ headless, feet-less figure is remade as bins and bag holders: objects for storage, not reverence. In 'Raffles Chunam (Tamil)' (2020), shown here, his effigy becomes a skin of papier-mâché, flattened and coated in Indian chunam plaster once prized for its marble sheen. This traditional material is here replaced by a contemporary consumer-brand version, Raffles. Fitted onto a found rattan stand, the work functions as a plaster sampler, turning the monumental into the domestic, permanence into the provisional. If empire’s icon can be remade into containers and samplers, Ong suggests, its symbolic authority can hardly be absolute." —Michael Lee, "Tender Returns", 2025 Part of the exhibition, 'Towards Happiness, Prosperity and Progress: Reflections on the Singapore Spirit', held at The Private Museum (@theprivatemuseum ) till 7 Dec 2025. 📸 courtesy of 1-4. @theprivatemuseum 5. @leehonghwee

In the shadows of giants… Tan Teng Kee whom I learnt to weld, Teo EngSeng whose banters I love, and Lee Wen, whose path I hardly cross in SIngapore. Has performing on objects come full circle to burning joss papers?

Each day in June at the kids’ table Unraveling seven Rafflesias of padded fabric rejects, unexhibited, Bicentennial past. Each disc of Solo batik re-conjured as a lion, head strong, second life. As a puppet. Life size fit, a child’s crown. Licking my wound, recalling Tan JinSeng, Cina Kapitan , Bupati in 1830 when Raffles invaded. In August, a murmur of Chinese Privilege silenced over the internet. The Burmese and Vietnamese immigrant children took turns. To test out the monster head, whose coat of scallops once stiff Rafflesia petals, now ends in a fan tail. Rekaan Merlion Singapura. Later we make another Barong Sai out of donated clothing. Each bright petal a joy ride on the Brother machine. With the kids, who have grown used to me over the Pandemic. Where I told them this is no vocational skill for adulthood. #taktakutkids #taktakutkidsclub

The last of two Seamstresses’Raffleses returns to @fostgallery where it was first exhibited @artbasel HongKong 2016. Thanks @cosmincostinas for inculding this work in #abeastagodandaline. Memory of a peaceable time in Myanmar where the show travelled to Yangon in 2018. A prayer in solidarity with all Burmese artists under arrest in Myanmar. #nyaipenjahit

End of exhibition @camperscorner . Thanks PengHan for performing “EnShrouding” :) Next stop @nationalgallerysingapore for sculpture show 2022. Thanks Calvin Tay for venue sponsor in the last month😍

When Smiha Kapoor showed up at Yishun to offer her internship, I asked what she really wanted to do as an artist; we agreed to have her “perform“ a series of tasks. Revealing the task each time minutes before so that there was no rehearsal; each performance open to her interpretation. The outcome of which is this series of IGTVs. Regretaby this game we play has come to an end. But it is also closure for me with this effigy of Raffles in Java. Thank you @smihakapoor #uncursedcotton

The Kettle Call the Pots Black, 2018. Exhibited @acm_sg October last year as part of PovertyQuilt: A Year in Java. Perforated in Javanese script on the side of the pots is the epithet: “The most formidable enemy of a man is his own conscience, which always bring his crimes before his eyes, without leaving him the means of avoiding it” – also published in the book The History of Java, by Raffles in a chapter Ethics of Javan.

From batik arises other body of objects, performance body . #ayearinjava #fallentigersbatik

In hindsight, the idea of making objects started from this quest to involve batik in the making of a furoshiki for a severed head. The Javanese still uses batik squares for wrapping and carrying produces at the market. The last digital print version was exhibited In Mynmar and Warsaw last year. #fallentigersbatik #ayearinjava #jimmyong

3 objects here: MemorialQuilt; ParangkusumaQuilt ; and The Kettle Call the Pots Black. @acm_sg till October 20 @jimmyongjogja #jimmyong

Performing a “tambal”. The motley patchwork batik motif that also says to heal, to remedy, to make peace. #povertyquilt @acm_sg this and next weekend 28, 29 September at 6 pm. Translation of an except Javanese Babad sung in the background: On Thursday it happened big event for the country. That moment in history marked, on the 7th day of the Jumadilakir month the Alip year. One thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine Javanese year (1812 AD). Marked by kronogram of hermit on earth, who participated in warfare. British troops from west of Suronatan penetrates Srimanganti. The troops looks massive. Giving up, the Sultan’s soldiers put down their weapons. Many Kraton soldiers were injured. A lot more British enter the Kraton Nobody dares fight back... (Babad Ngengreng, Babad Ingglish). This babad in a manuscript was written after the fall of Yogyakarta Kraton, and given to the East India Company, ending up in the British Museum. Earlier this year it was exhibited at Asian Civilisation Museum Singapore in the exhibition Raffles In Southeast Asia. The Babad was intended to be sang in its deliverance.

Domestic objects being prepared for new lives...its being a long process, finding the right pieces for an ensemble, decoding translation lost with time. #rafflestrophy #ayearinjava