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“There once was a place called Gentlefolk County. Its citizens were known throughout the land for becoming ideal citizens instantly, thus creating the perfect society.
Well, almost.”

Instant citizen is a first-time collaboration between artist and architectural designer Fiona Tan and artist Yang Jie. The installation explores the themes of citizenship, identity and belonging. The intersection of top-down social control and inter-individual/ communal friction and the complex relationship between personal freedom and the greater good of the collective is explored through a series of 7 implausible yet ostensibly everyday furniture(s).

A table that folds on itself when an impolite dinner guest tries to leave prematurely, a desk that guarantees optimal study equipped with a flap door towards a miserable cactus, a closet for the strategic planner, a staircase which requires one’s neighbour to run up and down in order to operate a single lightbulb.. It posits that in order for society to function as a well-oiled machine, a degree of inconvenience and discomfort is required to force one into tolerance and good behaviour.

Through the use of humour and detournement culminating in the make-belief nation of Gentlefolk County,the strangely familiar and the familiarly strange setting aims to provoke visitors to reflect upon its real world parallels. The work is intended to inspire further dialogue and appreciate the value and mechanisms that make any country a liveable and lively home.

With support from the National Arts Council and Arts Fund.

Venue: Golden Mile Tower, #04-00 (a level below the projector cinema)

Hours: Weekdays 4pm-8pm, Weekends 1pm-8pm

When: 25 Feb - 19 Mar 2016,

By: n/a