One After Another

One After Another is a reading of the works in the exhibition Goh Beng Kwan: Nervous City. The film draws from paintings in Goh’s Urban Renewal series: Minaret (1973), In The Clouds There Are Dwellings (1985) and Advertisements (1962–1966). Director Chew Chia Shao Min interprets the nervousness referenced in the exhibition title as a state of longing and anxiety. She uses images of waiting, simmering and engulfment to convey the tension that arises from suppressing charged emotions. In the film, the city becomes a fever dream of discontent as the protagonist and viewer alike are trapped in transitory states—always coming or going, but never arriving.

Chew Chia amplifies the frenetic pace of the urban environment by contrasting images of the city with depictions of stillness in nature. The juxtaposition of these images also highlights the difference between natural shifts such as the onset of decay and changes in weather, and man-made ones experienced in the city. Atmospheric, sensorial and intuitive, One After Another’s exploration of the spiritual overtones infused in textures around us suggests that it is in accepting our insignificance that we can transcend the changes in our environments.