Hannah Lim
“My father is Chinese Singaporean and mother is British so a lot of my work has tended to explore the relationship between these cultures, looking particularly at how this has been reflected through elements of design, in objects and architecture.”
Interview by Charlie Mills
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?
I grew up in London and seem to have studied across the UK, starting with my foundation at CSM, then a BA in Sculpture at the University of Edinburgh and currently I’m doing my MFA at The Ruskin School of Art - Oxford University.
A central element of your practice is the exploration of Chinoiserie — the imitation of Chinese aesthetic traditions by European artists during the 18th century — and its relationship to Orientalism and British colonialism. At what point did you become interested in Chinoiserie and how have you approached this subject matter in your art practice?
During the second year of my degree, I started becoming more interested in exploring my heritage and experiences as someone who is mixed race. My father is Chinese Singaporean and my mother is British so a lot of my work has tended to explore the relationship between these cultures, looking particularly at how this has been reflected through elements of design, in objects and architecture. Through this research, I started learning more about the Chinoiserie, which is essentially an 18th-century style that evolved out of the imitation and appropriation of Chinese designs for the European market. Weirdly there was something faintly reminiscent about the objects I’d seen created in this style, they reflected the two cultures that were part of me. This familiarity however was also met with a feeling of discomfort, whilst these objects were visually intriguing they were also a symbol of British colonialism. Within my own work, I attempt to reclaim and re-imagine this practice in a more conscientious way. Cultural designs are shared as opposed to appropriated, it is no longer about one culture being moulded to the demands of another.
In the past you have collaborated with other artists to produce really interesting exhibitions, such as Porta Sancta, a collaborative show with Hugo Harris that was supported by Underground Flower Offspace and Harlesden High Street. What was the focus of this exhibition and how important are collaboration and artistic exchange to your own creative process?
Hugo and I met at Edinburgh College of Art and began a series of collaborative sculptural projects. At the end of our degrees, we both received the RSA John Kinross Scholarship, in consecutive years, allowing us to travel on a research trip to Florence. We both became particularly intrigued by the religious objects and iconography that we saw in the churches, cathedrals and chapels we visited. Last year in January we had the opportunity to create a body of work, in response to all of this research, through our joint show Porta Sancta. We had this kind of caged room to work with (a storage room for mannequins in fact), which we decided to turn into a ‘chapel’. We created a series of objects inspired by reliquaries, altarpieces and fonts, combining techniques from both of our individual practices - bringing together bodies and objects.
Collaboration has been a very enriching and enjoyable process for me so far, it always provides a good opportunity to step away slightly from the personal nature of my own work, and explore ways in which my techniques and ideas can intersect with another person’s practice. For Hugo and I, our individual sculptural practices, contextually and visually, are pretty different, I think this actually makes it easier to develop work together, our ‘styles’ seem to balance each other well.
Enchanted Rose Table and The Beast's Snuff Bottle - Under Your Spell at Collective Ending, 2021
Medici Lion Snuff Bottle, 2020
Mountains and Seas Snuff Bottle, 2021
Xixi-Fish Snuff Bottle, 2021
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic you began to create a beautiful series of coloured snuff bottles, produced in intricate detail using combinations of clay and jesmonite. Why were you inspired by these objects in particular, what has this series taught you about your own interests and skills, and how do you see the series developing in the future?
I’d been intrigued by snuff bottles for a while before I started making my own versions. Visiting museums in the UK there always seemed to be a vibrant collection of intricate snuff bottles in the East Asian sections, they became another emblem of these two parts of my heritage. Snuff bottles were quite personal objects, detailed yet functional, they could fit inside the palm of your hand. My own snuff bottle-like works are far larger than the traditional designs, often anthropomorphised with arms and legs, and most notably, they don’t contain snuff. Initially, these works were a way to document and record certain aspects of my heritage, overtime they’ve come to reflect different points in my research. In the last few months, I’ve been exploring the ornamental yet animate nature of these objects. I’ve been reading a series of Classical Chinese texts, including ‘The Classics of Mountains and Seas’; an ancient Chinese mythological-geographical anthology and Pu Songling’s ‘Tales of a Chinese Studio’. I’ve been using the enchanted objects, creatures and landscapes as inspiration for my most recent series of snuff bottles, merging the narratives from which their characters originate to form my own process of strange sculptural storytelling.
You recently completed the HOME x Cob Residency, a 6-week residency programme hosted by HOME within the newly remodelled Cob Studios. How did you find the experience and what research and work did you undertake during the residency?
The HOME x Cob Residency was a really great opportunity to get back to making some larger works. During the pandemic, it had become a lot harder to experiment as much, without adequate space and facilities. It was also a wonderful opportunity to work in a studio with another artist, I shared my space with Courtenay Welcome, we were able to observe and learn from each other’s creative processes. Whilst on the residency I started looking into an area of research that is still a part of my practice at the moment. I began reading this book ‘Ornamentalism’ by Anne Anlin Cheng. In her writing, Cheng explores the ways in which South East and East Asian women have historically been represented through ornamental aesthetics, objects and language. Most notably through insensate materials such as ceramics. I was intrigued by this idea of Ornamentalism, having described my own work as ornamental and also reflective of my own cultural identity, I was interested in how Cheng’s theorised reflections on ornament might affect how I understood certain aesthetic elements within my work .
Shards of Fire, 2021
Lift Off, 2019
The Forbidden Gates - Patio Project, 2020
Studio Shot Home X Cob Residency - Shot by Ronan Mckenzie, 2021
You recently participated in the exhibition, Under Your Spell, held at Collective Ending HQ in London. The show explored the — often unconscious — influence that cinematic animation, and in particular Disney, has had on visual artists. What was the work that you created for the show and how did you think about these ideas in relation to your own practice?
In the lead up to ‘Under Your Spell’ at Collective Ending I had been reflecting on the animate nature of many of my previous snuff bottles and furniture-like works, with this in mind I decided to create a vessel and table inspired by the enchanted objects and scenery in Beauty and the Beast. As well as reflecting on the visual components of the 1991 animation, it was also interesting to learn about the different cultural re-tellings of the original Beauty and the Beast story, whilst also looking at which elements from each of these stories Disney had absorbed into its own version. The snuff bottle and table sculpture is mostly inspired by the table upon which the enchanted rose sits. Like the enchanted rose, the snuff bottle is placed beneath a glass bell jar, appearing as if it might begin to use its little legs and somehow escape.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
I have a solo show with Changing Room Gallery opening in February and another with Commonage Projects in April! I also have an exciting duo show with Hugo nearer to summer, expanding on our current series of work together. So lots of fun things to come!
All images are courtesy of the artist
Date of publication: 18/02/22
