Reconciling Differences

text by Lee Xiaohui
in the ISH issue 10.2 Singapore, page 018

Curtain Wall by Lisa Foo and Fabian Tan featured in the ISH premium products news issue 10.2 Singapore, page #018

excerpts from the article:

The concept behind The Living Room exhibition is a simple one - to fuel the dichotomy between the utility of art and the art of utility. Six couples with professions as artists, designers and architects were invited to create a product that encompasses both the art and utility, in the attempt to defy the conventional perception that art and utility do not share a mutual conduit.

The brief bears a quasi-resemblance to a relationship - the need to strike a balance through constant compromising and inspiring. As artists and life partners, six couples were given a budget to artistically exemplify how differences in spaces (and relationships alike) can be reconciled through the art of expression...

...Self proclaimed Yin and Yang, Foo and Tan make quite a striking duo. Equipped with a fresh and cheeky vision, Tan's concepts represent the aesthetic part of the collaboration. Foo, on the other hand, has a functional aesthetic architectural approach to her designs. A combination of the imagination and the functional has proven to reveal a different perspective on the mundane and pushed the definitions of art beyond its limitations. The portmanteau of their creative visions is best represented in their submission, the Curtain Wall. The inspiration was derived when cruising through the residential neighbourhoods of Kuala Lumpur. They noticed the boring installation of draped curtains, hung with the sole intention of protecting privacy and to beat the heat. The other revelation is that the standard vapid, uninspiring lining of the draped cloth curtains could belie the otherwise vibrant internal composition of its interior decorations. In the light of this, the artistic couple constructed a piece of sculptural curtain piece that "invites creative manipulation of its freeform shape according to the inhabitant's imagination". In Foo's own words, " we wanted to demonstrate the proof of life with our work."