Irrawaddy

Welcome to the Slow Art Guide for Irrawaddy by Kim Lim, brought to you by National Gallery Singapore.

Inspired by the principles of slow looking and mindfulness, the Slow Art Guide will take you on a deep dive into one artwork in the Gallery. This experience is about slowing down, taking your time to look at visual art and savouring it in a conscious and deliberate manner. This guide features mindfulness practices that invite you to contemplate art as a sensory and reflective experience.

As this mindfulness-based experience is highly introspective and invites you to be present with your thoughts and emotions, it may feel quite intense or overwhelming at times. If this is the case for you today, please feel free to step away from this audio experience, and head over to the Calm Room or any other space that feels safe to rest.

By the end of your experience with the Slow Art Guide, we hope that you will discover a deeper emotional connection with the artwork, and also feel more grounded and rested in the present moment.

We will begin with a simple breathing exercise to prepare ourselves for a slow look at the artwork.

Take a moment to welcome yourself into this space. Express gratitude to yourself for taking this time out of your busy day to care for your mind, body, and spirit by connecting with visual art.

Gently bring your awareness to your breathing. Observe it. There is no need to change or modify anything. Just breathe. You may choose to close your eyes and rest them, or keep a soft gaze as you look forwards.

Observe the in-breath and the out-breath, and the rhythm of your breathing. Pay attention to your breath, and notice if each breath is long and smooth, or short and quick. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out.

If you wish, you can put a hand on your belly, feeling the warmth of your hand on your body, and the affection it brings to you. Sense the gentle expansion and contraction of the belly with each breath. Allow your body to rest in the breathing. Allow your breath to support you.

Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out.

When you feel ready, gently open your eyes.

This is Irrawaddy, a sculpture by Singaporean artist Kim Lim. As we explore this artwork together, feel free to move around it in a way that is most comfortable for you. You may even sit on the gallery floor in front of the artwork.

There are eighteen identical pinewood blocks, each about 80 centimeters long. They are arranged in two rows of nine blocks each, with the blocks leaning on one another. The final blocks of each row lean against the gallery wall.

Take a slow walk around the sculpture to see it from all angles. Invite your eyes to trace the geometric outline of this sculpture, noting the different lines and angles present in the artwork. These pinewood blocks lean against each other to form diagonal lines. The angle formed by each block as it leans against the other before it increases with each block, leading up to the steep angle of the last block that leans against the wall.

Now, observe the work from different heights. If you are able to, bend down or squat, see how different it looks from a lower viewing point. Warm light falls over the surface of the blocks and plays around with the shadows cast by the sculpture. The artwork also changes as you move around it, so do try to observe the shadows from different perspectives.

Imagine if you were to pick up one of these blocks. How would it feel in your hands? Imagine the contact of your fingers on the cool wood. Would you feel a smooth surface all around, or would you feel a rough grain? Would it feel cool to the touch? Would the corners feel too sharp to run your fingers over, or is the block so well sanded down that you could easily handle it and play around with it? Would it be light-weight and easily carried around, or would it feel solid and heavy in your hands?

Think about how these blocks of wood were once carefully and intentionally shaped by the artist’s own hands. The artist, Kim Lim, was born in Singapore and spent much of her early childhood in Penang and Malacca. At the age of 18, she went to London to pursue a career as an artist, and spent two years at Central Saint Martin’s, concentrating on wood-carving.

Now, let’s look closely at the dark, elliptical markings that you can see in some of these blocks. These are wood knots, which can indicate where there was once a younger branch, before the tree grew around it. As the tree trunk continues to grow with seasonal rings, it grows around the knot to produce these distinctive markings and eye shapes in the grain of the wood. Wood knots typically have a harder texture because its grain has grown in a different direction than the surrounding wood around it.

Now, observe if there are any areas in your body which may also be holding knots like those of the wood. Perhaps you can feel them in your neck and shoulders, or in your chest or lower back. As you breathe in, see if you can breathe some warmth and kindness into these areas. Then, as you breathe out, see if you can allow these areas to soften, relax, and be at ease. Take a few more breaths in this way, in your own time. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out.

Kim Lim’s works between 1960 till 1979 were primarily made of fibreglass, steel, and wood, just like this sculpture, titled Irrawaddy. The Irrawaddy is a river that flows from the north to the south of Myanmar. It is the country’s largest river and has been a significant source of trade and transportation throughout history. Conscious about how her works would relate to those who encountered them, Lim rigorously explored how space, rhythm, and light could be materialised, with weight and volume being secondary.

There is a careful balance in these blocks: they lean against each other, each angle carefully calibrated to keep the equilibrium. Remove one of these blocks, and the others might fall. Seeing the artwork balanced here on the floor in front of you, does it feel precarious, like the entire structure could fall apart with just one touch? Or does it instead seem like the structure is firmly rooted and stable?

As you look at these pinewood blocks leaning against each other, each block connected to another, notice how the entire structure’s stability is dependent on every single block. Which block do you feel you are today, in this moment? Are you the block at the forefront of the sculpture, well-supported by a community, leaning into the care and embrace of those who love you and have your back?

Or do you perhaps feel like the block at the end, bearing the weight of all the other blocks that rely on it to hold up the entire structure, to keep things going? Do you perhaps feel like you are carrying too much weight, with too much on your plate?

Or perhaps you see yourself as one of the other blocks in the middle, comfortably sandwiched between the first and the last block, simultaneously giving and receiving support and good energy.

Whichever block you feel like today, that’s okay. Give yourself permission to acknowledge that we take turns supporting others and being supported ourselves, and whatever emotion we feel in this present moment is welcome. Contemplating this sculpture before us, sense how much we are interconnected and dependent on one another. Deep within each of us, is a longing for happiness and safety.

Bring your awareness to your breathing, and sense how your heart is feeling right now. You may wish to place a hand on your heart, feeling the strength of it as it beats, letting the warmth of your hands connect you to your own loving presence.

Whisper phrases of kindness, warmth, well wishes to yourself. You can choose to use your own phrases, or you can use phrases such as:

May I be safe from inner and outer harm, May I be healthy. May I be peaceful and at ease, May I be happy. May I be loved and cared for, May I find joy around me.

Now, if you would like to, bring to mind someone you care for, or someone you know who is in need of well wishes. Just as the blocks in this sculpture are supporting one another, think of someone in your life whom you’re supporting, or who needs support. Silently send these phrases of well-wishes to this person, or use phrases of your own.

May you be safe from inner and outer harm, May you be healthy. May you be peaceful and at ease, May you be happy. May you be loved and cared for, May you find joy around you.

Let us end by sending these well wishes to a community we care about as well. Who are the other blocks in your Irrawaddy? Whisper to them, from deep within your heart. Send these blessings out into the universe:

May we all be safe. May we all be healthy. May we all be peaceful and at ease. May we all be happy.

Let these words fill your being and connect you to others.

When you are ready, at your own time, release the practice. Bring your awareness to your breathing once again. Feel the rhythm of your breathing, and take a few more gentle breaths to close this practice. We have now come to the end of this episode of the Slow Art Guide.

If you enjoyed this Slow Art Guide, you can check out our other episodes featuring different artworks. Each Slow Art Guide is developed with unique slow looking and mindfulness practices to help you look at an artwork meaningfully. Artworks featured in the Slow Art Guide are from The Care Collection, a selection of artworks from the National Collection that are thematically organised for programmes that support wellbeing.

If you need a dedicated space for sensory and emotional rest, you can also visit the Calm Room, located in Basement 1 of the Gallery’s City Hall Wing. In the Calm Room, you can experience a 10-minute focused mindfulness practice.

We now invite you to continue your journey throughout the Gallery, and to take your time to slow down and appreciate the art all around you.