Loving Things was a series of videos about how to love inanimate things. Through meditative attention and playful gestures which displace the usual function of objects, as well as voiced texts that alight on quantum physics and new materialism, the videos invite the viewer to look more deeply into objects as 'vibrant matter' (Jane Bennett).

Loving Things was made available for purchase as a downloadable album of videos, both as a response to Covid-19 restrictions, as well as a way of experimenting with the presentation, distribution, ownership and consumption of performance.

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Producer, Video Editor, Writer, Performer
Ang Kia Yee

Administration & Communications
Jenson Gabriel Tan

Art & Marketing Direction
Hanae Gomez

Production & Art Design
Louise Marie Lee

Director of Photography
Philip Ho

Production Assistant
Tan Xing Zhi

Funded by
Our SG Fund (Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth)
Young ChangeMakers Fund (National Youth Council)

With thanks to
Ong Kian Peng
Nick Ng
Clara Lim
Justin Noah Chua
Clara Potter-Sweet
Ben Kulvichit
Maria Monterio

Performance
Online / October 2020

I revisited Loving Things in 2021 as Loving Things (to say), a live performance under free performance series eXchΔnge by the Esplanade.

It was a short, gentle extension of motifs within Loving Things, with greater attention to sonic possibilities around voice, and a more direct addressal of ecological anxiety and species extinction.

Writer, Performer
Ang Kia Yee

Performance
Esplanade Concourse / 8 & 9 September 2021

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"I watched it all come to an end. It didn't happen as an explosion or the ground splitting open. There was time for people to gather and part, for night to fall and morning to come again, for the Earth to continue its revolutions undisturbed. There was time, even, to stand still in a park and feel the breeze touch our faces.

In that time, open and vast, we restored the ozone layer.
We fished out plastic from the oceans.
We learnt how important it is to sleep.
We took evening walks together, after work, talking and laughing about nothing important.
We convinced the billionaires to change their minds.
We made farming a school subject for primary school students.
We went to the beach and looked out at the water.
We waited quietly for the kettle to boil.

We used solar panels to power our homes.
We went out less between 11am and 2pm, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky.
We read our favourite stories aloud to one another.
We discovered the people we had been all along.
We made insects a food staple.
We divested from fossil fuels.
We made good on our promises to one another.

Still, it all came to an end, as all things do. In our final moments, we put our laundry in the washing machine. We stirred milk into our cups of tea. We scrolled through the news and received message notifications. We watered our plants. The sky was still blue, the clouds still threatening to rain. The bus was still late. A flower was still making the enormous effort to bloom."