When Jake Sun travelled to Vagamon for an art residency project, little did he know that he would return with a socially-committed project in mind. Besides the scenic landscape of Vagamon, what caught Jake’s attention during his 17-day stint at Palette People Art was empty food wrappers that lay here and there in the hill station. It instilled in him the idea to start a project based on it. “Here, language was a barrier for me. Only a few knew English. Those wrappers had text written in English. I was witnessing globalisation and influence of the West impacting a community in a problematic way,” says Jake.
A responsible and experimental artist, he started collecting the rubbish and, like creating paste pot poems, took the text from it and made his art. “I made a list of words. Then, I put them together like short poems. The idea is to make an artist’s book with 33 images,” explains Jake, who earlier had made artist’s books with nine editions. Jake, who believes that art is a contribution of many minds and comes from one’s past experiences as well as the culture she or he is brought up in, works on thoughts that involve people.
One of his previous works, ‘Just give me space’, asks the participant to enter a dark space. A fortune cookie will be given to the person. But instead of reading the fortune, the person will have to look at the night sky and drop the fortunes on the ground. The fortunes will be recycled by the artist. For the current project, Taste on Opening, he plans to invite 16 artists from Kerala and 16 from Brisbane, making it a project of 33 brains. “At Palette People, there were 16 artists with me who paint. I thought of including their painting skills. Once I reach Brisbane, I will find 16 artists from there. There will be a cultural exchange when they come together,” says Jake, who considers 3 as his lucky number, hence 33.
Jake’s plan is to conduct an exhibition in Kochi sometime next year. And, he wishes to arrange the show in a way that caters to all senses. “The wrappers play with our desires; they promise good taste. But the taste goes once we eat the food inside it. Responsible and sustainable food will be served during the Taste of Opening. It will become a memory once you taste it.” Jake is different from the candy makers, “I am going to make a product and the proceeds from it will go for charity missions in Kerala and Brisbane,” says the artist.
