Film:        arranging ‘ thing ‘

Duration: 1min 24sec

Author:    Atelier HOKO

Year:       2008

We thought we knew.

We thought it is for flowers, Lego bricks and musical notes.

We experience it everyday, one way or another. 

We practice it without the faintest idea.

We thought it unimportant, secondary and arbitrary.

We thought we knew it all.

We were right, and it is precisely for the same reason, that we find a greater need to re-investigate the notions of arrangement. Call it trivial, call it unworthy, but the acts and devises of arrangement has been left quietly by the side, unable to take upon a presence nor articulate its importance in our everyday, leaving us wondering if there could be something intrinsically hidden, a latent potency awaiting discovery?

In 2009, the project ARRANGEMENT was initiated by Atelier HOKO as a research platform where fundamental conditions of arrangement are explored. We were curious to find out how the aesthetics and behaviours of arranging affects our daily life.  For a start, 14 international artists and designers were invited to work on the theme wherein various aspects of arrangement was re-created as a brief in which the artists would interprete from their own diverse context and geographical location. The eventual results were exhibited at The Substation Gallery, Singapore.

“Take a closer look at the space you inhabit, the objects you use, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, how you walk on the sidewalk, how you classify your things on the shelf, how you move consciously and unconsciously, how you speak while lining words sequentially in your head, how you live...”

Shortly after the first exhibition, Atelier HOKO was invited to participate in the Singapore Design Festival with a new interpretation of arrangement. Titled ‘ARRANGING’, Atelier HOKO decided not to exhibit the actual objects from the last presentation at The Substation, and instead lead the audience to experience the behaviours and aesthetics of arranging through observations, narratives and a selection of everyday objects.

Since its initiation, the project has gathered interest and invitations for collaborations and further development of ideas within. As such, Atelier HOKO will continue to develop and bring forth new ideas and interpretations on arrangement through programmes and expositions. As of 2010, Atelier HOKO will be conducting a series of workshops and is scheduled to launch a book on the subject. For more information on workshops programmes, please email us at info@hokostudio.com

Copyright  2010  H O K O. All Rights Reserved.

The experience of arranging things engages us in the observation and analysis of the intrinsic details within each object.  It heightens and intensifies our senses. We begin to touch, feel, or even smell the object. Listening to the object, we sense the objects presence and resonance. We begin to understand the given properties of the object and the space it occupies...