ZHANG FUMING
Artist / Printmaker

 

“Demarcation” is an ongoing series of work on based on the idea of presenting a visual and direct physicality to an abstractly constructed space that exists within our social construct; a heterotopous space.

 

I am inclined to believe that the defining ethos of the modern man is of occupational genre. It is in your placement in the reproduction cycle that one feeds into the brutal predicament of adequacy – stereotyping as an appropriate term-, with tribe-like divisions in accordance to one's occupational genre and status.

 

This series of works are inspired by my everyday observations of seemingly transparent demarcation limits on the boundaries of certain bodies.
If one were to envision a busker performing on the crowded streets of Orchard road, a curious yet polite boundary would be naturally established, with no visible demarcation items present.

- Someone seated at a corner, hoping for loose change.
The elderly man picking through public trash can for recyclables.
A limping lady selling key-chains on the sidewalk.
The person selling tissue paper on the junction, in hawker centers. Workmen who boarded the train after a days’ work. (Or perhaps, certain looking workmen, after a days’ work.)

 

The men with a lot of space deliberately granted and unnoticed. A formulation of invisible boundaries or demarcation limits built on perception for contrast occupational vocation.