Solidarity and kinship in the queer community
By Nabila Giovanna W

A&M's Fresh Faces is where we profile an emerging artist from the region every month and speak to them about how they kick-started their career, how they continue to sustain their practice and what drives them as artists. Read our profile on Aki Hassan here.

You pursued your BA (Hons) Fine Art (Sculpture & Environmental Art) at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. How has your educational background shaped you as an artist?

The openness of the Sculpture & Environmental Art course allowed me to expand the horizons of my art practice. I spent most of my formative years making performance art pieces, which demanded an intense bodily rigour and hypervisibility of the body that I grew to dislike. This led me to work with sculptural installations as I was able to set a distance between the viewer and myself.

The mentorship and guidance I received from the workshop technicians enabled me to work and think sculpturally. They gave me the confidence to take up space in the metal workshop and encouraged me to play and work against the pressures of making "functional" things. I learnt to appreciate the time spent in the workshop as it allowed me to grow a far more intimate relationship with the material I worked with.

Aki Hassan, ‘Our gestures pulse through one another’, 2023, pigment on wooden board, 135 x 80 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Yeo Workshop.

Your work pays attention to the queer community and builds upon structures of support and care within it. Could you tell us more about how this has formed the foundation of your work?

My immediate experiences within the community have informed a bulk of my research and core ideas that I explore. For me, the complexities of care work first surfaced within the framework of queer kinship, as it is a space that is in constant flux and change. I think about the suppressions and weight that we already carry as individuals. When we gather, there may be moments of imbalances and unexpected shifts, which further complicate the exchange of care.

In my recent solo exhibition, ‘Entangled Attachments’ (2023), I explore the potential expression of care by being nearby—in proximity to—one another. I believe that kinship can be built in the first moment of recognition and a sense of familiarity. That is simply what I did by placing objects and drawings in relation to one another while allowing the gestural vocabularies and motifs to pulse through each work.

Aki Hassan, ‘Nonbinaryhood’, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist.

In 2021 you published ‘Nonbinaryhood’, a book based on your own experience as a trans individual living in a heteronormative society. Could you walk us through the creation process of this book? How did you express your experiences into the publication?

In ‘Nonbinaryhood’, readers are invited to think about the systems we exist within and without, and the allowances we make for ways of being imposed upon us. This work puts to use the comic’s compositional structure – its frames – firstly, as guides for the drawn curves and lines to navigate. There are moments when the lines are able to behave; other times, they do not.

Through ‘Nonbinaryhood’, I explored what tolerance and quieter forms of resistance look like. Perhaps, they exist in the form of small bulges, tight squeezes or off-kilter gestures. I draw to reflect on cisnormativity as this bodily experience that I confront as a nonbinary trans person. There is a strictness in my expression and consciousness, especially when I am performing cis.

You work across different mediums such as sculpture, installations, printmaking and illustration. Why did you choose to utilise different mediums in your practice? And are there any other mediums that you would like to try out in the future?

To me, there is feedback across all these mediums and forms of making. It is important to recognise that they each offer different tools. The visual language of my drawings and sculptures are informed by ways the queer body orients itself; the way it stands, and falls into edges and surfaces, and the way it adjusts and postures. These bodily encounters do not feel representational; they feel affectual, and thus it seems apt to visualise the gestures through line work and marks. I find comfort in the non-representational form as it does not demand the visualisation of one singular, specific body and embraces the fluid nature of trans*.

As I continue practising, I wish to return to printmaking again – That was one aspect of my practice that I unfortunately could not give much time to but hopefully, soon!

“ I find comfort in the non-representational form as it does not demand the visualisation of one singular, specific body and embraces the fluid nature of trans*. ”

Aki Hassan, ‘pulses wriggling, restlessly’, 2022, installation view at ‘like letters’, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist and starch.

How did the opportunity for the show ‘like letters’ (2022) come about? What was the process like and what kind of message are you trying to communicate by combining sculpture and video art in your works

Independent exhibitions such as ‘like letters’ (2022) always begin with conversations. One of the artists in the show, Nina Djêkic, visited my studio during the open studios at the SAM artist residency. Through our exchange, we found common ground between our practices. Without surprise, Nina also approached another artist, Weixin Chong, who is both a dear friend and fellow collaborator in other projects.

While Nina did hold the fort for us, I enjoyed the non-hierarchical approach that we were able to take in our curatorial plans and decision-making. The work ‘pulses wriggling, restlessly’ (2022) was an outcome of the research I did during the SAM residency earlier in 2022 as I was actively thinking about queer and bodily intimacies. I treated video just like I do with other materials, so it was an attempt at using something new. I wanted to see how the wires and screen sit with the metal rods. It may be something I develop further in the long run.

Could you give us a glimpse of what your day is like as an artist? What kind of routine do you follow to keep your creativity going?

In order to keep my creativity going, I maintain two separate spaces for thinking (studio) and making (workshop), which I share with other artists as well. My process of making is often full of clutter and mess, so it helps to have a separate space that allows me to lay things out and contemplate how each aspect of my work meets and resides with one another. While collaboration does not surface in my practice as much, it is something I regularly do in my studio. I find that it is much more exciting to arrive at ideas through productive critique and collaborative thought with other artists and like-minded individuals. It makes the process less lonely.

Cutes / ظــــراف ِresidency with Samandal and Nino Bulling. Image courtesy of the artist. — Cutes / ظــــراف residency with Samandal and Nino Bulling. Image courtesy of the artist.

You have completed residencies at Cutes / ظــــراف with Samandal and Nino Bulling as part of documenta 15 (2022), SAM Art Residencies at Singapore Art Museum (2021/2022), and Pig Rock Bothy residency at Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2019). How have these experiences shaped you as an artist

Residencies gave me the opportunity to question my needs at that particular juncture of my practice. The format of the residencies also makes a difference.

During the Cutes / ظــــراف residency, I spent a lot of time with other queer and gender non-conforming artists. The conversations we had were loaded so you can only imagine how emotionally charged the two weeks were. It was also one of the most energising experiences I have ever had! The residency culminated in a publication which has recently been co-published by Samandal Comics and Distanz.

The SAM artist residency gave me a lot of room for contemplation. I spent over six months in the artist studio focusing on the growth of my art practice. There were also opportunities to meet other artists and curators, which was an exciting way of getting to know Singapore’s art landscape and the art institution’s ambitions as well. I managed to run four iterations of ‘Yet Another Ripple, and a bunch’ (2021/2022), which explored gestures of intimacy and how we negotiate proximity and boundaries in our relationship. I thoroughly appreciate being given the space and time to devise programmes and activities to support my practice in the long run.

Who has been a mentor or an important artistic influence? And why?

I can only think of a dear artist, collaborator and queer kin, Rifqi Amirul Rosli. Sharing a studio space has given us the chance to spend time with each other’s practices closely. He has given me some of the best critiques and has enabled me to find meaning in the quality of my line work.

What is one important piece of advice you have been given?

When it gets overwhelming, go even slower.

What are your hopes for Singapore’s local art scene, and regionally as well?

I hope to see more artists playing around in the workshop and studio. Trial and error, misalignment, miscalculations – make room for what is wrong to learn more about what your practice deserves! Strangely, most of my epiphanies happen in the midst of mishandling metal rods. I can never stress enough on how important it is to play before editing your work.

“ I hope to see more artists playing around in the workshop and studio. Trial and error, misalignment, miscalculations – make room for what is wrong to learn more about what your practice deserves! ”

Aki Hassan, ‘Grounding Points: Settled and Settling In’, 2023, installation view. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

Could you share your upcoming projects and goals that you wish to achieve in the future?

I am currently exhibiting my solo exhibition, ‘Entangled Attachments’, at Yeo Workshop until 18 June 2023. At the same time, my public sculpture ‘Grounding Points: Settled and Settling In’, commissioned by Singapore Art Museum, are on display in Duxton Plain Park until 2025.

As for future goals, I would like to return to some knowledge I gained during my formative years, especially in the realm of performance and installation work. There could be something exciting there, especially as I have been thinking about ways to activate my sculptures.

This interview has been edited.