More Than Just A Sardine Can: The La Sardina Wardrobe Exhibition

PUBLISHED October 1st, 2012 10:52 am | UPDATED January 21st, 2016 08:42 am

Vintage cameras are back to take over the world. Again. For good. With a sardine can no less. That was the notion suffusing the ambiance as you step into the Lomography Gallery Singapore, the lights bright and dazzling, the music thumping and the store filled with assorted, multi-colored wonders of vintage cameras, as it unfolded its latest exhibition, the La Sardina Wardrobe Exhibition.

Based on the British parlour game, Sardines, a hide-and-seek game where players are squashed in one hiding place until the seeker jumps in on them, the exhibition showcases the La Sardina camera, a vintage lomography camera inspired by the conceptual and visual image of sardine cans. It features an array of customized and one-of-a-kind DIY-designed La Sardina cameras, 11 of which came from the adroit hands of 11 talented, budding artists recently taking over the Singapore indie art scene.

September 21st marked the day of the La Sardina Wardrobe Exhibition Party, the kick-off party to the exhibition running until 14th of October. Not half an hour into the party and the quaint store was already buzzing with visitors and patrons, some carrying lomo-cams themselves, others content on admiring the wonderful collection of cameras they have in store. The music by guest DJ Megz filled the room with a lively rhythm, pumping hearts to excitement and chirpy chatter, while delectable finger-food from SPR MRKT and cocktails from Drinkdings being served all-around, completed the occasion.

A visual explosion of lenses, flashes and colors occupied the display racks, the DIY La Sardina cameras being the centrepoint of it all. Eclectic, creative and ultimately beautiful, each camera carried with them individual stories, exclusive unto itself, written on the threads sewn over them and the paint drawn on them, producing works that are both eye-catching and unique. We were lucky enough to meet some of the creators behind them and the stories they hold.

Steve Lawler aka MOJOKO is an experimental artist, expressing his thoughts through his arts via unorthodox methods. Camera Man is a combination of b-movies, cult toons and a robot a representation of the artist’s memory, his trademark, and ‘celluloidal fantasies’. True to form, this quirky camera indeed shows its artists unconventional way at looking at the world. A robot-legged camera, how about that?

The all-seeing eye is the inspiration to MASH UP’s La Sardina piece, a wondrous collage made of embroidery and recycled denim. This trio – younglings already making their mark on singapore’s fashion scene – gathered from pop culture influence, cinematography and of course, fashion, and true to the spirit of DIY, they took apart the camera to produce this creation. Despite the fact that they almost lost a piece of the camera, they were able to give us one fabulous piece.

The pen was Farizwan Fajari’s (aka Speak Cryptic) most powerful tool, and with the pen, he drew the landscape of this La Sardina piece, much as photographs produce landscapes of our memories, imprints of fantastical lands in the past that we would never again be. That was the concept of his creation, and while he struggled trying to take take the camera apart (and almost lost a screw), ultimately, this camera was a drawn piece, an illustrator’s beautifully stencilled piece.

A camera of childhood memories, of the snacks and sweets we used to munch-on relentlessly, this was the concept of Astralae’s DIY camera, a truly nostalgic piece of work that would send you back to retrospective reminiscing. It is a creation that stands as a testament to this textile designer’s mission of reviving appreciation to lost cultures.

Animal/human hybrid is the trademark of the critically acclaimed artist and winner of the 23rd UOB Painting of the Year, David Chan. His concept, furthering hybridizing animal-humans and cameras, is evident with this La Sardina piece…that stands on four legs. Both a criticism on social issues like pop culture and genetic engineering (his main influences) and a testament to its artist’s ingenuity, this science experiment of a camera indeed turned heads.

T’was right, said they, such birds to slay/that bring the fog and mist’ This verse from Coleridge’s The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is written on the back of Yong, Somewhere Else’s La Sardina camera, a verse to wish the carrier of the camera goodluck into an adventure of photo-worthy moments in the sea of life. This blue seafarer’s camera carries in it lucky charms and illustrations of sailor tattoos. A custom-made, life vest-looking, orange camera case – that took weeks to finish, embroidered from scratch – completes the look, truly a voyager’s camera.

This is Oscar the Camera, Eric Foenander’s latest creation. This character harks back to a 1930’s black-and-white cartoon, and so the La Sardina animated mascot come to life. The idea came to him in a flash and in his words, he simply ‘just went with it’, the trademark of an instinctive artist.

The world is your oyster! That’s the message behind Clare Marie Ryan’s Sweet Golden Clime camera, a memory’s testament to life’s sweet moments of climaxes and the dark reverberations of its aftermath. Created by etching and drawing, true to its artist’s multi-disciplinary approach to art, this camera is a pearl in its own right.

La Sardina’s camera is, simply speaking, a sardine-can camera. This was Joseph Chiang of Monster Gallery’s approach to his DIY camera. A skilled artist and ultimately a printmaker, he hand-carved a linoleum block, shaped to sardine fish and hand-painted it on the camera, creating not one but many various permutations of the design on various camera covers, portraying the true vision of a La Sardina. You can literally see the sardines inside this sardine-can.

La Sardina Oceanid is a sophisticated piece of work, made of clay and painted beautifully with watercolor, a camera displaying the dexterity of its artist, Kitt Santos. The design is based on Daughters of the Sea, harking from a series of illustrations he created about the sea nymphs in Greek mythology. This camera attests to his deep interest in and reference to folktales, mythology and the woman. The strength in the painted sea nymph’s eyes is enough to make you believe that these references were successfully embodied.

Bradley Foisset has the eye of a true DIY artist, seeing the mundane everyday as a beauty from which he could tap inspiration from. His La Sardina camera, an abstract piece of art made from a collage of old photographs and papers, films, faded ink and old upholstery pieces, is infused with the spirit of the 1980’s, a reminiscent of the time he’d first stumbled into a dark room, and thus developed an interest in photography. Playing with light and textures, this piece is an art form in itself.

With cameras like this, who needs digital? A work of art producing more work of arts…

Judging from the amount of guests who came by that night to show their support for these cameras and these artists, squeezing into that one limited space like, well, sardines in a can, it was without a doubt an eventful and successful night, not only for the artists, not only for the shops, but also for the camera itself…

 

Without a doubt, La Sardina is taking over the world.

And nope, it’s very well more than just a sardine can…