In the past year or so, this 20‐year‐old artist has been capturing the attention and hearts of the creative circle here with her psychedelic illustrations of other‐worldly female figures, earning commissions from the likes of the party series Eatmepoptart as well as this magazine.
This year, she started experimenting with food as a material in response to the state of women’s rights globally. Here, the second‐year fine arts student at Lasalle College of the Arts shares more with us about her sociopolitical practice and why food can be great for provoking thoughts.
Part of the 20‐year‐old artist Hee Ker Ru’s Nourish series, this work of art was created with alphabet soup and is meant to be a satirical commentary on how ideologies are often subtly ingrained in women from childhood, explaining her choice of food popularly used to educate children about spelling and sentence formation as a medium.
“As we know, women and food have a complex history. As a medium of nourishment, food provides fuel for and shapes the physical body. Yet, throughout history, women’s diets have always been policed, with women shamed for eating too much, too little, et cetera. The traditional expectation of women to be domestic caregivers reinforces their servitude to nourish the family – a task very much tied to food and cooking."
For her Eat Your Words series, Hee comes up with phrases that are a wry subversion of the social constructs society has of women and the expectations they face.
Then there’s the idea of women as consumable objects to be devoured by the gaze of another, as well as of women being strategically positioned as passive consumers (in the consumerist, capitalist sense) … These two art series of mine are meant to make visible the manner in which we women become inundated with ideologies: they are fed to us and shoved or slipped down our throats, whether we realise it or not.
The choice of material for the Eat Your Words series? Reconstructed Yan Yan biscuits.
Often, this inoculation starts young, which is why I decided to use food popular with children – such as the likes of Yan Yan biscuits – as a material. The biscuit sticks come with simple little phrases on them to facilitate reading, and I see reconstructing this text in my works as sort of mirroring the way girls are taught to act and think.”