How to make the perfect _____
“How to make the perfect _____” is a performative project by performance artist, Malvina Tan, exploring different recipes and types of comfort food. She explores different ways of executing these different recipes, in an attempt to find the perfect way – one ingredient, one step and one method at a time. “How to make the perfect _____” is a reflection of her exploratory journey as she tries to navigate through the every day, and to cope with the effects of homesickness due to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation especially during a time of imposed travel bans and the idea of distance measuring up to feel further than ever before. Malvina has called Sydney, Australia, “home” for more than 5 years now, and she misses “home” in Singapore and her other “home” in Poland. Malvina often uses food as a catalyst for conversation in her work, and she hopes to be able to use food to preserve her memories of “home” and create new memories through this performative project. “How to make the perfect _____” is a ritualistic project that experiments with the elements of food, geography, culture, habits, leading us to reflect on memory, time, parallelisms and the uncanny.
Malvina Tan
Malvina Tan is a Singaporean mixed media installation and performance artist, living in Sydney, Australia. She has exhibited and performed internationally since 2008; House Singapore ‘Adopt An Artist’ Programme, TranSport (Madrid-Singapore), Night Festival Singapore, FETTERFIELD, Making Space, Body As Woman (parallel event of Singapore Biennale 2013), Singapore Art Week 2014, Something Human FRESHLY PACKED / ALWAYS CHECK THE LABEL (London), Affordable Art Fair Singapore 2015, Future of Imagination 10 International Performance Art Festival, The Art Of Work in collaboration with Chicks on Speed at Singapore’s NTU CCA and ArtScience Museum, Crack Theatre Festival 2016 (Newcastle), The Open Body – Art Month Sydney 2018, Rebel Live Action 2 International Performance Art Festival 2018 (Bangkok). Malvina wishes she was living in the 1980s.
Having travelled through time, she feels strange in her surroundings. “Extreme interests in human beings, I dissect them physically and emotionally, then translate my findings through my art.” Often, her life experiences are the central focus of her work, exploring concepts of corporeality, memory and time. Malvina has a Diploma in New Media (Art & Design) from Republic Polytechnic (Singapore), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) in Interactive Media from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).
