2018 HATalk Competition Entry

Sau Fen Chee

Sau Fen Chee – Singapore

Frost Flight

Category: Traditional

Description

William Farquhar commissioned a series of natural history drawings when he was the British Resident and Commandant of Melaka from 1803 to 1818. The Chinese artists he commissioned were more attuned to Chinese ink brush painting techniques and aesthetics but they combined these with perspective and naturalism from Western art – this stylistic fusion survives to this day in an astounding set of 477 illustrations kept in Singapore’s national art collection. The Black-capped Kingfisher, seen in one of the drawings, has also survived the years and the species is a frequent visitor to the tropical island state, taking refuge from north during the winter. Inspired by the fusion art of the anonymous artists behind the Farquhar Collection, this hat is a blend of influences from Europe and Asia. The hat is made from a tribal fabric that is hand-loomed from abaca fibres in the Philippines. The milliner has been collaborating with the tribe for about seven years since encountering their textiles while travelling, developing new textiles and designing new ways of making hats with these materials. For this hat, eco felt (made from recycled plastic bottles) is needle-felted into the tropical fabric, fusing the materials to create the frost-like edging around the brim and hat band. The felting process is both decorative as well as functional, cleaning off the raw edges of cut fabric and joining pattern pieces together. Wool fibres are needle-felted into pieces of the abaca fabric to form the Black-capped Kingfisher that wraps around the hat recalling the feathered or wrapped headdresses that is, in Asia, more common than hats. We are all migrants, fusing together the best of what we encounter in the lands we pass through, we open ourselves to new ways of doing things and find new inspiration to live in a better way.