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NZ participatory installation artist Tiffany Singh talks to Cleo Barnett about her latest work, Drums Between the Bells, at the Next Wave Festival in Melbourne.

Where are you based from? How has this impacted your art form?

I live in NZ but have spent years living in India. I am Samoan, Maori and Indian and my ethnicity informs my work in relation to the sacred, ceremony and ritual. These conceptual elements are the basis of what my work is based on. My aesthetic is largely influenced by Eastern notions of offering and daily practice. The works materiality is often based around objects that are found at sacred sites or the everyday healing object such as spices, flowers, and holi powder. The work engages audience participation and invites co-authorship by opening up the work for the viewer to realize.

In the case of Drums Between The Bells, the audience is asked to come and deconstruct my installation by removing a bell string from the ribbons and reinstalling the string of bells in their favourite sacred place in Melbourne. The audience is then requested to upload a picture or a video and document the bells location onto Flicker maps so the bells can be traced and refound. If a bell is located it can be moved, in the hope to create a living work of art.
It is a conversation about what sites are considered special or sacred in a contemporary society and also generates a dialogue around whether a work can actually live through audience participation to develop a life span and movement of its own outside of the initial artists install and concept.

How would you describe your art to a stranger?

Colourful, natural and open for engagement, with the hope of becoming a live entity.

What are you doing over in Melbourne?

I am apart of Next Wave Festival  and very much looking forward to realizing a work that depends so much on audience participation, this is my first opened ended work. So the life expectancy of the work is very experiential for me. It is exciting to not know how the work will be resolved. Generating this work in such a vibrant and savvy city will hopefully facilitate the work and promote an enjoyment of being involved. I'm also here to experience a new place and of course meet new people.

How can we get involved?

By getting involved with the bells... moving them around and giving them a life. they will live at the Elm Tree, cnr Swanson and Collins St you can choose your bell , take it to your sacred place and reinstall it bell in its new location, you can then photograph or film the bell and email the image / video + current location to drumsbetweenthebells@gmail.com

Then if you come across the bells at in other places You may remove the bell and go back to step 4.

Whats next?

Up next is the 2012 Sydney Biennial, which again is a participatory install involving 3000 bamboo wind chimes. Again the work invites the audience to engage and activate the work. The pilgrimage this time takes a chime from pier 2/3 at the wharfs then take it home decorate it, then reinstall it at building 61 Cockatoo Island. After Sydney i have an artist residency in Bangalore, India where i will be learning cottage industrial and local handicraft practice as well as engaging in public installs with local materials.

Where can we see your work?

You can see the work installed on the Elm Tree in City Square for the Next Wave Festival and at pier2/3 and cockatoo island in Sydney alternatively you can see the work online at www.tiffanysingh.com, and look out for the bells that will hopefully be all over Melbourne!