Everyone who's spend enough time walking around government housing has witnessed one of their biggest contradictions. Utilitarian and cold on first sight, the more a person spends time in them the more he starts seeing the smaller details, a small drawing here, a flower there, that make them unique and different. That gives them character. Precisely this quality of the public housing is the topic of Marina Chaw's black-and-white short animation “A Walk in Void Country”.
“A Walk in Void Country” is Screening at Cartoons Underground
This hand-drawn short is a movie about the author's memories of one of the most prominent features of the government housing of native Singapore's – the void decks. Blocky and full of pillars, these spaces right underneath the buildings look like nothing more than concrete spaces devoid of life and warmth. But the more we look at the largely static screen, the more we start to see the different characteristics of these spaces. We start to appreciate the different textures that make up their surfaces. And slowly, they somehow become alive in front of us.
Chaw's animation style of choice, largely static black-and-white drawings with pencil, is a great visual representation of the contradictory nature of the void decks. Both somewhat static and with a sense of very subtle movement, we get the impression of being in these seemingly endlessly monotonous spaces that appear to be looping ad nauseam. But Chaw's bold pencil strokes and small doodles on the walls show the uniqueness of each of the spaces, the often microscopic detail hidden right under our noses that makes these spaces what they truly are.
“A Walk in Void Country” is a beautiful and introspective work that takes an interesting topic such as the void decks and uses it to probe the nature of memories.
