pianomania: I STILL DON'T GET MODERN ART: JIWA / SOUL BY FITRI YA'AKOB @ LIM HAK TAI GALLERY, NAFA

Visiting Objectifs always means a visit to Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts' Lim Hak Tai Gallery literally next door. The present installment features the debut solo exhibition of young Singaporean visual artist Fitri Ya'akob, who is a photographer, film maker and sculptor. This exhibition has all three aspects of her work.

Jiwa is the Malay word for soul, as in the P.Ramlee hit song Getaran Jiwa which literally means "vibrations of the soul". In Jiwa, Fitri relates her closeness to the sea, seafarers (the orang laut), marine life (dead or alive) and islands, and the countryside which would soon be lost to time. One can easily identify with a more leisurely lifestyle from a simpler time, something which she seeks to relive with time.

Then there is the inevitable word salads, like "a world largely fabricated by different types of rules and regulations", "our senses tend to dull from the force to act and even think", "other senses appear to play a lesser role in how we encounter the life-world, to use a Heideggerian term". Did she even write this?

Never mind, there is still some solace and wisdoms that can be gained walking through this. Her photographs feel genuine and authentic, ultimately timeless. The sculptures are organic, an attempt to bring back to life lifeforms that have been lost. Art like this makes us ponder and think, and I guess that's what it's about.