Poklong Anading Untitled (Dwelling), 2012 Duratransprints, lightbox During a three-week long residency program in Gwangju, Anading built interactions with some of the city’s sub-communities to collaborate on his two projects, Anonymity and Fallen Map, both of which further develop previous existing works. From an earlier iteration of Fallen Map, in which he photographed rags that had fallen onto the streets of Manila, Anading transformed the idea into an activity of painting people’s fingernails. Anading visited Daein Market in Gwangju, hanging out and meeting with people who work there (mostly middle-aged women), and as he gained their trust, he started painting their fingernails with specific designs from photographs from Fallen Map project. While markets are normally associated within the realm of the domestic, the project highlights the fact that most of the women working in the market had not received nail care since the day they got married or became too busy with their daily lives at the market. As simple as the act of painting someone’s nails may be, Anading’s project invariably reminded the women of the power they had over and within their bodies. The activity created an intense and intimate conversation between the women in Daein Market and the artist, in that on one level he was playing a very straightforward role of providing a service, yet he felt a very personal transference had occurred; through this process he became a receptacle for their stories , absorbing their experiences ad wisdom. Anading documents this process with photographs of the women’s pointed fingers displaying their painted nails, to underline the idea of power and direction, of authority and territory. words by Alia Swastika “Impact of Mobility on Space and Time” Roundtable, Gwangju Biennale 2012
