Boedi Widjaja

Kang Ouw《侠客行》

2022. Solo exhibition at the Esplanade Tunnel, Singapore. Curated by Lynda Tay. In-kind support by ShanghART Singapore. Singapore Art Week program.

Set in a magical island, the climactic scene in the Chinese wuxia novel《侠客行》(Xia Ke Xing or Ode to Gallantry) by famed author Jin Yong, witnesses its main protagonist decoding the poems inscribed in a labyrinth of caves. Illiterate, he saw the writings as images, responded to their graphical form and inadvertently attained mastery in the ultimate martial arts technique that eluded his lettered counterparts and predecessors.

Intrigued and informed by the aforementioned episode, Boedi Widjaja’s Kang Ouw《侠客行》unfurls from a system of architectonic-numeral script devised by the artist. These graphical Chinese seal-type forms are presented as banners that line both ends of the Esplanade Tunnel and are shown together with a series of methodologically conceived videos, drawings and sound works that examine notions of space and place. Converging Widjaja's long-standing and personal interest in wuxia films—known as kang ouw amongst the Indonesian Chinese community—alongside text-as-image and codes-in-visuals, the works present layered mediations of various spheres of knowledge fuelled by the artist’s multicultural imagination and experiences.

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Insights: Boedi Widjaja. Encoding the cultural experiences of a diaspora
Lynda Tay and Boedi Widjaja
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Esplanade Insights . 3 July 2022

Displaced Trees: A Conversation with Boedi Widjaja
Christina J. Chua and Boedi Widjaja
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SO-FAR . 8 June 2021

Jianghu + Wuxia by Stephen Teo
Stephen Teo and Boedi Widjaja; moderated by Lynda Tay
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Esplanade Visual Arts Centre . 8 Mar 2022

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