Pegs

Sculpture, Mixed Media
2022
Hawker! Hawker! at Lau Pa Sat for Singapore Art Week 2022

The invention of objects is usually specific but over time their utility might multiply in unprecedented ways. In many of Singapore's hawker centres and food courts, the trend of using readily available objects as means of communication has been widely established. This trend functions like a language fluent by its patrons and workforce; using tissue papers to reserve tables, using stringed plastic bags as take-away kopi(coffee) containers and using paint stains to identify cups and spoons ownership.

This project takes an example from the clothespeg, an object that became a common utensil in the hawker kitchen to facilitate orders. The clothes pegs ordering system started from a small hack and turned into a cultural habit that is kept by the numerous humble hawkers in Singapore. With numbers or symbols written at the tip of each wooden peg or the assortment of coloured plastic ones, the humble clothes pegs, sometimes with multiple on each bowl, narrates specific orders unique to patrons. I hope that highlighting this phenomenon will inspire a tendency to look for and appreciate simple innovations.