Weeds/Rumpai Series II - Rumput butong/White water sedge ('Kyllinga nemoralis')

During the 2013 national election campaign in Malaysia, Sharon Chin (Malaysia b.1980) collected the political party flags that hung on trees, lamp posts and street signs in her hometown of Port Dickson, and painted over them images of weeds from her own garden.

In this series, the number of flags from the ruling Barisan Nasional party (blue and white) versus the main opposition People’s Alliance coalition (red, blue and white) is proportional to the number of flags each party erected in Port Dickson during the campaign.

Surviving and thriving in adverse conditions, weeds are a symbol of the resolute stubbornness of everyday existence. With their natural beauty and their sense of the uncontrollable and the inevitable, weeds are a powerful metaphor for dissent.

‘We are the weeds . . . we are in the buildings, the cracks, the fields, the roadsides . . . we are many and not alone.’

Exhibited in 'The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' (APT8) | 21 Nov 2015 – 10 Apr 2016