Si Ying Ng: Rattan Should Be Treasured
The rattan craftsperson and the artist behind A Tiny Maker wants to create new conversations around rattan and bringing more attention to this relatively obscure material.
A UX designer and the artist behind A Tiny Maker, Si Ying Ng is on a quest to reinterpret the craft of rattan weaving with a modern aesthete’s eye. She was first drawn to the medium due to its relative obscurity, then she became enamoured with its beauty and cultural significance and sought to explore its creative possibilities. “Hopefully through that, I’m creating new conversations around rattan and bringing more attention to this material,” she says.
Ng believes rattan should be treasured. “This applies to both the user and the maker,” she adds. “For the user, we ought to take good care and make good use of the rattan object for as long as we possibly can. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the maker to use the material in a way that best conveys rattan’s beauty and qualities.”
Compared to the look and applications of rattan pieces when they were at the height of their popularity decades ago, how are the pieces you create different?
The purposes of rattan as a material have changed over time as we have changed, so the pieces created with rattan reflect that as well. Rattan was a popular choice for furniture back in the day — and it still is very much so today — but we now have endless other choices to satisfy the same purposes. How rattan is used in my work perhaps suggests an alternative relationship between the rattan material and us, in our time period.
What goes through your mind when you’re in the midst of working on a piece?
While I am in the process of making, I don’t think about much; weaving and decision making take up my attention. However, I do think a lot outside of making — I am jumping between projects, problem solving, figuring out weaves in my head, and imagining new forms and weaves I want to try out. Sometimes an idea gets stuck in my head for a long time because it gets too daunting to even figure out how to begin.
What does it mean to you to be able to transform your ideas into real objects?
Ideas in theory or drawings don’t always turn out well — it takes me rounds of iteration and experimentation to get to the final piece. But when it is finally done, it is gratifying. There are times, when on the first try, the final piece does come out the way I imagined it to be, but occasions like that are rare. Perhaps a master craftsperson would have a higher success rate translating ideas to products, but I am still a baby! So I try to embrace the extra step and enjoy learning and experimenting along the way.
How does rattan weaving complement other aspects of your life?
I design for the digital realm in my day job, which requires quite a different kind of thinking and working method. With rattan, there are no instant commands to copy, paste, undo or redo — every decision made requires a long time to execute. I reckon this helps me learn to be more decisive and confident with what I choose to do, and yet at the same time, to not be afraid to take everything out and start over again, even though what was done might have taken hours to complete. Working with rattan teaches me to listen, and it has helped grow my sensibilities.
Photography GAN KAH YING
Art direction GREGORY WOO
Hair and makeup GREGO OH using KEUNE and NARS COSMETICS
