The Faces of Courage was a by Mrs. Sybil Kathigasu and her life during the invasion of Perak by the Japanese army. When I read this book, all I could think of was how a strong, bold lady stood up for what was right and made many sacrifices in order to make a positive impact during the war. Thus, my theme for my installation was ‘DETERMINATION’. A mother, daughter, wife, friend, nurse, freedom fighter, and now an unsung heroine, Sybil Kathigasu believed in what was right. I decided to keep my design minimalistic and straight to the point, where people will be able to understand whilst displaying the timeline of her story.
ACT 001 - THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
The first step was to extract pieces of her timeline and portray it into art. I started visualizing by using cubes as cubes symbolizes stability and permanence, shown by how she kept calm when she was informed by the invasion. Broken CDs were used to represent her receiving ‘glass shattering’ news when she first heard about the war. Multiple colors seen represent the amount of mixed emotions she had at that moment; sadness, worry, sorrow, pain, panic. However she collected herself and instructed to go to Ipoh to see her family and instructed her staffs to stay with her, representing that although in the inside she had so many emotions, she still kept grounded and solid as worrying will lead to nowhere.
ACT 002 - CONSPIRE
`Josephine‘ was an old radio hidden from the Japanese that was used to communicate the news about the war from the outside as all media was banned to the people of Papan, thus it was important to highlight the role it played in my installation. Strings were used to represent the news it bared and was communicated to the victims of war. The red string represented Sybil as red was used to differentiate Eurasians. White strings were used to represent the people that she trusted to spread news to. Each knot represents the people who she had a connection to.
ACT 003 - PERSECUTION
The Japanese saw Sybil as a criminal of war, a threat. As Sybil was secretly aiding the guerillas, the Japanese wanted information from her which would aid in the capture of the resistance. Despite the Japanese arrested her husband and her children and used their life as a threat, she still stayed determined and true to what she believed what was right. As the Japanese knew of her demise through people giving information about her, the same strings used in ACT 002 were used to represent the people that backstabbed her. Rusted screws were used to represent the torture that the Japanese inflicted on her.
ACT 004 - TESTIMONY
Sybil was able to stay determined through encouragements given by her friends and family. I wanted to showcase kindness shown by people that got her through tough stages as without them, she wouldn’t be able to reach to righteousness. Quotes were used to show the lives she touched and genuine good will that people showed her.