What do I know? I'm 'Sitting on the Fence'
Lyrical responses to Genevieve Leong’s solo show
By Mary Ann Lim
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, Sitting on the Fence, 2025. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
Sitting on the Fence (2025) by Genevieve Leong, and curated by Berny Tan, is running at starch from 31 May to 29 June 2025. This show, which is Leong’s largest exhibition to date, explored ways of sitting with indecision using objects that are constantly in a state of becoming. This lyric piece, or more specifically, series of ekphrasis, responds to a selection of the works that are present in the show. The responses are ordered chronologically, based on how I encountered them during my visit to the space.
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, Interlude, 2025. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
Interlude, 2025
it’s not as if I don’t know what I know.
an interlude comes after
something has happened. something
is now waiting to happen. if it comes
before, then what does it intervene with?
between something and nothing,
nothing filling the air;
I wasn’t aware of nothing before.
a toothbrush holder is made
for precisely that -
to cradle a brush tilted,
at the greatest, widest, possible angle
yet never falling,
always safe.
or it could itself tilt,
saved in perpetuity
from falling further
by two wooden beams that met
at an angle
some time ago.
wood itself can be beams,
or surfaces
where birds once perched
and now lie hardened clay;
or metaphor
or branches
with leaves of cloth whispering
contradictions like
come closer: see!
do not go further; stop!
well perhaps, not contradictions
just that what I know sways,
comes and goes,
ebbs and flows,
like the wind
like water
like air
like something
and all its nothings.
Genevieve Leong, Recipe #06: How to make a good decision, 2025, dimensions variable, magnetic levitation bowl, found and made objects.
Genevieve Leong, Dilemma Paintings, 2025, dimensions variable, glazed ceramic. Photos taken by Marvin Tang.
Recipe #06: How to make a good decision, 2025 / Dilemma Paintings, 2025
Anything can be an oracle. In a past life, you took me through a house. And in the middle of the house was a large ancestral altar. I do not recall the names inscribed on the tablets any longer, but they must have tenderly rolled around someone’s tongue a long time ago. You placed in my hand two dark, half-formed moons. Jiaobei, you said. Can the moon tell me my future? Does it truly reflect divine light? I don’t know the gods, but the gods know me. Roll them on the floor and ask your question. If one is up and the other down, the answer is yes. If they are both up, then no. If they are both down, the gods are laughing at me. Kindly or patronisingly, that is an answer only my heart will know.
These days, I live amidst shrines of cement, so there are no moons to gently sweep my floor. No space in this tiny flat to let my ancestors sit comfortably. These days, people tell me that a computer, linked to another supercomputer far away, can predict what I should do. I am not so sure. How can a computer and its mother whom I have never met tell me what to do and where to go?
Best to use a small levitating bowl, a vase, and a thin foam piece within. The vase will rotate atop the bowl, and the foam will point me towards the right direction. Or glazed clay that has been punched over and over again with Y and N. Y for yes, N for no. If my finger or the foam lands on a space in between, then it points me towards a place only my heart will know.
Maybe these objects still remember who they once were. Maybe those memories ripple through their reincarnations. Maybe they understand something else now, something that I don’t know. Who’s to say that the aspirations they reflect are not divinely given? Who else better to seek counsel from?
“Maybe these objects still remember who they once were. Maybe those memories ripple through their reincarnations. Maybe they understand something else now, something that I don’t know. Who’s to say that the aspirations they reflect are not divinely given? Who else better to seek counsel from?”
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, Surfaces of rest, 2024-25, dimensions variable, salvaged MRT handle, polymer clay. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
Surfaces of rest, 2024-25
I’m tired and there were no seats. In the moist elbow of an afternoon, I found your crook and laid in it, wobbling.
Installation view of A pocket dictionary of word slips, 2023. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
A pocket dictionary of hesitation, 2025
It’s not as if I don’t mean what I mean.
I mean, if the walls could speak, they might tell us of the peculiar condition where a word, about to leave your tongue, suddenly dissolves in the heat of things. Or those strange times where the same word streamed out of us, just to glide past each other, never meeting. Recall the words also where their letters ran like dye, washed to ruin in our mouths, spinning round and round. Time is truly an awful detergent.
I mean, when life gives you lemons, say lemon quickly.
Say lemon quickly and repeatedly.
Say lemon quickly and repeatedly with a lemon in your cheek.
Say lemon quickly and repeatedly with a lemon in your cheek and a melon up your sleeve.
Say lemon quickly and repeatedly with a lemon in your cheek and a melon up your sleeve and an almond on your knees.
Rinse and repeat until sour becomes sweet become grit.
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, Surfaces of rest, 2024-25, dimensions variable, salvaged MRT handle, polymer clay. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
Surfaces of rest, 2024-25
Get a grip!
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, The sensation of floating, 2025. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
The sensation of floating, 2025
Installation view of Genevieve Leong, If we spoke in pauses, 2025. Photo taken by Marvin Tang.
If we spoke in pauses, 2023 (remade 2025)
Sitting on the Fence runs from 31 May to 29 June 2025 at starch. For more information, please visit the starch Instagram page or Genevieve Leong’s website.
Mary Ann Lim is Programme Manager at A&M. She conceptualises programmes and content for external projects, while contributing to writing and media assignments for the platform. With her practice rooted across programming, writing, and research, her interests lie in alternative knowledges, ecologies, and thinking through interdisciplinary practices. She writes short stories and poetry in her spare time.