Firstly, I would like to thank the editor Yoichi Nagata for inviting me to curate this issue of Fraction. It is a great opportunity for me to showcase my personal work as well as some new and emerging photographers from Malaysia and Singapore whom I know personally. South East Asia is currently experiencing a growing interest in photography, with many new practitioners adopting Instagram and social networks as channels to display their images. However, the development of fine art and socio-documentary photography has, in my opinion, taken a back seat, when compared to the explosion of social and casual photography.

These four photographers whom I have selected highlight the works that are at the very heart of a new genre which I term ‘socio-experimental’, an offshoot perhaps of the documentary genre. I hope viewers will appreciate these works.

First off, from Malaysia, I have selected the recent works of Nadia Jasmine Mahfix (Into Nothingness) and Aizuddin Saad’s insightful series ‘Who Are You?’

Nadia’s dark and dramatic black and white photographs embarks the viewer on a journey of discovery about Death and the soul, a theme that has been the subject of many artists, authors and performers. Often wispy and abstract lightforms are interspersed with close up of animal corpses, headstones and dramatic landscapes, conjure an ethereal and otherworldly atmosphere like a Gothic ghost story.

‘Who Are You?’ is Aizuddin Saad’s light hearted but poignant series focussing on footwear and asks the important question about the relationship of form and function, and whether it is possible to determine an individual’s character by their apparel. This seemingly simple but effective series is an introspective view on our modern society.

The next two photographers come from Singapore and I have been following their work for several years. Alecia Neo’s Home Visits series is a socio-documentary study of her neighbours from a government housing estate. These portraits are real, personal and compelling, and offer the viewer a glimpse of what life is like in these often cramp apartments.

Geraldine Kang’s darkly humoured series In The Raw examines her own relationship with her family members, with a series of staged group self-portraits. The intimate nature and satirical aspect of the series as a whole teases the viewer to be voyeuristic and yet sympathetic at the same time. Once again, the question of identity and relationships, and persona rises to the forefront in these two Singaporean works.

Steven V-L Lee (Photographer, Teacher of Photography, Founder of Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards)

London, Januariy 2015