Funny Things Happened On The Way To The Toilets: 6th Shanghai Biennale 2006

Easy Toilets

Entrance view

Me trying to camouflage as one of the Kitties while the artist is also featured

I am one of the featured subjects inside the painting.

I was kidding about how this particular installation had appeared like an open air toilet as I was approaching its setting. To my surprise, I was so right even poking fun at it. Yes, the installation is definitely about toilets, named Easy Toilet, more suitably, Easy Toilets. Easy for what? Easy to construct, easy to carry around, easy to use, easy to access, easy to upkeep, etc. Oh, it's so easy to understand. By the way, it's so easy to get into the wrong side since there were not any Men Only or Women Only signs posted. Or, is this necessary? By then, this will be used per needs or open to all, i.e. gender is not the issue here – also, a universal design concept with no specific place or cultures targeted. Hey, what about my cats and my dogs...and my parakeets?

It is an installation in open space, signifying natural ventilation is the key to design and not incurring any other form of artificial energy used. However, there is not a single sanitary ware displayed inside the two toilets. It is minimal in installation; it is only conceptual. The installation is simple, planar in elevation but spiral in plan; though no roof and door included in this case, this only gives rise to the essential idea of a well-enclosed environment appropriate for discreet use.

Well, what's more can I say about this installation since it is easy to understand? I guess this will also be the bare minimum critic up to this point.

When I first visited Shanghai in 2004, the very congenial tour guide had described the horrendous desperation for taxi drivers to locate public toilets and later one of the ingenious taxi drivers had made effort to come up with a map showing toilet locations around the city. A friend had visited Beijing with her parent years before the current improved situation, and she was and still to date profoundly bearing her traumatic shock. The toilet cubicles then were separated with lower than low walls and without doors. She had since promised herself not to return to China; I truly feel for her. Another goofy quip going on around in Malaysia: be sure to bring along an umbrella when visiting China - for pragmatic use in toilets. Truly the funny things happened on the way to the toilets in China!

Many pay toilets are now relegated to street corners in Shanghai and more are installed to meet conditional demands especially at larger crowd areas or during festive seasons. My personal experience in catering for natural order is to keep looking out for those American chains like KFC or McDonald's where upkeep of toilets is usually, and not necessarily always, but can be so satisfactoryand squeaky clean.

Studies have shown that public and personal bubble spaces vary in different cultures. The sense of privacy is remarkably different all over the world. Some has even claimed that toilet cultures reflect the civilized state of the particular country. Hmm...!? (Thinkin'...and thinkin' now!)

Oh, well! It's another day and another way of bowl movements in life.

Jeremy
Shanghai. Oct. 12th, 2006