Matthew Wang

Profession

BA Fine Art Alum

College

Central Saint Martins

Person Type

Alumni

Biography

Many Tan Tomberg (formerly Matthew Wang) studied BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. His approach to life and work is based on movement and search: movement against persecution, discrimination, and borders.

Interview

Please can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

A significant part of my life can be seen through an experience of movement and search. Movement against persecution, discrimination, and borders. It has shaped my approach to life and work. I started migrating since I was very young; and I am still in search of moments, people and practices grounded in a present sense of place. Some questions have continued to follow me through the years: how do we perform our sociality? how can we embody resistance and agency? how can we be generous to another? Often it seems so simple, yet our messy emotions and idiosyncrasies say otherwise. These days, I am not looking for answers only in ‘art’.

Why did you choose to study BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins (CSM)?

I wanted to do art, any art. I felt oppressed where I was living. I wanted to leave and at the time, London had an openness and made sense linguistically. It was already prohibitively expensive; somehow my family and I pooled together enough resources. I applied to CSM and was unexpectedly accepted, so I jumped ship.

There were lots of weird, beautiful personalities at the college. The Fine Art department seemed laid back and receptive to my way of working. I enjoyed that. What have you been working on since graduating? A joke used to go round friends in college — you find out at some point in your long artistic journey that you’ve basically been doing the same thing ever since you started. I don’t think that’s so far off the mark sometimes. I am working on surviving... That said, I still take walks, collect stories, pick up trash, roll around in empty buildings, host and drink tea with strangers. It hasn’t been easy for someone who doesn’t produce tangible, visible, saleable work. Add to that a continuous need to obtain papers and be employable.

Soon after graduating I went on to live in Amsterdam, I started performing dance pieces, wrote a paper on hysteria, and learnt how to DJ. The covid years set me really far back, it placed me in the most precarious situation I’d ever been in, I think I am still in recovery and mourning over this period. I later moved to Brussels, where I live now. I split my free time between my music and art. There are some subjects that have come to the foreground in my thoughts lately: solidarity amongst Asian communities after the lockdowns, rising militarism and fascism in the region, a desire for climate conscious ways of living.

More recently, I spent a few months spending time and making with psychiatric patients at a care centre in Brussels. I would like to see artistic life, and my music gain more traction. I have an on-going project about people’s experiences of conscription and pacifism, which is open invitation to those reading this. I am also in search for those who would like to share their visa struggles, especially through the questions of love and dependency.

What was the most interesting project you worked on during your time on the course?

As an ‘external’ project, Anna Hart’s (AiR Studios) work became quite important in forming an early sensibility towards social practice. I was part of a project called Tenderfeet and Superannuates, which paired together students and older people for an extended time. Her teachings on practice and community resilience has stayed with me since. Internally, the work of Anne Eggebert, Sarah Cole, Margot Bannerman and Ben Cain were revelatory. They gave space to a way of working that was relational, political and grounded.

It was really the interactions with these mentors that led to one of the most fun projects I’d done — Becoming Ted Green — where I re-situated an old graduate’s (Ted Green) work as my own, effectively creating an entire mythology around a stranger’s name and personality.

What important piece of advice would you give to students thinking of studying this course?

Many, many people will be trying to give you lots of advice, all the time. I suppose it is good to keep an open mind, but learn to hold on to what’s truly important to you, let go of what’s not. Surprise the world with your curiosity, who knows what’ll come around? I don’t know of a friend from my CSM circles who has made a living through their practice alone, art worlds often mask inequality and exploitation in a language of promise; of ‘possibility’, ‘passions’ and ‘being-different’. It’s important see beyond art, pick up skills that are spiritually and communally useful, pass them onto others. Humour helps.

What was the highlight of your Central Saint Martins experience?

Meeting the brilliant friends who have touched me, and have shown up in need. What is the most important thing you learnt on the course? Look for the cracks, the holes, the folds. There’s magic to be found.

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Matthew Wang

Biography

Interview

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Central Saint Martins

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