What influenced Tang Da Wu

Many facts or historical aspects can explain the different works of Tang Da Wu : why he did that, what he wanted to mean. Tang Da Wu was born in Singapore, in 1943, it means during the Japanese occupation. Here is a picture showing the tragic day of the arrival of japanese army. It Will lead, as you can see on the next picture to a period of terror. This period lasted 3 years from 1942 to 1945 and
Changed the Life of every singaporean citizen, And more generally south-asian people under the authority of japanese army.

He studied and grew up mostly in UK and he is very concerned about environmental and social issues. At least, it can explains many thing in his works. The western countries were indeed, at that time more aware about this kind of issues than asian countries. That also explains the choice of Tang Da Wu to study there.

For example, about the Japanese occupation and cultural identity, the work « I Was born Japanese » is a very good example. I am sorry to put the light on such a terrible picture. We have to be aware of the period in which Tang Da Wu was born. This picture showing japanese solfiées looking dead singaporeans bodies is relevant on this purpose.

Tang Da Wu himself said he has four nationalities. Of course he is singaporean since the independance of singapore in 1965 but also Japanese because he endures the japanese occupation (from 1942 to 1945) for 2 years. Moreover, he is a British citizen, first of all because Singapore was under the authority of UK after WWII but also because Tand Da Wu studied a long time in UK. He used to say he loved this country. Finally, he was also a malaysian citizen since Singapore joined the federation of Malaysia in 1963, before independance. So the themes of national and cultural identities are really present in his works.

About environmental issue, a very good example is shown by his famous work, the tiger’s whip, whose the picture is attached in the first article. Indeed, the tiger suffers from massive hunting by chinese. They believe that the tiger’s penis has aphrodisiac qualities. They participate in his extinction. So we can say that the extremeness of social themes highly completed his artworks.

We can also say that the singaporean society inspired him. The freedom of speech in Singapore is not known for being the most respected around the world. By his work, Tang Da Wu want to say messages to the Singaporean society. His work is an other way to communicate with people and try to spread ideas.

That is also why he created the artist village. He wanted the other artists to have the same role as him !