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So here it is: the inside of a Doctor's waiting room at 10AM, in a small town in Kent. Given my disease, I've done my fair share of Dr's surgery global tours by now, but coming to this particular one is incredibly surreal. Walking up the little hill to the front door of the surgery already gave me a colourful montage of memories that reeled through my mind like a flip-book. The door was as heavy as it was when I first pushed it at the age of 3, the smell was incredibly similar to that of my past Grandparent's garden shed, and the awkward silent atmosphere of the waiting room lingered heavily like a thick fog of anxious cold sweat. The only new addition to the vacinity was the touch-screen TFT display to book yourself into the surgery; un-emotional robotic staff who looked like they were working for Death himself made me think of my mother always calling them the Gestappo when I was younger. I guess they hadn't changed either.
All of which, I refused to phase me. I walked in, smiling, making light of the situation, entered the echoing 70's waiting room and laughed at the new addition of a PacMan dot-matrix animation marqueeing across a light panel that calls your name when you're due for your appointment. When I was little, there used to be a corner dedicated to children's toys, and towers of old magazines and/or Reader's Digest that fermented and became dog-eared. All of which had been cleared to leave an empty space to emphasise the level of social awkwardness Doctor's surgeries so often ooze; The space between one side of the room to the other may only be three paces, yet it feels like half a mile. A couple sat by a window in silence, nervously staring at their own shoes, which caused me to begin joking with my mother about menial things that I knew would make her laugh with me. Our stereotypical Chinese loud laughter and subcequent amplified talking, caused the couple to begin talking to each other and it no longer felt like God's waiting room.
Eventually I was called in to see the Doctor, who sat with me and we discussed the measures to be taken to go ahead with further tests. As I said before, I've seen so many doctors the past two years that I've lost count, but this particular one actually took out a body chart and pointed to all the parts of the anatomy and gave me a visual explanation. It was amazing. I wish the doctor's I'd seen before for all my other creepy tests had done the same as him. The conclusion was to send me back up to London for another review and a meeting over what should be done with my dysfunctional anatomy; he listed off a load of tests he wanted to run if I had been his patient (I'm currently in residence so am not actually allowed to be treated by anyone in Kent) which sparked off a load of unnerved alarm bells, but I nodded, smiled and we went ahead with booking me in and sending me back to London.
I left the Surgery feeling a bit odd and not really looking forward to experiencing the tests, so I decided to lose myself in a world of Photography and Music production. I took some shots of a local park I had always chosen to avoid when I was a kid due to the amount of kids who would get drunk in there, have fun with drugs and knives, and generally be the kinds of people who chase you on their bikes. The park had a dark stigma on it, so I decided to walk in and take some photographs of the "new" playground the council had built for the children in the neighbourhood.
One word: Fail.
The playground was definitely a hell of a lot better than what was once there when I was little, but the new version was graffitied over with people's mobile numbers to "call for sex", followed by a load of differing phalic scrawls and people's names. Just the kind of place you'd let your children play in. I decided to take a mental note of this and turn it into a possible side-project to photograph empty children's playgrounds and document the disturbing vandalism. But then again, doing something like that would make me feel like I work for the council, or at least an angry activist protesting against the ASBO generation.With that depressing thought in mind, I headed back to the music studio and mastered the EP I had initially decided to send to my Director for January, but ended up making a few copies and sent them to some unsuspecting friends of mine as an experiment to see what they would do when they heard it. After hearing three different responses from those who had received it, I realised I could turn this into something even bigger, so today, acclaimed Photographer, Bettina Von Zwehl gave me a call and we discussed her work as well as my own, and my ideas for my current personal project. We decided that I send her the EP and she creates her own response to the music; be it written or photographic in media. The idea being that the individual is listening to something that is entirely improvised and packed with emotion and feeling, which they then reflect within their own artistic response.
(And now, the part YOU can be part of....)
I'm now inviting anyone who would like to participate in this experiment; you don't even have to be an Artist, as long as you take 30 minutes of your time to listen to a CD and then respond in any way you want. I've been very lucky to have had a number of people from all different vocational backgrounds who are interested in taking part, so CD's will be sent to them soon -- one particular participant is not only himself, but his entire family. This is something I'd love to have everyone engaging in, so even if you think your friend, mum, dad, even your little sister would be up for listening to perhaps just one track and respond to it, please, get involved!
For all those who are up for it, email me at: anita.kim.leng@gmail.com
Email me if you have any questions or if you just want to have something to do, and I look forward to hearing from you.
