Sent by Debbie Loh • May 28, 2023
A Journey to Easter (AJ2E) was a pop-up art installation on display for Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday this year. Although this was not my first time curating an art installation, it was my first time working on it in this way. Instead of driving my plans forward, I felt like I was tossed around by the winds of the Spirit as people came to contribute and give.
The project began simply as awareness booths for the DUMC Library. The Library Team Leader, Penny Lee, was thrilled with the idea of bringing the library out into the Concourse and thought Easter would be a good time. And perhaps having it up the week before would help the Library Stewards gauge response and point people to our Easter booths. It was the first time the Library organised such an event. Certainly, we were nervous and unsure of the outcome and reception.
We selected a story-telling activity – retelling the story of Easter using visual aids. As someone who enjoys and uses Christian art to enter into prayer, the idea began to form in me to have Christian art on display, not only during the event, but throughout Holy Week at Concourse 2. We could turn Concourse 2 into a space where people could turn their thoughts toward Jesus, even if for the first time. The idea developed further in conversations with Dr. Hannah Pillay, my cell member, to include Scripture-reading audio for each poster.
As I submitted this proposal to John Yu, DUMC’s Chief Operating Officer, two weeks before Holy Week, he asked, “Would this be available in all the four languages?” Due to shortness of time and the amount of work involved, I turned this idea down, and said we could do it next year after this year’s experiment.
As I shared this conversation with Penny, who is from the Chinese congregation, she lit up at the suggestion. She felt that the exhibits would be important and meaningful enough to produce Chinese versions and bring it to the Chinese congregation. My jaw dropped and I was in awe, as she worked quickly to gather her troops to produce the Chinese audio clips and text translations.
Upon advice from our Building Management Head Choon Leong and Celebration Floor Manager Violet Poh, I also began to work with my colleagues Peter Lim (Head of First Touch) and Darren Ong (Creative Director), with whom we would share Concourse 2 together. Darren became my advisor and second eye on the set design. Choon Leong showed me the lay of the land in terms of all the furniture items available for loan, and worked on securing them.
Around the same time, I began to crack my head on what to call these art installations. The initial project title was “From Gethsemane to Golgotha,” which provided a good guide of the limits of the exhibition. I sketched a draft design of the flyer. Thankfully, Darren frankly told me that it did not look inviting, and after rummaging around the internet, I went for “A Journey to Easter,” a more accessible title.
I also sent an early note to our Communications Manager, Joshua San, to request that the project be included into his Holy Week service announcements. Upon supplying these concepts to Joshua, he immediately caught on to the project and offered to arrange the poster and website design with his team. At this offer, my jaw dropped at how the whole thing was really being hammered into shape.
I enlisted Equip Team Leader, Lim Siew Lan, to head up preparing the reflection questions and these were worded powerfully and meaningfully.
Pastor Terry Yeow offered his NextGen interns to help with installing the posters. Missions Administrator Eunice Tan came to accompany me to install some of them too. And Darren laid the final flourishes by throwing on the cloths onto the easels.
The project did not come without challenges.
The English language audio recordings needed to be balanced out, and additional work had to be done to have our readers come in to record. Also, one of our writers had an emergency that caused some delay to the completion of the reflection questions before they could be passed for translation.
I’m sure that my old ways of working i.e. being fussy and demanding, surfaced from time to time. But by the grace of God I managed to reduce it and work with a more generous and open spirit—being open to His provision of people, materials, and spaces. And being open to changing direction when things didn’t go the way I thought would be best.
But it all came together without much ado. I was able to have the joy of putting up the installations slowly, and lovingly – and prayerfully in the presence of God.
The final, and perhaps best part of it, was the giving out of palm crosses on both weekends. The initial idea was to fold paper crosses, as we did not know where to source for the palm fronds. The paper was already purchased, the tutorials already available — when one of the Library Stewards, Sheh-Lynn told us that her condo was having their coconut trees trimmed down! We had palm leaves, and ample to last us two weekends, with enough to distribute to DUMC@Puchong and Alpha!
I had the privilege of seeing the Library Stewards—probably the smallest “tribe” of DUMC—bring so much fun and joy to children and adults alike, patiently teaching them how to make palm crosses, and spreading the message of Jesus.
Many have asked: Who’s in charge of AJ2E? I often needed to answer this for practical purposes. But truly, I did not feel like I was in charge. I felt more like I was being dragged along into the different gifts being contributed and offered and was simply there to connect all these gifts together. Is this what being “blown by the Spirit of God” is like?
This one of the verses that I kept with me throughout this period:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14 NIVUK)
The posters of Christ being in a public place is a reminder of Christ being “among us.” It is a symbol that God tabernacled with us, common and normal people, who may or may not love Him.
AJ2E was a gift from God to DUMC, to encounter the gift of His Son afresh. And not only to DUMC, but to our guests who come to have meals and meetings in our facility. I daydream of people who have never known Jesus or been told the Gospel, who stumble upon these installations and encounter Jesus and the message of the Gospel for the first time. And I relish the stories of people whose hearts were touched by Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary.
