A Photography Exhibition & Installation by Ernest Goh

Objectifs Gallery, 10 June – 19 July 2015

Breakfast at 8 Jungle at 9 is an installation that engages with the public through an interactive sticker-pasting process to ‘wrap’ the world in nature which utilise repetitive motifs from the natural environment to propagate the his eco-utopian vision of the world. While at first glance a nod to scientific photography and the detailed study of specimens, Ernest encourages the viewer to appreciate these insects, butterflies, flowers and birds through a lens of wonderment and fascination.

The show draws its title from a letter written by famed naturalist and explorer Alfred Russell Wallace. Wallace spent eight years in the Malay Archipelago studying its flora and fauna, and collected more than 125,000 specimens of insects, birds and mammals including hundreds of new species. His persistence led him to realize the theory of natural selection, for which Charles Darwin and him are jointly credited with discovering. In this letter to his mother in 1854, he shared his daily work schedule when he was in Singapore:

I will tell you how my day is now occupied. Get up at half past five. Bath and coffee. Sit down to arrange and put away my insects of the day before, and set them safe out to dry. Charles mending nets, filling pincushions, and getting ready for the day. Breakfast at eight. Out to the jungle at nine. We have to walk up a steep hill to get to it, and always arrive dripping with perspiration. Then we wanted about till two or three, generally returning with about 50 or 60 beetles, some very rare and beautiful. Bathe, change clothes, and sit down to kill and pin insects. Charles ditto with flies, bugs and wasps; I do not trust him yet with beetles. Dinner at four. Then to work again till six. Coffee. Read. If very numerous, work at insects till eight or nine. Then to bed.

———–

“The central element of the exhibition, the interactive installation Time to Wrap Up, provides an opportunity for the viewer to respond to Goh’s meditations on repetition, re-ordering and the exquisite strangeness of the insect or animal form. The artist presents a hodgepodge of objects, most of them everyday items from modern life: a table and chairs, a supermarket trolley, a piano, a vehicle, models of animals, icons of East Asian culture, and other items. In a deliberate homage to Yayoi Kusama’sObliteration Room (2002), all the objects have been wrapped completely in white, and visitors are given sheets of stickers – bearing animal motifs from The Gift Book and Breakfast at 8 Jungle at 9 – which they can stick anywhere on the white objects.

Like Kusama’s work, Time to Wrap Up invites the visitor to create an environment that reflects the artist’s vision – in Goh’s case, a world that is wrapped up or covered in nature. Given the objects he has chosen for the installation, Goh is extending the assertion that nature is not merely a decorative layer, but a claim upon the landscape. We would like to believe that the things of humankind are eternal, but nature eventually overruns all man-made structures and institutions, as well as animals and plants, be it in the rapid surge of a tsunami or the infinitesimal path worn by an insect creeping up from the ground.

The act of placing stickers onto the white canvas of the objects also implicates visitors in the act of creatively ordering the natural world. What does it mean to wrap, or re-wrap, the world in nature? Perhaps it prompts a degree of care and reverence, even protectiveness – but there is also the potential for liberation, a child-like exultation and fun, until the object is finally plastered over and obscured.”

– Excerpt from exhibition text by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, 18 May 2015.

Sticker creations by the public. 

Lobby wall mural artwork commission for the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum Singapore. The museum’s new building opened its doors to the public in 28 April 2015.    

We had mmmmeeeeeeh-vellous shoot at Hay Dairies Pte Ltd Singapore’s only goat farm.

IKEA Chinese New Year of the Goat shoot.

Agency: BBH

Photo Team: Wong Ming Fei, Marina Sinitsyna, Zinkie Aw, Ernest Goh

Location: Malaysia

Goat whisperer at work.

“You think we get to keep this sofa Billy?”

All eyes were on the kids.

The inevitable happens.

The Gift Book was launched on 2 December 2014 at the National Museum of Singapore. Along with the book, wrapping paper were handed out with every purchase of the book to coincide with the Christmas period. The Gift Book is part of Singapore photography collective PLATFORM’s TwentyFifteen Project.

‘

Chicago TV news channel WGN9 featured the COCKS book and the short film made by filmmakers AnotherBeautifulStory on their Morning News segment. Video here! http://goo.gl/Zd5X1k

The COCKS book showcased in The Observer UK.

The Observer | 06.04.14 | 

These chickens certainly know how to strut their stuff, displaying ornate plumage as they strike bizarre and impressive poses. But these are only recent traits that have been selectively bred by humans within the last 50 years. Chickens are thought to have been domesticated around 7,000 years ago in south-east Asia. It was Charles Darwin who first suggested the red jungle fowl as the wild progenitor, but some experts now think there may have been multiple domestication events with differing species of wild fowl. The original purpose for domestication is thought to have been for the spectator sport of chicken fighting rather than cooking. It wasn’t until the Egyptians got their hands on them around 4,000 years ago that chickens started to become a food source, but they were still revered and mainly used for fighting. The Romans believed that chickens were in direct communication with Fate, and battles were often fought on a cock’s prophecy. This didn’t not stop them seeing chicken as a delicacy (or from inventing the omelette). Only in recent times have chickens become a major protein staple; 50bn are now raised annually.

It was a different side of the birds that intrigued Singaporean photographer Ernest Goh. While travelling in Malaysia, he discovered Ayam Serama chickens, and the unusual world of chicken beauty pageants. He explains: “Ayam Seramas are actually a type of ornamental chicken, so they are bred not for consumption, but purely for ornamental reasons.” Every week there is at least one  pageant in Malaysia, where birds are judged not just on how they look, but also on how they walk. While Goh’s photos in Cocks: The Chicken Book look staged or forced, he is simply photographing them as they move about naturally. They’re the original funky chickens.

– Josh Davis

Charismatic chickens strut their stuff

Think you know chickens? Ernest Goh wants you to take another look.

The photographer was struck by the birds’ natural charisma when he recently took portraits of them in Malaysia.

“If you look really closely or you just take more time to observe the chickens, you can see human qualities surface: temperament, facial expressions,” Goh said.

Many of these chickens are actually pageant contestants, raised as pets and entered into competitions across different villages in Malaysia. Judges inspect each chicken and choose winners based on their physical assets but also their strut and their showmanship.

And these birds can definitely show off.

“When they went on the stage, they looked like runway models,” Goh recalls. “Once they know they’re on stage, they automatically perform in a way. They puff up their chests, strut a little bit more. They’re not trained to do this by their farmers. I think it might be something engrained in their DNA.”

Perhaps the most popular breed in Malaysia is the Serama. It’s the smallest breed of chicken in the world, but it packs plenty of personality. Goh says that personality comes out in the portraits.

“I’ve had people say, ‘Wow, they actually have expressions,’ ” he said. “People perceive them as something different. They see them as something more emotional, an animal with a soul.”

The Serama, with its oversized breast, large plumage and bright red comb at the top of its head, was named after Rama, the title of kings in Thailand. It has become especially popular in the past decade, Goh said, and Serama breeding clubs have even emerged in the United States and European countries.

But the breed originated in Malaysia, through the crossbreeding of Japanese and Malaysian bantams, and it has almost become a new icon for the country, Goh said.

After watching the brilliantly colored birds perform in beauty contests, Goh asked farmers if they would bring the birds in for a photo shoot.

When the farmers showed up, Goh put a black background behind the birds and just waited.

“It was like shooting a human model,” Goh said. “The only difference is they don’t take direction.”

Goh hopes the project will make people think twice about what they think of chickens and of animals in general.

“It’s just to give another chance at looking at these animals again,” he said. “They are more special than we might think. They’re not as ordinary as we might think.”

– Kyle Almond, CNN

ABOUT THE SERIES – COCKS

Ernest Goh’s latest photographic series explores the close relationship between animals and their human masters. Humans tend to anthropomorphize their pets considering them as members of the family and projecting human-like characteristics onto them. In his “Cocks” series, Goh has vividly captured these characteristics through his realist portraits of ornamental chickens known as Serama chickens bred for competition by many in Malaysia.

These chickens are prized for their built, size, behaviour and showmanship and compete in ‘beauty pageants’ held in villages throughout Malaysia. Judged on their stance, temperament and quality of their wing, comb and tail, owners of Seramas proudly regard their chickens as warriors or soldiers, ready for battle. Goh’s portraits in colour show these chickens at their best – displaying strength, beauty, grace and sometimes, even arrogance. They portray these proud animals in almost human-like poses, which are struck by the chickens without any prompting from their owners. The stark black background of his portraits keeps the eye focused on the splendour of the chickens who stand ready to show off their rich plumes of different hues. Goh’s beautifully composed photographs have succeeded in bringing out the majestic nature of these animals often sadly dismissed as mere livestock. Where his photography has been most effective is in showing them as creatures with individual personalities and attributes, giving them each a voice even if they are not able to speak.

“As a photographer, I am always interested in photographing the human condition. But this human condition does not exist in a vacuum as we share the natural world with animals. My interest in photographing animals is a natural extension of my interest in the human condition, because we are all inextricably linked to each other. We cannot exist without the other. I hope that  “Cocks” and my other animal series can in some way encourage us to reflect upon our relationship with animals,” says Ernest Goh about his series of animal portraits.

Ernest Goh first documented the relationship between humans and animals in “The Fish Book” (Wee Editions 2011) in which he photographed ornamental fishes bred as pets by many Singaporeans. The “Cocks” series is the second part of a larger project entitled The Animal Book (TAB) project that Ernest Goh is working on now which centres around the relationship between humans and animals.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ernest started his career as a newspaper photographer for The Straits Times, Singapore’s national daily. As an independent photographer, Ernest freelanced for wire photo agencies such the Agence France-Presse and took on assignments for international publications such as The Smithsonian and Monocle magazine. His interest in storytelling led him to create photo stories and books for various non-profit organisations. They include Beyond Mask, a book published in honour of the medical workers who sacrificed their lives at the height of the SARS outbreak in Asia and Altered Land, a 4-year long documentation of the 2004 Tsunami aftermath in Aceh, Indonesia.

Ernest’s current work focuses on animals and their relationship with humans. He holds an MA from Goldsmiths College and was awarded the inaugural Incentivising Innovation Fund by the Institute of Contemporary Arts’ A-Frame Network, an initiative of the UK government’s Cultural Leadership Programme in 2009. In 2012 he was awarded the Discernment Award at the ICON de Martell Cordon Bleu Photography Prize in Singapore.

BOOK SPECIFICATIONS

SUMMARY: Reared and groomed by dedicated owners for participation in pageants, ornamental chickens, including the impressive Malaysian breed of Ayam Serama, project a natural and seemingly effortless charisma rivalling that of human models. Ernest Goh’s award-winning portraits capture the full range of these beautiful birds’ personalities: puffed chests, ruffled plumage, bowed heads and all. By turns provocative, humorous and surprising, the photographs in Cocks will move you to view our humble feathered friends in an entirely different light.

INTRODUCTION BY: Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Curator of photography. Inspector General for Photography at Minsitère of Culture and Communication, and artistic director of the Rencontres d’Arles in 1990.

ISBN: 978-981-07-5626-0

SIZE: Hardcover 125 x 175mm 96pp

IMAGES FOR RELEASE

(Please contact ernsphy@gmail.com for publication of images)

MARCH 31, 2014

SLIDE SHOW: ROOSTER PAGEANTS

In Malaysia, a type of chicken called the Serama is bred not for consumption but for its performance abilities and look. Chicken pageants are held in villages across the country; like at dog shows, owners bring their animals and display them for minutes at a time while judges rank them according to their feathers, strut, and disposition.

Ernest Goh, a thirty-five-year-old photographer from Singapore, first encountered these competitions when traveling across Malaysia in 2013. Goh, who is interested in how humans perceive animals, set up a photo studio on location, and began photographing the chickens with the intent of discovering, as he writes in a statement about the work, “whothey were, not what they were.” Goh met with chicken enthusiasts and breeders, who, as Goh describes, “often regard the chickens as warriors ready for battle.” He acknowledged that it is a “strange image you’d want to project onto a chicken,” but, after photographing the Seramas, he understood. “From the perspective of the photographer, the Serama seems more like a runway model!” he writes.

The Bizarre World of Chicken Beauty Pageants Photographed

March 25, 2014

Photographer and visual artist Ernest Goh is known for his work photographing wildlife and other animals. His latest book documents the strange world of chicken beauty pageants in Malaysia where he encountered a breed of bird called the Ayam Seramas, an ornate chicken raised not for its meat but purely for its appearance. These chickens not only have decorative plumage but possess the ability to strike ridiculous poses. You might think these photos are somehow manipulated (or worse, the animals forced into these positions) but a behind-the-scenes video by Goh shows the chicken’s ability to strut just as depicted. The book, titled Cocks: The Chicken Book, is available now through his website. All photos courtesy the artist. (via Peta Pixel)

Awesome Chicken Portraits

Incredible Portraits of Ornate Fowl Found at Chicken Beauty Pageant

Gannon Burgett · Mar 20, 2014

Singapore-based photographer Ernest Goh, known best for his incredible work with animals, has just recently put another book out. This time, he’s documenting the world of Chicken Beauty Pageants. Yes, Chicken Beauty Pageants. They exist… I guess.

Titled Cocks: The Chicken Book (you have no idea how difficult it is not to make jokes at this point…) this collection of work explores the beauty of some of the most debonaire fowl you have ever seen.

In order to make sure he photographed only the most beautiful chickens, Goh sought out Ayam Seramas: a specific type of chicken known and in fact bred for their ornate beauty. In his series, Goh captures the entire journey of these beautiful creatures — from the time of the chicks hatching to their entry into these pageants.

As you can see in some of the images below, it’s quite im-peck-able how much character and pride these creatures can give off when a photographer has enough patience to work with them:

If you think these images are somehow staged or not real — and we’ll give you this, some of these look downright crazy — check out the behind-the-scenes video below for proof of these chickens’ insane strutting ability. They really do look every bit as proud and… if you’ll pardon at least one pun… cocky in real life.

Cocks: The Chicken Book is up for sale on Goh’s website if you’d like to take a closer look. Just be be prepared to deal with some awkward and hilarious looks when you tell your friends the title of the photo book you just bought.

(via DIY Photography)

BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS OF COCKS TAKEN IN A BEAUTY PAGEANT

Udi Tirosh March 16, 2014

Photographer Ernest Goh is probably most known for his special way with animals. His fish photography book, simply called The Fish Book, gives a phenomenal, and quite humanizing view on the aquatic. For his next book – Cocks – Singaporean photographer turns his lens on Chicken Beauty Pageants, making those feathery animals look as human and emotive as the boy next door.

Ernest goes on a quest for searching beautiful chickens. Ayam Seramas are a specific type of chickens used as ornaments and bred for their beauty. Ernest followed their growth path from hatching at expert chicken farmers all the way to them being displayed at special Beauty Pageants.

His work around the subject has resulted in an obscenely named book – COCKS – The Chicken Book, which can be bought directly on his site.

P.S. Am I taking a cheap shot at the title? You betcha!

Bangkok Airways inflight magazine Fah Thai featured the COCKS series alongside Thai photographer Visarute Angkatavanich’s  fighting fish series in the January issue.

Follow our Instagram feed: http://instagram.com/ernsphy

“The details of their fur or feathers and their behaviours hide so many secrets we are yet to discover.”
http://aportal.sony-asia.com/swpa_bios/ernest-goh

Would you like fish or chicken Sir? Proud to present The Fish Book again and excited to launch my latest book COCKS! at the IPA Photo Book Show this Saturday at the National Museum. Come support the other new books that will be released – Ox Lee‘s Bay of Dreams, Tay Kay Chin‘s Spooks, Weilun Chong‘s Mind the Gap among others.

Co-organised by the World Photography Organisation.

One of Ore Huiying’s photos of TabCo’s partnership in Laos with Veterinarians Without Borders was published in Vientiane Times on 11 Jan 2013. TabCo documented a Rabies Vaccination campaign organised by the Faculty of Agriculture, National University of Laos and Canada Veterinarians Without Borders. More behind-the-scenes photos of our work in Laos here and portraits of farmers and their dogs here!

20 December 2012 – Photographer Ernest Goh makes his Russian debut with a solo exhibition at the prestigious POBEDA Gallery located in the historical GUM in Moscow’s Red Square. The exhibition cheekily titled “Cocks” opened on 14 December to kick start POBEDA’s new exhibition calendar as it officially launched its latest gallery venue in the Russian capital. Ernest Goh’s latest photographic series explores the close relationship between animals and their human masters. Humans tend to anthropomorphize their pets considering them as members of the family and projecting human-like characteristics onto them. In his “Cocks” series, Goh has vividly captured these characteristics through his realist portraits of ornamental chickens known as bred for competition by many in Malaysia. These chickens are prized for their built, size, behaviour and showmanship and compete in ‘beauty pageants’ held in villages throughout Malaysia. Judged on their stance, temperament and quality of their wing, comb and tail, owners of Seramas proudly regard their chickens as warriors or soldiers, ready for battle.

The exhibition “Cocks” is on at POBEDA Gallery, Moscow, Red Square 3 GUM from 14 December 2012 until 31 January 2013. For more information about the exhibition and gallery, please visit: www.pobedagallery.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Phish Communications
Shirlene Noordin
Tel: 6344 2953
Email: shirlene@phish-comms.com

Hot off the TabCo press! We recently traveled to Laos to document a Rabies Vaccination campaign organised by the Faculty of Agriculture, National University of Laos and Canada Veterinarians Without Borders (VWB http://www.vwb-vsf.ca/) The aims of the campaign were to reduce the risk of rabies by vaccinating dogs and cats, collect basic data on rabies awareness and dog demographics, and educate villagers about rabies prevention.