How are you? Have you been keeping well? For visual artist Divaagar, these are no empty greeting words, but real, genuine conversation starters that signify today’s increasingly positive engagement with the topic of mental health. With the rise of more accessible, safe environments, be it physical or digital comfy corners, more have opened up to tell their own stories relating to their experiences, revealing its more commonplace occurrences than previously thought.

The visual artist’s “voice” is one that has spoken up, in the form of art.

In light of World Mental Health Day this week, we speak to Divaagar, a contributor to the MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing exhibition at the ArtScience Museum recently, to understand what it means to helm a more fun and multi-faceted approach to this intangible concept. The warm and bubbly creative walks us through the story behind the exhibition, his special relationship with the kitchen and food, and what he does to keep himself mentally nourished and well.

Hello Divaagar! How are you?
Hello! I’ve just come back from vacation so generally refreshed and well-fed.

In 10 words, can you describe your style of art?
Bit of familiarity, wonder, humour and romance. Very feeling-feeling la ~

Firstly, what do you do to take care of your mental state?
For the most part, I try to keep to a rhythm in the morning. I usually start the day by setting a kettle on the stove, letting my birds out for play time while I clean, gym and swim every other day, and going through my emails and my lists.

There’s always a list. There are always reminders, a checklist, a to-do list, a list of things that have been done, and the things to be done after the things to be done. While that sounds stressful, I truly enjoy the organization and the visual accomplishment of a completely checked-out list.

How did being a part of MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing come about?
ArtScience Museum contacted me late last year and asked if I would be interested in working together with them on a new commission for this exhibition. Several long months of back and forth later and here we are!

How about the idea for Model: Kitchen?
Deciding on a theme for this work was a bit of a journey. Given that this exhibition was an extension of Mental: Head Inside by Science Gallery Melbourne, there were already many amazing projects that explored the many facets of mental health, illness and experiences and after many conversations with ArtScience Museum, I decided to look into a space that we are intimately familiar with at home.

What does a typical scene in your kitchen at home look like?
In our household, breakfasts aren’t much of a thing, but lunch is truly spectacular. My mother is always cooking up something good. There’s often the smell of ginger garlic paste and a variety of spices sizzling away.

The night time are usually reserved for easy meals or leftovers. I often handle dinners while someone else does laundry or some other household tasks in the kitchen so it’s rarely ever quiet.

I’m curious about the design of the space — how is it different from the kitchen you have at home?
It’s about 30 years difference. I think my home kitchen was only ever renovated in the early 90s (which was about the time I was born), so it’s really lived in. It’s narrow like a regular HDB kitchen, and it’s really just a lot of beige tiles on most surfaces. A lot of the fixtures were also left from the previous owners of the place, including an overly designed 80’s rice dispenser, cheaply made sheet metal sink and very glossy cabinet doors.

The one in Model: Kitchen picks out certain elements from my own, such as the grid-like tiles and the window grill, and cleans them into crisp lines to resemble a digital render. Everything else has a tinge of the fantastical. Bright colours, staged fruit, the works!

Beyond the digital renders of course, what messages do you want to convey with the space?
Given that the kitchen is such an active space, I wanted to explore the dynamics of communal living in this work. In my experience, growing up in my flat, a lot of things aren’t necessarily said but shown through gestures or semantics that we show how we feel about and treat each other.

With this work, I didn’t keep too many personal narratives within it as everyone has their own experience of home. I left small conversations and generalized them to allow the viewers to think about and relate to them in their own way.

Your Model: Kitchen also tells me that you are a big food person.
Definitely. Big person, food person and big food person.

What is your favourite memory involving food growing up?
It’ll have to baking with my mother when we first moved to our current house many years ago. Prior to this, we didn’t have an oven in our home and we made Suji biscuits for Deepavali. I truly ballooned up after that because I ate almost all of it, very quickly. No regrets.

If you could pick a particular memory of a meal that stands out the most to you for any significant reason, and that you think is ok to share, what would it be and why?
It’s a vegetarian economic beehoon, with sweet and sour mock pork, green beans, mock char siew, and fried egg. Topped with pickled green chilis and sambal.

When I was younger and going through some guilt about eating animals, there was this place called Sheng Xian Vegetarian Stall, found at a coffee shop down my block, which had the best Buddhist vegetarian food, and the man who runs it was really friendly and used to give me extra char siew. The coffee shop, however, went through new management and that stall disappeared. I recall being very upset about it.

Thankfully, a new food court appeared a couple of blocks away and the stall reopened in about a year and was very happy to have it after those harrowing char siew-less months. The stall is still there and I still order from him weekly!

After doing this, what do you think families often forget about in the space of mental health that you found out about while researching for the creation of your work?
I think we compartmentalize; we keep things bottled up; we deflect. Sometimes it’s as simple as finding a common channel, addressing what we feel directly and active listening.

Lastly, if you could pick a feel-good piece of music to recommend, what would it be?
Brown Sugar – D’Angelo