Childless cat ladies: Into the Auntieverse: a surreal fantasy of older women

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/19/auntieverse-art-niceaunties-surreal-fantasy-older-women

Into the Auntieverse: a surreal fantasy of older women

Inspired by her own family, Singaporean artist Niceaunties puts aunties at the heart of the world she conjures up

Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent
Fri 19 Jul 2024 09.46 EDT

There are high-rise living quarters built from stacks of Tupperware, spas where you can immerse yourself in a giant bowl of ramen and an altar where you can pay your respects to the Supreme Perm Goddess.

Welcome to Auntieverse, a world built by, and ruled by aunties, filled with everything aunties love.

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In the Auntieverse, aunties dance in sequined outfits on the beach, pose with giant vegetables, and attend Nasa, (the Nice Aunties Sushi Academy), a cooking school located on the moon, where aunties undergo training, under the watchful eye of a giant cat.

Acronyms are a common feature in the Auntieverse (a nod to Singapore’s love of abbreviations), as are puns. You can ride a tofu-engineered sushi luxury auto (a Tesla), a transportation method that is made from tofu and sushi, and powered by legs. It’s based on wordplay: in the Chinese Hokkien dialect, the word for “leg” sounds the same as the English word for “car”, says Niceaunties.

…more… major exhibitions…