“Hi, do you play Candy Crush?” is not a pick-up line you hear very often, but 28-year-old Singapore-based photographer Zinkie Aw spent much of 2013 using it on strangers — all for her latest social trend series, Meet the Candi-dates.
On her website, Aw addresses the possible reasons Singaporeans have been ‘crushing’ on the handheld and desktop game phenomenon, including how Candy Crush Saga has given people “public licence to re-embrace the excessively colourful and ‘kiddy’ candies that they’ve since forsaken”, as well as how it coincides with many praise theories, such as offering ‘sweet’ praises to someone on the way to work on a Monday.
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The photo series, like its focus, is unendingly cheerful — typical of Zinkie Aw — but what stands out is how the trend-based photographer has captured the daily habits of Singaporeans, such as being pre-occupied while on the toilet and sending the kids to swimming class, via the over-the-shoulder POV.
Candy Crush Saga may have granted us access to ‘pretty pink and blue thoughts’, but Zinkie Aw has inadvertently granted us invisibility, something many Singaporeans, given our ‘stealthy video mentality’, secretly wish for.
Check out Aw’s other work, including Home Store-ries and Once Upon a Gangnam Style.
