The Saddest Place on Earth

What could be the saddest place on earth? Does it actually exist or could it be something ephemeral wherever and whenever we sigh, sulk, are heartbroken or just down in the dumps? The Singapore-based design duo Mimipong may have come rather close to pinpointing it- its actually the title they’ve chosen for their current exhibit based on their tear-shaped Hug Your Sorrow dolls.

For a month-long show Mimipong have teamed up with their friends and creative contemporaries to create an assortment of plush tear dolls which carry the artist’s more intimate, tear-jerking thoughts on an embroidered tag.  The only thing left to do is just give it a hug and squeeze.  Among the international list of artists and musicians participating are Swedish singer-songwriters Jens Lekman and Pelle Carlberg, Laura Marling, whose debut has garnered laurels for one of the top records of 2008, as well as Jeremy Warmsley and Singaporean film-makers Wee Li Lin and Ellery Ngiam to name but a few of the long list of empathizers.

As a stepping stone to plush out their deepest and darkest thoughts all the secrets written on the stubs of the tear drops all worked off the [mandatory] words, ”made me cry…” For our Swedish pop prodigy, Lekman flouted the phrase and plainly yet poignantly jotted down, “The end of the world is bigger than love.” One among the others we’ll leave open to interpretation. However pensive enough, Lekmans quote closes the show’s accompanying book.

The Saddest Place on Earth runs until January 12th at the Books Actually space in Singapore. If you can’t get there and you’re feeling blue, the dolls are over at Kidrobot. So good at comforting in those more somber of times, these dolls that they’re a winning entry in this year’s Next Big Thing, an annual design competition curated by Fred Flare.