Fyerool Darma
Residency period
1 October 2019 – 28 April 2020
About
Fyerool Darma (b. 1987, Singapore) interrogates and complicates the cultural consumption of history and myth in relation to contemporary markers of identity and class. His artefacts are based on an extensive visual vocabulary drawn from popular culture, literature, archives, the internet, and his own life. Recent solo exhibitions include Sunny, your smile ease the pain, Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2019) and the long-term research project After Ballads, NUS Museum, Singapore (2017-18).He has exhibited in group exhibitions such as As the West Slept, Silver Art Projects, New York, United States; 900mdpl: Ghosts of a Thousand Conversations, Kaliurang, Indonesia; Lost and found: imagining new worlds, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore (all 2019), and An Atlas of Mirrors, Singapore Biennale (2016).
Focus
In this continuation of Fyerool Darma’s research, the area of Telok Blangah becomes a landscape of introspection and the backdrop for a range of artistic exercises. During the residency, the artist will attempt to excavate textual archives and physical artefacts that are found both online (in his web browser caches) and offline. Along the process, he aims to question, reclaim, and speculate upon lesser known histories of the area by figuring forth an imaginary landscape where literary and textual evidence is merged with hearsay and folklore. Through this exercise, Fyerool intends to explore how today’s power relations are shaped by the ways in which we navigate the past.
Residencies brochure (October – December 2019)
Residencies brochure (January – March 2020)
Image credit: Fyerool Darma, Those Who Linger by the Berth Savour Your Silence, installation view (detail), 2017-2019. Courtesy the artist.
Public programmes
Fyerool Darma
Viva
Read More
Engaging The Vitrine as a site imbricated with complex histories and practices of display, Fyerool Darma complicates our understanding of Telok Blangah, the area where Gillman Barracks is located and where the artist recently moved, through objects found or acquired, deconstructed and reoriented by the artist and his collaborators.
Vivarium (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø f0rms,♥) is an exercise in four parts. Identified through keywords caches on internet-based community marketplaces and by skimming through nearby shops, the items are representations of the artist’s movements and encounters around Telok Blangah and of the possible future of the area: from its literal meaning of “cooking pot” to the forthcoming “Greater Southern Waterfront” development plan. Three items will be placed in The Vitrine, one at a time, with a monthly cadence and each accession will be captured in the Highlights section of the artist’s Instagram account (@fdarma).
Asking questions such as: What is Telok Blangah? And, more importantly if objects are to be taken as registers of the site: Where exactly is Telok Blangah?, Fyerool’s Vivarium (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø f0rms,♥) encapsulates an object-based index of the area wherein the items slide like cursors along intricate trajectories and the realms of the physical and digital, the archive and the display, are merged.
BIOGRAPHY
Fyerool Darma (Singapore) interrogates the cultural consumption of history and myth in relation to contemporary markers of identity and class. His artefacts and material experimentations are based on an extensive visual vocabulary drawn from popular culture, literature, archives, the internet, and the artist’s own life. He is Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore until March 2020.
Image: Fyerool Darma, Vivarium (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø forms, ♥), 2019, sketch. Courtesy the artist.