As a research centre, the NTU CCA Singapore is dedicated to knowledge production, critical discourse and the exchange of ideas. The Centre’s programming is supported by a rigorous education and public programme consisting of Exhibition (de)Tours, film screenings, talks, workshops, symposiums, performances and open studios. By collaborating with artists and cultural practitioners from diverse fields of knowledge, the public programme aims to provide points of entry to engage with the key themes of the exhibition and artist practice. View Calendar
NTU CCA Singapore has been awarded the following grants in 2021:
Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Environmentally-Engaged Artistic Practices in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific and their Potential Impact as Contribution for Transdisciplinary Research in Singapore
Term of Funding: 1 November 2021 — 31 October 2023
Principal Investigator: Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University
In recent years, climate change has triggered alarming environmental scenarios in the region. Artists and climate activists have reacted to these circumstances by proposing methods to create awareness and navigate the environmental collapse.
The core goal of this research project is to identify artistic inquiries focused on addressing environmental challenges in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. By establishing a methodology to evaluate the significance and impacts of each inquiry, it will investigate the capacity of these art projects to deepen the understanding of the effect of accelerated climate change in the aforementioned regions. The research project will also explore how such inquiries can be of value when engaging environmental issues specific to Singapore.
Ultimately, the project aims to foster a dialogue between artistic forms of knowledge production and the scholarly knowledge generated by scientific practitioners engaged in climate change matters.
Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund Tier 2
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss
Term of Funding: 1 March 2021 – 29 February 2024
Principal Investigator: Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University
Collaborators: Nabil Ahmed (INTERPRT), Guigone Camus (Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Environnement et du Climat), Hervé Lallement-Moe (University of French Polynesia), Armin Linke (ISIA Urbino), Kristy Kang (Arizona State University)
This project examines how climate crisis and cultural loss interconnect. The core objective is the co-production of knowledge that can lead to a changed understanding of environmental justice, which, in turn, will suggest changes in existing legal and policy frameworks. The project hypothesises that a fundamental connection between people and their environments has been lost in contemporary urban contexts, resulting in feelings of indifference towards the climate crisis or unexplained feelings of climate anxiety.
It deploys a research team with transdisciplinary methods to build on emerging environmental jurisprudence in the Pacific region and produce narrative visualisations demonstrating the links between cultural loss and climate change.
By combining scholarly knowledge with cultural and artistic practices, the project will develop an innovative framework for addressing the impact of accelerated climate change. Using tools from visual studies and forensic architecture, from ethnography and law, to make scientific evidence on climate change socially robust and impactful, it will also create a relay between local perspectives and knowledge generated in different academic fields. Data visualisation and audiovisual presentations of ecological and cultural loss will be instrumental to transform ecological grief and loss into catalysts for climate action. Such narrative visualisations make visible the necessity to re-establish a direct relation between human societies and the environment, especially in the rapidly-changing urban fabric of a metropolis like Singapore.
National Arts Council (NAC) Research Grant
Understanding Southeast Asia as a “Geocultural Formation: Three Case Studies of Artistic Initiatives from the Region
Term of funding: 19 March 2021 – 26 March 2023
Principal Investigator: Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University
Co-Investigator: David Teh, Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore
This research is an inquiry into curatorial, artistic, and academic networks of exchange that foster a pluriversal understanding of Southeast Asia. It will highlight the potential of open-ended curatorial, artistic and textual endeavours that formulate their own modus operandi. Analysing motivations, methods, and audiences of three distinct art initiatives by local practitioners will provide valuable insights for the writing of future cultural policies and alternative metrics to evaluate the impact of nonconforming approaches within regional studies. This will reshape and expand policies and programmes that seek to internationalise or regionalise Singapore art scenes. Acknowledging the long-term impact of such critical thinking and the creation of alternative knowledges and transnational networks would advance traditional perspectives in Southeast Asian scholarship and its funding mechanisms.
The project aims to answer questions such as:
* How do these transnational initiatives contribute to a new understanding and production of knowledge of Southeast Asia?
* Can a lexicon, consisting of vernacular vocabulary such as ghosts and tigers (Ho Tzu Nyen), be used to determine a region?
* How can we generate knowledge from local and traditional artistic expressions around the Mekong River (The Flying Circus Project) that is creating a counter-map to national delineations?
* How can we foster a discursive space through a cultural domain (Southeast of Now) beyond the geographical?