Shawn Lum is a Senior Lecturer at NTU’s Asian School of the Environment (ASE) and a CTP Co-PI in Cluster 2: Climate and Biodiversity. A tropical rainforest ecologist trained at Harvard and UC Berkeley, he has spent much of his career studying the resilience and long-term viability of fragmented and disturbed forest remnants, and has played a central role in the conservation of Singapore’s forests. He previously served as President of Nature Society Singapore and was recently appointed the 18th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, researching why biodiversity matters even in an urban city like Singapore.
SYN is a live audio-visual work inspired by the sonorous world of insects. The pulses, tones, textures, and rhythms of these often overlooked creatures coalesce to create a generative and ever-changing, visualised soundscape.
In this work-in-progress presentation, sound artist Zai Tang will be doing a short performance, followed by a talk and Q&A session.
SYN, a prefix that means “with” or “together”, is built on notions of being drawn from both Eastern and Western philosophy. During his talk, Zai will elucidate how ideas from Zen and psychoanalysis have nurtured his project’s development, as well as elaborate on how he developed his live audio-visual system.
SYN explores listening as a mode of attunement between the human and more-than-human realms. It aims to hold space for being with, so that we might recover the feeling of being part of the Earth and its myriad vibrations.
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This project is funded by the National Arts Council (NAC) under the Creation Grant.
This event launches Some Monologues (Wendy’s Subway, 2025), a publication by Tyler Coburn that gathers fifteen years of the artist’s scripts. On this occasion, Coburn presents a new monologue entitled People that draws influence from A Personal History of American Theatre (1980), a one-person performance by the American actor and writer Spalding Gray (1941–2004). Moving through a set of index cards bearing the names of plays he acted in, Gray told stories related to those productions, dwelling on events unfolding behind the scenes. As the order of the index cards was random, no two performances were ever the same. In Coburn’s version, each of his cards indicates the name of a person who has a role in the book: an academic he interviewed for a project, an amorous attendee to one of his monologues, his collaborator Susan Bennett (the original voice actress of Siri), a data center employee who insulted him, and more. People brings focus to his many collaborators and the monologues they helped create. After the performance, Tyler Coburn will be joined in conversation by artist and writer Jason Wee.
About the book
Working at the nexus of performance, art writing, and fiction, Tyler Coburn creates monologues that explore how the “I” is marked in speech. His myriad topics—alternate history, legal personhood, digital labor, and resonant frequency, to name a few—defy straightforward modes of presentation, often insisting on site-specificity and social intimacy at the expense of conventional documentation. Some Monologues collects, for the first time, the scripts of Coburn’s work from the past fifteen years, many of which have not previously been published. Accompanying them are texts by eleven artists, writers, curators, and scholars who experienced these performances firsthand, collaborated in their making, conversed with the artist about them, or share an interest in the subjects they engage. Written in theoretical, poetic, and autobiographical registers, these contributions offer new perspectives on the monologue as an expansive and relational form.
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents Propositions for Planetary Attunement, a live event featuring Artists-in-Residence Ng Hui Hsien, The Observatory, and Zarina Muhammad. Spanning polyphonic storytelling, moving image, live music, and performance, it marks the culmination of the inaugural STAR Residencies (Science, Technology, Art & Research), a pioneering collaboration with the NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS). A research institute of Nanyang Technological University, the Earth Observatory of Singapore conducts fundamental research on earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and climate change to better understand the dynamic forces shaping Southeast Asia and the world.
What happens when artists and scientists find common ground in shared concerns and collective care for ecological complexities? What can they reveal about planetary matters that often exceed us—from the unfathomable scales of geological time and elusive frequencies to the molecular texture of rocks and age-old modes of coexisting with non-human formations? Emerging from a year-long exchange between the artists and EOS researchers, Propositions for Planetary Attunement explores the generative potential of interdisciplinary encounters, experimenting with the composition of scientific data into artistic gestures of ecological witnessing, listening, and becoming. These explorations manifest in three acts that metabolise scientific evidence, ancestral knowledge, and other-than-human perspectives. Drifting between geosciences and creative inquiry, each artist offers a unique proposition that merges measurements and musings, interlacing the empirical with the embodied, science with speculation, facts with signals.
Complementing the artistic propositions is a selection of research materials from the NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore created for this event. This display foregrounds the core scientific work explored by the artists during the residency, offering a glimpse into the data and phenomena that informed their inquiry. Together, these acts chart a non-linear journey to the threshold of our profound unknowing of the invisible forces that shape the planet, inviting us to cultivate deeper forms of attention and attunement to the Earth.
STAR Residencies is conceived and curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, NTU CCA Singapore.
Please note this is a ticketed event with limited capacity. Secure your tickets here.
This event is suitable for ages 16 and above. NTU CCA Singapore reserves the right to refuse admission if patrons are found to be below the requisite age. There will be no refunds or compensation for non-admission.
ABOUT STAR Residencies
STAR Residencies (Science, Technology, Art & Research) is a pioneering initiative by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, designed to foster meaningful cross-pollination between artistic and academic research. By embedding artists within world-class research institutes at Nanyang Technological University, the programme creates a unique site for exchange between creative practitioners and academic researchers.
For more information about STAR Residencies,
please visit LAUNCH OF STAR RESIDENCIES (2025-2026).
Video documentation: Ting Min-Wei
Second Camera: Felix Kenneth Galistan / Earth Observatory of Singapore
View the full video documentation here.
Videography: Felix Kenneth Galistan / Earth Observatory of Singapore
By turning to geological terrains as protagonists—understanding them as earth-building fissures, and in various cultural and spiritual traditions, as guardians—we ask how living in proximity to these terrains is shaped with, by, and at times against Earth’s processes. Beginning with Artist Ng Hui Hsien, she contemplates on photography and art installations as portals to imperceptible landforms, which enact their own agency, sustain their own microclimates, and determine what can or cannot be perceived. These landforms, in turn, animate social lives. Drawing from both previous and recent works, she also looks to the visual medium as a catalyst—a proxy for sensing forces larger than oneself, shaping perceptions, and re-establishing kinship. Professor Simon Redfern examines the crystalline structures that form beneath volcanic terrains. As a mineralogist and crystallographer, he reveals how atomic-scale mineral architectures record volcanic processes and Earth’s deep carbon cycle. Each crystal represents a frozen moment of geological time, encoding the thermal and chemical conditions of its formation. Beyond their extractive value, these minerals serve as archives of dynamic Earth systems, showing how volcanoes participate in climate regulation over deep time through both degassing and the subsequent weathering of volcanic rocks. Moderated by Professor Ute Meta Bauer, this lecture considers: How do these distinct methods offer different understandings of materiality—one grounded in lived, perceptual time, the other in Earth’s deep time—and what emerges when these temporalities are placed in conversation? The title’s allusion to Malcolm Lowry’s novel reminds us that living “under the volcano” is as much about psychological and cultural reckoning as it is about geological reality.
Tuesday Lecture
24 February 2026
6:30pm – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Free with registration
Venture into the research-in-progress conducted by our current Artists-in-Residence Ng Hui Hsien, The Observatory, and Zarina Muhammad within the inaugural cycle of STAR RESIDENCIES (Science, Technology, Art & Research)—a programme that positions scientific research at the core of artistic inspiration.
These open studio sessions present the ongoing research developed through the artists’ engagement and dialogue with earth scientists from the NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore. By foregrounding experimental research methodologies and the creative interpretation of scientific knowledge, the programme highlights the critical role of interdisciplinary exchange in addressing complex planetary phenomena.
Working across a range of ecological terrains and methodologies, the residents engage with the Earth’s shifting matters through diverse polysensory and multi-disciplinary approaches. Ng Hui Hsien traverses volcanic terrains to contemplate human-environment relations through the dual lenses of scientific evidence and lived experience, while The Observatory explores subterranean pulses through sound-based inquiry and interspecies frameworks, seeking to expand our comprehension of tectonic forces through sonic engagement. In parallel, Zarina Muhammad treads through intertidal zones and coastal sites as living archives of sea-level change, ecological memory, and the deep-time relations between land, sea, and climate.
STAR RESIDENCIES OPEN provides a unique entry point into the artists’ studios to observe the non-linear trajectory of creative research; here, visitors can encounter the evolving processes and interdisciplinary materials central to this residency.
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun, the first solo exhibition for the Amsterdam-based artist in his home country since 2019. The exhibition captures a significant chapter of Chan’s artistic trajectory, focusing on the growing entanglement of the artist’s tropical imaginaries with the escalation of the climate crisis in recent years. Featuring a newly commissioned film, performance, and print series alongside a selection of recent works, Three Acts of the Sun gathers speculative visions on the future of our planet.
Global warming is a planetary process whose compounding complexity engenders far-reaching and profoundly interdependent consequences across ecology and society, economy and culture, politics and emotions. The exhibition charts the tension between the reality of a planet increasingly dominated by heat and Chan’s desire to imagine the tropics in the future tense. It is from this vantage point of impending change that the artist looks forward and summons worlds to come. Set in unspecified futures, the artworks included in Three Acts of the Sun envision scenarios of advanced global warming where the climate demarcations of today have dissolved into a sweeping “tropicalisation” of the Earth. Framing this climatic shift through the prism of the embodied human experience, Chan’s narratives speculate over environmental migrations, the burden of intergenerational injustice, and the hubris of technological mastery of the weather, all haunted by memories of lost climates. The exhibition serves as a portal into the speculative climate futures conjured by the artist, transporting the public into possible worlds ahead where the tales and the songs of our descendants reveal stories of human life as it unfolds on a heated planet.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the new moving-image work, Weather Casting. Conflating prediction and actualisation, weather lore and techno-agency, divination and doom, the film builds upon the evolution of human relations to the weather from a history of reverence, adaptation, and survival towards one of technologically-empowered intervention addressing our rising ambitions for an engineerable Earth. Weather Casting delves in radical shift from forecasting the weather to casting weather into reality through geoengineering, large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system. A series of fictional news presenters report on geoengineered weather along the route of the Asian-Pacific monsoon—one of the largest weather systems in the world—that connects Southeast and East Asia as the two lobes of the same planetary engine. In this speculative era of ‘Tropics_Domain’, the technological mastery of the weather is enacted by AI-driven systems, that are named after ancient local deities once believed to preside over the elements and natural harmony. Programmed to clear the clouds, harness the winds, and rule over rainfall in service of human needs, these “deities” ultimately give voice to geopolitical antagonisms, environmental disruptions, and existential crises.
For this presentation, the exhibition space—situated on the verge of a secondary tropical rainforest—will relinquish its climate control, allowing Singapore’s heat and humidity to become atmospheric contributors to the exhibition. Through the deliberate immersion of the artworks in the tropical temperature they are informed by, viewers are brought to experience the core concerns of this project not just visually, sonically, and intellectually, but in the flesh of their bodies.
Three Acts of the Sun contributes to NTU CCA Singapore’s Climates.Habitats.Environments., a long-term line of inquiry aimed at a holistic understanding of this vital triangulation. Initiated in 2017, Climates.Habitats.Environments. focuses on environmentally engaged artistic practices and interdisciplinary collaborations to foster critical thinking and public awareness about the ecological complexities and the escalating climate crisis of our time.
Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun is curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, NTU CCA Singapore and is part of Singapore Art Week 2026.
Part of
Supported by
Video documentation of the exhibition Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun, 18 January – 1 February 2026. Video by Min-Wei Ting. Courtesy NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.
What can be learned through deep sensing of seismic vibrations and elemental disturbances to the interruptions and murmurs of toxic noise embedded in the ambient background, that stem from anthropogenic pressures such as rapid urbanisation, technological acceleration and extractivism? By using sound as an ecological indicator, how might we identify natural ecosystems in states of transformation and modification? Through site-specific field recordings and compositions, The Observatory, STAR Artists-in-Residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, will chart the more-than-human sound worlds, resonating with their rhythms and registering sounds to make visible the acoustic and material properties of specific nature-culture habitats extending into biological and geological realms. Associate Professor Benoit Taisne, NTU Asian School of Environment, will elaborate on infrasound research as a method for detecting volcanic eruptions in the Southeast Asia region through the deployment of infrasound array in Singapore. This setup captures low-frequency atmospheric sounds below the threshold of human hearing, enabling the detection, analysis, and characterisation of infrasound waves caused by natural events with potential to affect Singapore and society in general. This lecture will be moderated by Professor Ute Meta Bauer, with response by Dr Hari Vishnu, Senior Research Fellow at the Acoustic Research Laboratory, NUS.
Tuesday Lecture
9 December 2025
6:30pm – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Free with registration
How do geological forces, local cosmologies, and policy frameworks converge and collide to shape life around an active volcano? This performative lecture by Ng Hui Hsien, STAR Artist-in-Residence, NTU CCA Singapore, and Yoonhee Jung, Senior Research Fellow, Department of History, NUS, delves into the complexities of human-environment relationships in and around Mount Batur in Bali, Indonesia. Drawing on research and lived experience, the presentation examines socio-economic shifts and the fraying of spiritual-ecological bonds intensified by the area’s designation as a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2012.
Through interwoven visual sequences, academic analysis, and textual explorations, the presenters show how artistic and scholarly perspectives diverge and intersect in interpreting this contested ground – and how Mount Batur acts as a sacred agent within local worldviews and ecologies.
Yoonhee Jung is an urban geographer with an interdisciplinary background in Architecture, Geography, and Urban Studies. Her research investigates urban and regional sustainability in Asia, with a particular focus on integrating environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development. She explores the politics of nature and sustainability planning in Asian cities and regions, with an emphasis on environmental governance, climate change challenges, and social justice, to shape more equitable and resilient futures.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt warns that isolating individuals and groups renders them politically impotent, arguing that segregation is a fertile ground for totalitarianism. Authoritarianism sows distrust by pitting vulnerable groups against each other, it robs them of agency and prevents them from acting together. In today’s “attention economy,” this manifests as minorities compete against each other for visibility, risking an inversion of the feminist principle “the personal is political” to “only the personal is political”. This approach reduces politics to self-interest, both individual and collective.
As an antidote to neoliberal “divide and rule” tactics, it is urgent to build alliances by focusing on the intertextuality of our struggles. Drawing on Arendt’s political understanding of friendship, Nikita Dhawan and Maria do Mar Castro Varela will explore the challenges of building coalitions across distinct vulnerabilities and agencies. They argue that the counterforce to tyranny and terror is to nurture alliances across difference, affinities, and shared experiences creating collectivities where we can listen to each other and find our own voices.
Dr Cissie Fu (AB Harvard; MSt, MSc, DPhil Oxford) is a political theorist. Born in Hong Kong, Cissie taught and performed across Asia, Europe, UK, and the Americas. She joined University of the Arts Singapore in 2022 as Associate Professor and Head of the McNally School of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, after having served as Dean of the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. Cissie’s research interests in political aesthetics and decolonial action inform her approach to institution-building as a creative, critical, and communal cultural practice.
María do Mar Castro Varela is Professor of Education and Social Work at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, with a focus on gender studies. She holds a double degree in Psychology and Education and a PhD in Political Science. She was Thomas Mann House Fellow in Los Angeles (2023), Sir Peter Ustinov Visiting Professor at the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna (2021/2022), and Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Science of Man (IWM) in Vienna (2016). Her current research focuses on issues of ethics, protest, emancipation, and knowledge production. Selected publications (in German) include: Friendship. Triad of a Political Practice (2023), Post/pandemic Life: A New Theory of Fragility (2021), Untimely Utopias. Migrant Women Between Self-Invention and Learned Hope (2007).
Image courtesy the María do Mar Castro Varela.
Nikita Dhawan holds the Chair in Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University Dresden. Her research and teaching focuses on global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization. She received the Käthe Leichter Award in 2017 for outstanding achievements in the pursuit of women’s and gender studies and in support of the women’s movement and the achievement of gender equality. Selected publications include: Impossible Speech: On the Politics of Silence and Violence (2007); Reimagining the State: Theoretical Challenges and Transformative Possibilities (ed., 2019); Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans: Critical Theories of Decolonization (forthcoming, Duke University Press). In 2023, she was awarded the Gerda Henkel Visiting Professorship at Stanford University and the Thomas Mann Fellowship, Los Angeles.
Image courtesy Technical University Dresden.
Liz Liu Yihui is a research assistant supporting the Developing and Evaluating Digital Tools for Participatory Climate Change Mitigation (2025–2026). Liu holds a BSc in Ecological Sciences from the University of Göttingen. She has pursued a master’s degree at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore, using dye-making as a research method to investigate the materiality of a traditional textile dye in Southeast Asia. She is a co-founder at Wild Dot, a botanical ink-making studio working with locally abundant plants.
A central provocation of this special issue is that innovating legal epistemologies of deep-sea governance, and research-driven artistic and curatorial practices, are inseparable. Curatorial methods insist upon the critical value of multivocality in imagining the future, and upon the potential to distribute advocacy among plural knowledge-makers. The papers gathered here together build on how various stakeholders have conceived of opportunities for change both within the scope of UNCLOS and its management at the ISA, as well as beyond these frameworks, exploring deep seabed extraction across cultural theory, jurisprudential theory, artistic practice, and histories of ocean science, law, and governance.
Contributors include the Deep Currents Collective (Giulia Champion, Mekhala Dave, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jonathan Galka, Alejandro Limpo, Susan Reid, Khadija Stewart); economic law researcher Diva Jain; transmedia artist, ocean scientist and writer Mae Lubetkin; lawyer and art historian Mekhala Dave; history researcher Sonya Schoenberger; environmental humanities researcher Yasmin Sani and artist-researcher Sun Woo Yoon.
Edited by Dr. Nabil Ahmed, Co-Founder of INTERPRT and Professor of Visual Intervention, NTNU (Norway); Ute Meta Bauer, Professor of Curatorial Practice, NTU and Director, NTU CCA (Singapore); Dr. Jonathan Galka, Historian and Post-doctoral Fellow, NUS ARI (Singapore); Dr. Hervé Raimana Lallemant-Moe, Director General, Digital Economy and Public Law Associate, UFP (French Polynesia).
The Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific – Journal de Droit Comparé du Pacifique (CLJP-JDCP) was created in 1994 under the name Revue Juridique Polynésienne (RJP). It is an international, multidisciplinary journal focusing on specific topics concerning the Pacific region and in addition to special issues, is published once a year under the auspices of the Association de Legislation Comparée de Pays du Pacifique (ALCPP) [Association of Comparative Legislation of the Countries of the Pacific].
We thank the Editors-in-Chief Professor Tony Angelo and Dr Sage Yves-Louis and their editorial team for providing the space to present on the timely subject of seabed mining and its attendant regulatory frameworks and ethical questions.
Our gratitude goes to Polynesian artist Maria A., whose image from her work Temeio (2025) featured on the cover of this special issue.
Join us for a walking and reading session exploring the intersection of art, ecologies, and local knowledge to reimagine relationships within Earth systems.
Taking inspiration from case studies in the newly published Earth Ethics: Art, Institutions and Regenerative Practices (Monash University Publishing, 2025), co-edited by our current visiting researcher Madeleine Collie, this session explores some of the book’s strategies, offerings and ideas. Through collective reading, walking and discussion we will consider how place-based and relational approaches to art, research, and institution-making can cultivate ways of putting Earth Ethics into practice.
Programme Director Agri-Food Innovation Lab, Nanyang Technological University
Anne was the senior advisor partnerships at the United Nations Development Programme Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development in Singapore. The centre focused on sustainable finance, sustainable agriculture, and the digitalisation of cities.
Anne’s background spans government, academia, NGOs, and private-sector businesses. Anne was the Strategic Advisor to the Executive Director of Asia P3 Hub, a partnership incubator hosted by World Vision. She was also the chair and business advisor in the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s Beachheads network. During her time in private sector, Anne was an Executive Director at McCann Erickson, part of the global team managing the MasterCard account for APMEA (Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa).
Anne Lochoff is one of 9 Women rated as the Top Global Influencers of Tech Innovation in Cities featured in Inc.com in 2016.
A response to environmental crisis, founded on the fundamental assumptions of declining energy and resource availability, permaculture is described as an integrated and evolving system of consciously designed landscapes and everyday life that mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food and energy to meet local needs. This lecture asks how do we construct our food systems for resilience in a time of rapidly changing environmental conditions? Bringing together Anne Lochoff, Programme Director of Singapore Agri-Food Innovation Lab, with Leong Tatt Man, Architect and Director of Projects at Tierra Design Studio, they will discuss food innovations, restorative aquaculture and community-supported agriculture systems. This lecture will begin with an introduction by Madeleine Collie, Visiting Researcher, CTP, and will be moderated by Professor Ute Meta Bauer.
Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Lecture Series
Tuesday Lecture
25 November 2025
6:30 – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Free with registration
This lecture explores localised and relational approaches to understanding ecological systems, from quantitative assessments and climate modelling to speculative cartographies and situated local knowledge systems. It brings together artist-researcher Zarina Muhammad and Assistant Professor Perrine Hamel, NTU Asian School of Environment, to discuss their distinct methodologies to environmental research. While Muhammad draws on performance and participatory practice to engage more-than-human worlds in the context of ecological crisis, Hamel will share her research in urban hydrological modelling and ecosystem service frameworks, demonstrating how nature-based infrastructures can contribute to resilient and inclusive cities in the region. Moderated by Associate Professor Laura Miotto, the discussion considers how diverse research methodologies can shape new ways of perceiving, representing, and responding to environmental change.
Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Lecture Series
Tuesday Lecture
4 November 2025
6:30 – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Free with registration
Dr Aron Meltzner is a geologist by training. He is an Assistant Professor at the Asian School of the Environment and a Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore, at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. Dr Meltzner’s research interests lie in active tectonics, past sea level and vertical land motion, at timescales from centuries to millennia. Broadly, his work addresses fundamental questions of earthquake hazard, earthquake recurrence and repeatability, fault segmentation, fault interactions, and past sea-level change. Many of his studies involve the use of coral microatolls to infer past changes in relative sea level, which we can use in turn to infer changes in sea-surface and land height, as well as tectonic deformation. He has ongoing research using coral microatolls in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
This two-part programme activates the Geology Gallery as an interdisciplinary space where artistic and scientific research converge to illuminate Singapore’s ecological timescales. Science and story-telling, data and divination are engaged as complementary frameworks of knowledge to deepen our understanding of geological and ecological processes.
PART 1
Zarina Muhammad, STAR Artist-in-Residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and Aron Meltzner, Assistant Professor at NTU Asian School of the Environment and NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore, will present their research on microatolls, circular coral colonies that serve as a natural record of sea-level change. Drawing from their intersecting fieldwork at Tanjong Rimau—one of Singapore’s last remaining coastal cliffs where microatolls were recently discovered—their presentations will weave together quantitative data and ancestral narratives, and entangle scientific interpretations with memories and myths. Their combined perspectives will compose a broader reflection on how rocks, corals, and cultural stories bear witness to the dynamic relationship between land, sea, and climate across the vast expanse of deep time.
PART 2
Amuletic Diagrams for Climate Futures
Participatory workshop by Zarina Muhammad
This hands-on activity reenvisions the Geology Gallery as a living laboratory for dialogue and creative making. Participants will co-create a compass of warnings, memories, futures, and actions, drawing on EOS research into coral microatolls as records of sea-level change and Zarina Muhammad’s investigations into omens, divination, and ecological witnessing. The resulting collective compass will be an amuletic diagram—a tool for orientation across science and stories, deep time, and present urgencies. This temporary installation will serve as a map that guides us to relate differently to the sea, honour memory, and act collectively with care in the face of shifting climates.
Date: Saturday, 8 November 2025, 2:30 – 5pm
Location: Geology Gallery, Sentosa Nature Discovery
51 Imbiah Road Singapore, 099702
Located next to the Skyline Luge Singapore at Imbiah Lookout
Ecological Witnessing: Geology as Archive, Microatolls as Record is organised in collaboration with Sentosa Development Corporation.
The public programme is part of STAR Residencies – Cycle 1, a programme developed by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in collaboration with NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore.
The programme is free for all participants. Please note that if you wish to attend both Part 1 and Part 2, a refundable deposit of $10 is required to reserve a slot (attendance to Part 1 is required to participate in Part 2).
The deposit will be returned upon attendance of both the presentation and the workshop. To qualify for a cancellation refund, reservation must be cancelled by 5 November, 12pm.
ABOUT THE GEOLOGY GALLERY
Part of Sentosa Nature Discovery, the Geology Gallery features a display curated by NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore. Through rock samples, fossils, interactive displays, the exhibition showcases the forces that shaped Singapore’s land and coast formations demonstrating the influence of geology onto our life.
In collaboration with
This lecture explores how scientific research and community action could converge around mangrove and wetland restoration, highlighting their critical role in strengthening climate resilience against rising sea levels in Southeast Asia. Pierre Taillardat, Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of the Wetland Carbon Lab at the Asian School of Environment, NTU, shares insights into the role of mangroves as natural climate solutions, drawing on his research into carbon storage, greenhouse gas fluxes, and hydrological dynamics. He further highlights how conserving and restoring mangroves strengthens coastal resilience, sequesters carbon, and mitigates the impacts of sea level rise, while also addressing the ecological limits and challenges of scaling these solutions. Joining the conversation is Iwan Winarto, founder of Pengudang Mangrove Bintan, a grassroots initiative in Bintan (Riau Islands) that has successfully restored several mangrove areas across the island through community engagement and educational ecotourism. Drawing from his long-standing work with local and Singapore schools and resorts, he shares practical strategies for sustaining community-led restoration projects and cultivating environmental stewardship. This lecture will be moderated by Joshua Gebert, Research Fellow, Climate Transformation Programme.
Tuesday Lecture
14 October 2025
6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Senior Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research fellow Joshua Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant Angela Ricasio Hoten.
Sustainable Societies
Senior Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)
This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.
Coastal communities and island populations, such as those in Singapore and Bintan, are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, particularly sea level rise. Coral reefs play a critical role as natural breakwaters, aiding to defend against coastal erosion. However, their survival is threatened by the implications of Singapore’s urbanisation on Bintan —through economic and touristic development—, alongside overfishing, rising sea temperatures, and the potential runoff impacts of industrial developments such as petrochemical plants. The lecture opens with a presentation by Professor Ute Meta Bauer (School of Art, Design and Media, NTU) on sea-based livelihoods in the Riau Archipelago and features lectures by coral restoration diver Rudi (Bintan Black Coral Dive) and Associate Professor Peter Todd, (Experimental Marine Ecology Laboratory, NUS; Director, Tropical Marine Science Institute, NUS) , with a response by Dr Karenne Tun (Director, Coastal and Marine Branch, National Biodiversity Centre, NParks) and moderated by Associate Professor Laura Miotto (School of Art, Design and Media, NTU). The session explores current coral restoration projects initiated by Rudi in Bintan, including nature-based solutions, highlighting their significance for coastal communities reliant on reef coastlines for their livelihood. Returning to urban Singapore, Associate Professor Todd will discuss eco-engineered seawalls that function as surrogates for natural habitats, supporting coral growth while simultaneously serving as coastal defense structures against rising tides.
Tuesday Lecture
26 August 2025, 6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA, Blk 6 Lock Road, #01-10 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934
The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Senior Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research fellow Joshua Vince Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant AngelaRicasio Hoten.
Sustainable Societies
Senior Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)
This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.
The public keynote lectures are part of an academic workshop titled “What is ‘Worlding’ in Biocultural Worlding?” The workshop probes what “worlding” means within the context of biological and cultural diversity across different disciplines, regions, and epistemologies. The keynote lectures will further explore the processes that shape our understanding of the world through the deep interconnections between cultural and biological life. Presenting these keynotes are Dr Lisa Onaga, Senior Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and curator and researcher Dr Margarida Mendes. Together, their lectures will illuminate how biocultural worlding unfolds across land and sea, and how attending to these entanglements opens new ways of imagining collective futures in times of environmental and epistemic loss.
22 September 2025
6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Keynote Lectures
Oceanic Worldings, Margarida Mendes
Exploring the concept of worlding from the ocean point of view, this presentation foregrounds ecosystemic, political and ontological relations across aquatic realms. It introduces ongoing research and activism on ecoacoustics, deep sea mining, and remote sensing, proposing how different modes of ocean monitoring may contribute to plural oceanic worldings and alliances in the making.
Turtle Worlds As A Way of Living, Lisa Onaga
From the adage “slow and steady wins the race,” symbols of longevity, to imagery of carrying a home upon one’s back, references to turtles appear in many languages and cultures around the world. Such “turtle metaphors” in language and material culture join a range of ways in which humans have regularly expressed themselves in relation to things of nature Diverse living things have long inspired human thought and action. However, propensities to regard nature as a resource can deepen a divide that casts humans apart from the natural world. Another perspective views humans as a part of a world where nature and culture are inseparable, encouraging a different way of knowing and talking about – and with – living things. From the earth known to Indigenous North Americans as Turtle Island, a directional guardian in Chinese cosmology, to ancestral gifts in the Torres Strait Islands, the reptiles we know as turtles, with their domed shells, have played a foundational role in holding together entire worlds, grounded in unique knowledge systems and protocols for correctly living a good life. In this presentation, I will reflect upon research efforts that initiated in 2016 to document the history of the Singapore Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum (LTTM), as the museum faced closure associated with state and city planning. At that time, the private museum held over 2000 objects turtle-themed objects (in the form of, but not made from, turtles), and approximately 600 individual turtles and tortoises – many of them former pets surrendered by members of the public in anticipation of the stricter regulations under the 2002 Singapore Animal and Birds Act, aligned with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna (CITES) treaty. The case of the LTTM and its persistence since 2001 to this day illustrates that both complementing and countering the separation of nature and culture enables the dynamic forming, maintaining, and caring of a “turtle world.” This example invites reflection on how biological and cultural practices grow entwined and embody forms of knowledge – in this case, “turtle knowledge” – and how that knowledge evolves, is practiced, shared, and passed down to the next generations.
What is ‘Worlding’ in Biocultural Worlding? is supported by CLASS JOINT NTU-ANU NTU-KCL CONFERENCE, SYMPOSIUM, AND WORKSHOP SCHEME.
The public keynote lectures are convened by Professor Ute Meta Bauer, Acting Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in the systems that shape our world, its growing environmental impact cannot be ignored. This lecture brings into focus the often-overlooked environmental costs of AI: the vast energy consumption required to train and operate large-scale models, the expanding carbon footprint of data centres, and broader planetary implications. In this critical conversation, speculative architect and filmmaker Liam Young draws from his recent work The Great Endeavour (2023) in which he presents his vision of infrastructures capable of removing atmospheric CO₂ at scale. Framing climate mitigation as a monumental design challenge, his film imagines the largest machines ever conceived, inviting us to think in planetary terms and confront the climate crisis not just as a technical problem but a deeply imaginative one. In dialogue with him is Professor Bo An, whose research under the CTP provides advances in machine-learning approaches for climate science. Responding to these lectures, Kathleen Ditzig, Curator at National Gallery Singapore, will comment on the environmental politics of machine learning. This lecture will begin with a welcome address by Honor Harger, Director of ArtScience Museum, and moderated by Professor Ute Meta Bauer, this lecture brings together speculative design and cutting-edge AI research, inviting us to examine the environmental costs of intelligence and imagine sustainable futures.
Tuesday Lecture
16 September 2025
6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Free with Registration
The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Senior Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research fellow Joshua Vince Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant Angela Ricasio Hoten.
Sustainable Societies
Senior Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)
This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.
In this thoughtful exchange, artist Panos Aprahamian and film curator Viknesh Kobinathan probe the stratigraphy of meanings sedimented in Aprahamian’s latest work situating it in the context of the Lebanese artist’s extended inquiry into dystopian landscapes, tormented histories, ecological devastations, and supernatural horror. The conversation will be preceded by the screening of the film.
This is a talk for Panos Aprahamian: More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water (11 – 27 September 2025, The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore) which premieres the video work created with the support of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024.
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
6:30 – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks 108934
Free with Registration
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to premiere the latest work of Panos Aprahamian, recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024 which enabled the creation of this work.
The final instalment of Aprahamian’s unplanned “Karantina Trilogy”, More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water (2025), takes place, like two previous works, in Karantina, a former quarantine district in northeastern Beirut bordered by the Beirut River. One of the most polluted parts of the city due to its proximity to the port, a waste sorting facility, and an infamous, now-closed slaughterhouse, the area has witnessed environmental crises and uncounted deaths. In the film, the disembodied voice of a paranormal investigator recounts her contemplative journey along the river’s course as a descent into the underworld, addressing the chemical compounds, spectral echoes, foul odour, and invisible presences that dwell in a dystopian landscape made of flows and stagnations. As the camera follows the emergences and submergences of the riverine water, it captures glimpses of deteriorating ecologies and the wavering reflections of industrial infrastructures while the narration—part investigative report, part diary entry, part speculative fiction—entangles historical chronologies in a non-linear sequence. Blending documentary realism, abstract sequences, and fictional genres, the work slowly excavates deep sediments of sorrows within a wounded landscape haunted by the spirits of uncountable entities, both human and non-human, who lost their lives there. Turning the water body into a portal onto intangible worlds and an uneasy mirror of the present, Aprahamian’s work ponders over and bears witness to the aftermath of violence, historical trauma, and environmental degradation.
An instrument for supporting contemporary artistic production in the field of video art, the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant is awarded annually to an emerging visual artist from Central or West Asia. In addition to financial support, the grant connects the awardee to an international network of institutions committed to showing the newly produced work. In this way, the awardees are given the opportunity to dialogue with art professionals at each institution and present their work in different social, cultural, and political contexts.
The partners for the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024 are: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; WIELS (Brussels, Belgium); Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Manila, Philippines); Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai, UAE) and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (Naples, Italy). NTU CCA Singapore is a partner of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant since 2019.
Dates
11 – 27 September 2025
Opening Hours
Thursday to Saturday, 1:00 – 7:00pm
Venue
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks 108934
Free Admission
The conference Instruct & Being Instructed seeks to explore the multifaceted role of instructions within the domain of art, from historical and contemporary perspectives. Central to this inquiry is the interrogation of how instructions—whether textual, verbal, or performative—mediate the multifaceted relationships between artists, artworks, audiences, collections or institutions in a wider global context. The conference will critically examine instructions as a tool of artistic authority, a frame to manifest crafts for art-making practices, a form of artistic experimentation and resistance, and it will also reflect on the educational dimension of instructions within the historical and contemporary curricula of art academies. By drawing on theories from curatorial practices, art history, pedagogy, cultural studies, and critical theory, the conference will investigate the ways in which instructions operate as a site of tension between prescriptive frameworks and the creative autonomy of the artist. Through a varied lineup of presentations and panel discussions, Instruct & Being Instructed aims to scrutinise the historical evolution of instructional paradigms in art, the impact of instructions on the materiality of artworks, and the socio-political implications of instructional art creating a critical and inclusive platform to rethink the function and implications of instructions in contemporary art practices, institutional frameworks, and broader socio-cultural contexts.
The conference programme is structured around three thematic panels: “Art and Power,” “Art and Technology,” and “Art and Embodiment.” These themes will be explored through a range of formats—including keynote lectures, artistic performances, presentations, and panel discussions—designed to encourage active dialogue, cross-disciplinary insight, and critical reflection among participants.
The conference is convened by Dr Marc Glöde, Associate Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in collaboration with Dr. Agnieszka Chalas, Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, NTU, and Dr. Sushma Griffin, Lecturer at the School of Humanities, NTU. Collectively, their diverse expertise across curatorial studies, education, art history, and cultural theory informs a dynamic and interdisciplinary approach to the theme of instruction in art.
The conference Instruct & Being Instructed has a hybrid format. The online presentations will be live-streamed at The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore, to welcome in-person participation.
Free upon registration.
PROGRAMME SCHEDULE
Friday, 5 September 2025, 6:30 – 8.00 pm (SGT)
Register: Online / On-site
6:30 – 7:00 pm
Opening remarks by organisers
7:00 – 8:00 pm
[online] Keynote Lecture: Ever Prompt – From “Do It” to Protocol Art
by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London
8:00 – 9:00 pm
Reception with complimentary refreshments
Saturday, 06 September 2025, 10:00 am – 2:30 pm (SGT)
Register: Online / On-site
Panel 1: ART AND POWER
Moderated by Dr Sushma Griffin, Lecturer in the Department of Art History, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University
This panel examines the nuanced operations of instructions in their interplay between authority and negotiation within artistic, curatorial, and pedagogical contexts. It considers how certain overlooked elements of arts programming that might seem unwarranted and redundant actually provide value and access relating to the discursive realms of curatorial, artistic, and design practices. It looks beyond received narratives to speculate on the influence and implications of instructions in art and design pedagogies on the longer histories of contemporary art and art institutions.
10:00 – 10:15 am
[online] Constellations of the Paracurricular and Paracuratorialby Dr Karin G. Oen-Lee, Assistant Professor, Art History and Museum Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Centring concepts of the curatorial, the paracuratorial, and the constellation, this presentation situates Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore), a unique research-oriented contemporary art centre, as a “paracurricular” resource for and of the university while also serving as a bridge for non-university publics and collaborators. The Centre’s diverse modes of conducting and sharing research, including but not limited to exhibitions and other curatorial projects, suggest that while exhibition facilities are helpful in convening community around artistic knowledge production, there are multiple and various formats that can contribute to a robust paracurricular environment. Artists’ residencies, publications, and discursive programmes each offer a way to encourage lively transdisciplinary connections to the realm of contemporary art and other fields in ways that tangibly benefit and enrich the experiences of both students and faculty through formal and informal connections. As a brief coda, the Centre’s mode of distributing power and interrogating power structures in higher education through non-curricular and atypical knowledge production can be read differently when compared to another constellation– the student-led extra-curricular explorations of philosophy and theory in mainland Chinese art academies in the 1980s in the context of “high culture fever.”
10:15 – 10:30 am
[online] Framework and Principles of Asian American Critical Pedagogy in Art Education by Dr Ryan Shin, Professor, School of Art, University of Arizona
The Asian American Critical Pedagogy Framework (AACP) addresses and challenges the systemic marginalisation of Asian art and culture within art education curricula and teaching practices. It proposes a new critical approach centered on the lived experiences of Asian American artists and communities. The framework was developed to address the curricular neglect and othering of Asian art and the underrepresentation of Asian artists in art education. The framework consists of four key principles: Asian American critical consciousness, counternarratives and reclamation, heterogeneity and intersectionality, and joy and wellness. The first principle, Asian American critical consciousness, confronts white supremacy and Orientalism by urging educators and students to recognize and critique existing power structures. Counternarratives and reclamation focus on centering Asian American voices, reclaiming their stories, histories, and identities. Heterogeneity and intersectionality recognise the diverse and complex nature of Asian American identities, acknowledging how experiences of oppression and power differ based on factors such as class, gender, age, and ability. Lastly, joy and wellness emphasize the importance of healing and empowerment for Asian American students and educators, fostering psychologically safe spaces for collective mourning, celebration, and exploration. The AACP framework can serve as a foundation for developing culturally relevant curricula that promote equity, inclusivity, and diversity within art education. It challenges the marginalization and cultural erasure of Asian art and culture to dismantle narrow representations that inhibit a full recognition of Asian artistic contributions. Ultimately, this framework aims to disrupt Eurocentric narratives and empower Asian American students and educators to thrive within the field of art education.
10:30 – 10:45 am
[online] Learning what can’t be taught: reflections on Zhang Peili and artistic ‘genealogy’ in narratives of contemporary (Asian) art by Dr Olivier Krischer, Lecturer, School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales
“Can artistic attitude be taught or passed down from one generation to another?” This simple question was at the heart of the interesting curatorial project Learning What Can’t Be Taught, organised at Asia Art Archive in 2021. Focusing on six artists from the China Art Academy, the first national art school in China, established in 1928, the project looked beyond the familiar avant-garde narrative of rupture, to consider similarities and influences across three pedagogical ‘generations’ of artists to emerge in contemporary China—in a period marked by radical material transformation. This paper, originally pitched for that project, draws on unpublished research taking the form of a somewhat speculative genealogy for Zhang Peili, in order to highlight early influences or parallels in the formation of his notably conceptual practice, initially through painting. It considers the curiously experimental nature of his peers at CAA’s No.1 Studio, under the tutelage of painter Jin Yide, who had received experimental training under visiting Romanian artists in 1960s Hangzhou, for example. I speculate on Zhang’s early assertion of conceptual, post-studio art practice might be rooted, or ‘seeded’, in the genealogy of his art education and experiences? Since Zhang was invited to establish the first course on new media art in China, at CAA in the early 2000s, these questions have broader implications for how we understand histories of art and institutions, and not just in the Chinese context.
10:45 – 11:15 am Joint discussion and Q&A
11:15 – 11:30 am Short break
Panel 2: ARTAND TECHNOLOGY
Moderated by Paul Lincoln, Head of the Visual and Performing Arts at National Institute of Education and the Director of the NTU Museum at Nanyang Technological University
Focusing on the entanglement of instructions and technological mediation, this panel explores how tools, codes, and digital systems reconfigure art-making, its reception and teaching. From historical craft practices to contemporary algorithmic and AI-driven approaches, it asks how instructions function as both enabling structures and constraints. The discussion will bridge art, design, and media perspectives with pedagogical concerns about how technology shapes artistic learning and experimentation.
11:30 – 11:45 am
[online] Aesthetic Illegitimacy in the Corpocene by Dr Katherine Guinness, Assistant Professor, Critical Studies in the Department of Art, University of Maryland, College Park and Dr Grant Bollmer, Associate Research Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
This talk describes a central contradiction in aesthetic theory today. On one hand there exists a range of seemingly insignificant, temporary trends linked with the political economy of identity and visibility on the internet; “aesthetics” online are a way of distinguishing oneself, linked with the desire to commodify oneself as an object of attention and, therefore, value. On the other hand are academic discussions that often defer to “art” in an institutionally legitimate sense, using the traditional object of aesthetic contemplation as a route to theorize technology, the body, emotion, and beyond. “Art” has become a way for cultural theorists to signify the legitimacy of their arguments, even though “aesthetics” more broadly, today, point to a range of phenomena that are seemingly illegitimate because of their imbrication with, and thus “corruption” by, capital and value. As we will develop in this talk, the foundations of aesthetic theory and philosophy emerge from a crisis of capital. This talk will return to the earliest development of aesthetic theory, the German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. In responding to an emerging market for art called into being by a new wealth class, Baumgarten was the writer who transformed the meaning of “aesthetic” from one that merely referred to a kind of sensation or sensibility to its explicit linkage with questions of taste, of good and bad, of value and evaluation. In returning to Baumgarten, we seek to draw out parallels between our present and the context in which aesthetics, taste, and judgment initially appeared as problems for philosophy. If art and aesthetics are ultimately linked with the accumulation of capital and problems of value, then, we ask, what are the possibilities for a “political” art? If it is impossible to escape the link between art and market, then what might it look like to parasite capital today?
11:45 am – 12:00 pm
What Happens When AI Joins the Art Room? Insights from Students and Educators by Dr Joo Hong Low, Senior Teaching Fellow, the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University
This presentation explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in secondary art education in Singapore, drawing on classroom-based case studies from selected secondary schools. It investigates how AI tools—particularly generative image models—are being used by students to support ideation, enhance creative expression, and bridge the gap between conceptual thinking and visual realisation. Students responded positively to AI’s immediacy and versatility, noting how it helped them explore multiple possibilities, visualise abstract ideas, and personalise their creative process. At the same time, the presentation critically examines the challenges and limitations of AI in art classrooms. Some students voiced concerns about over-reliance on AI, expressing that it could diminish the tactile, imaginative, and experimental aspects of traditional artmaking. Others noted frustrations with inconsistent or inaccurate outputs, and a perceived risk of homogenisation—where artworks began to resemble one another due to similar prompt-based results. Beyond creative concerns, the talk will highlight key ethical considerations, including copyright, authorship, misinformation, and the need to uphold academic integrity. These issues point to the growing importance of AI literacy in the art curriculum—not just in terms of technical skills, but also in fostering critical awareness, aesthetic judgment, and ethical responsibility. Ultimately, this session advocates for a nuanced and transformative pedagogical approach, where AI is positioned as a co-creative partner rather than a replacement for artistic agency. It proposes that when used intentionally, AI can enrich the learning experience and empower students—if balanced with hands-on practice, teacher guidance, and thoughtful curricular design.
12:00 – 12:30 pm Joint discussion and Q&A
12:30 – 1:00 pm Lunch break
Panel 3: ART AND EMBODIMENT
Moderated by Dr Marc Glöde, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the MA in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices at ADM, Nanyang Technological University
This panel turns to the corporeal and experiential dimensions of instructions, asking how bodies—of artists, audiences, and students—become sites of inscription, transmission, and enactment. By considering performance, pedagogy, and material engagement, the panel explores how instructions shape artistic knowledge not only through words and images but also through embodied practices. The emphasis here connects art history and education with lived, sensorial, and affective registers of artistic instruction.
1:00 – 1:15 pm
Learning through procession: ritual, embodiment, and shared knowledge in Thaipusam by Laura Miotto, Associate Professor and Co-Director of MA in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, Nanyang Technological University
This talk examines how knowledge is transmitted through embodied ritual practices, focusing on the Thaipusam procession in Singapore. As an ephemeral event, the procession becomes a site where learning takes place collectively—through bodily and sensory experiences in ritual acts—revealing how Thaipusam generates shared knowledge across religious, cultural, and artistic contexts.
1:15 – 1:30 pm
Memories and other instructional works by Heman Chong, Artist
In his ongoing project Memories, artist and writer Heman Chong explores the act of publishing through performance. Each work begins with a short story of around 500 words, written with a very specific form of transmission in mind. Participants are invited through an open call to memorise one story word for word with the help of a personal trainer. The performance ends only when the participant can flawlessly recite the entire text back to the trainer. These stories are never published — not in print, nor online. The only way to “receive” them is by memorising them, investing significant time and effort. Yet this gift is ephemeral: without constant rehearsal, the words quickly fade. Chong first devised this method of “publishing as performance” in 2009 during Ong Keng Sen’s Flying Circus Project at T:>Works in Singapore, which also featured Boris Charmatz’s expo zero, a performance exhibition using only the bodies of artists. As curator Anca Rujoiu notes, Chong’s practice is “a quest for writing, an exploration of its desires and disenchantments as well as the conditions that constitute it.” His works interweave writing, publishing, performing, and collaboration, creating a fluid and dynamic space where instructions shape both the artwork and its audience. In this presentation, Chong reflects on the role of instructions in his practice and how they reconfigure the boundaries between art, memory, and participation.
1:30 – 1:45 pm
Investigating Artistic Authority and Participation through Performative Instruction in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art by Yi Yinzi, PhD candidate at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University
This presentation explores how performative instruction in contemporary Southeast Asian art mediates the complex dynamics between artistic authority and audience participation. On the one hand, artistic instruction can shape, enable, and at times restrict audience participation to the point of compromising participatory agency or even causing discomfort. On the other hand, there are moments in performance art when participants retain the choice to engage or not, based on their interest in the project, their informed knowledge of what may unfold, and their assessment of their own capabilities. This presentation considers Vietnamese artist Pham Ha Hai’s performance at the Asiatopia International Performance Art Festival II in Bangkok in 1999, in which he blindfolded participants and instructed them to smear black ink on their faces without disclosing what was in their hands, alongside Singaporean artist Heman Chong’s Memories, where an instructor reads a roughly 500-word story written by Chong to a participant, who is then required to memorize and recite the story word for word. In these examples, artistic and participatory choices both operate within the aesthetic realm and are shaped by the social realities that contextualize the practice. This raises questions about whether the aesthetic realm can serve as an exception to everyday social practices of acceptance and refusal, the different temporal phases of a project in which participants may initiate or revisit their judgment, and the modern notion of a contract based on mutual consent, where each party is assumed to be capable of making rational choices.
1:45 – 2:15 pm Joint discussion and Q&A
2:15 – 2:30 pm Final Remarks and Closing of Event
Instruct & Being Instructed is supported by CoHASS Interdisciplinary Conference, Symposium, and Workshop Scheme.
Joshua Gebert serves as Research Fellow at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University for the Climate Transformation Programme (2025–Present). Joshua is trained in architectural history and spatial planning in the Netherlands, developing a foundation in the intersections of culture, the built environment, and sustainability. He received his PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore in 2024, where he drew on cultural geography and critical heritage studies to examine the politics of heritage in Indonesia. His doctoral research explored how cultural engagements and artistic practices by local communities can contribute to decolonisation.
Thomas Schroepfer is Full Professor and Founding Programme Director of Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He is the Director of the Singapore-ETH Centre Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), based at Singapore’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), where he leads pioneering research at the intersection of architecture, urban design, and technology. He is also the Director of SUTD’s Advanced Architecture Laboratory and a Senior Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum, the Institute for Advanced Studies of ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich), where he contributes to interdisciplinary research on the future of cities. Schroepfer has held visiting professorships at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Loughborough University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and the National University of Singapore (NUS), shaping global conversations on sustainable urban development and design innovation.
“With the scientist’s brain, the poet’s heart, and the painter’s eye”—this was the guiding principle of György Kepes, an artist, designer, and cultural catalyst who introduced the term interthinking. With this concept, he envisioned a bold new approach: uniting artists and engineers to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues—such as ecological awareness, augmented reality, and adaptive design—long before these ideas entered the mainstream.
Though still underrecognised, Kepes’s influence stretched far beyond the confines of art. From working alongside Bauhaus luminaries in Europe to shaping the cultural landscape of postwar America, he was less a solitary genius than a powerful enabler—an “active humanist” who championed the democratization of visual culture and fostered cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue, from the Atlantic across Southeast Asia.
Kepes’s most visionary achievement was the founding of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1967—a groundbreaking platform that united artists and scientists to collaboratively explore new ways of seeing and engaging with the civic space. His efforts to humanise technology and embed art into public consciousness came at a paradoxical moment: while MIT was being scrutinized for its ties to military research during the Vietnam War, Kepes was cultivating a counter-narrative—one that prioritised environmental ethics and civic responsibility.
Márton Orosz’s documentary film offers the first comprehensive portrait of this shape-shifting modernist and intellectual force. It reveals Kepes not only as a visionary thinker and polymath but as a pioneering figure in the Art and Technology Movement whose ideas remain startlingly relevant today.
György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science
(Canada/Hungary, 2023), 98 minutes
Screening followed by virtual Q&A with film director Márton Orosz
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
7.00 – 9.00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
#01-09, 6 Lock Road
Gillman Barracks
Free with registration
REGISTER
Conceived as seedbed for experimentation, Communities of Practice is a shapeshifting research platform that brings forth communities at the intersection of artistic practices. Holding a communal space where artistic research can develop through interdisciplinary collaborations, exchanges, and processes of co-creation, Communities of Practice situates NTU CCA Singapore within the research-driven core of Nanyang Technological University by configuring the Centre as an interdisciplinary body and advancing its role as convener, capacity builder, and leading-edge incubator in the arts sector.
Superlative Futures is a transdisciplinary design and research agency in Singapore co-founded by Wong Zi Hao and Liu Dian Cong. Their research practice centres on creative modes of representation to advocate new ways of seeing landscapes, speculative social imaginaries and futuring urban practices to relate differently with more-than-human worlds. They see their design output as a practice of care. They have exhibited at NUS Museum and were supported by Singapore Art Museum’s inaugural Design Research Fellowship (2024-2025). Wong received his PhD in Architecture at the National University of Singapore in 2023, having completed a design-led research on intertidal practices of care. Alongside his research practice, Wong teaches at the Department of Architecture, National University Singapore (NUS) and at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, University of Arts Singapore. Liu currently practices as an architectural designer. He completed a Master of Architecture at NUS in 2024 working on sedimentation and alternative conceptions of “ground”.
Embracing a constellatory and process-led approach in her collaboration with multiple researchers at EOS, Zarina Muhammad dedicates STAR RESIDENCY to further her engagement with hybrid forms of ecological witnessing and polycosmologies as well as her exploration of the interdependency of environmental knowledge systems. The artist intends to conduct fieldwork on selected sites where geological and ecological significance resonate with underwater cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge systems, seeking points of convergence with EOS’s work in monitoring and addressing the regional impact of climate change. By exploring remote-sensing techniques and data translations through creative and empirical processes, this research hopes to expand the epistemic frameworks of nonhuman witnessing in the context of environmental crisis. The artist plans to expand her collaborative practice through interdisciplinary exchange, convening scientists, artists, storytellers, and ancestral knowledge keepers to develop speculative maps and multi-layered cartographies inspired by the complexity of environmental data, ecological processes, and trans-indigenous cosmologies.
Zarina Muhammad (b. 1982, Singapore) is an artist, educator, and researcher whose practice critically re-examines oral histories, ethnographic literature, and historiographic narratives of Southeast Asia. Working at the intersections of performance, text, installation, ritual, sound, moving image, and participatory practice, her work explores the enmeshed contexts of ecocultural cosmologies, identities and interactions, mythmaking, haunted historiographies, and geo-spirited landscapes. Her long-term interdisciplinary project investigates Southeast Asia’s evolving relationship with spectrality, ritual magic, polysensoriality, and the immaterial, examining these themes against the backdrop of global modernity, the social production of rationality, and transcultural exchanges of knowledge. Her work has been widely presented at international biennales and institutions, including FotoFest Biennial, Houston, USA (2024), the 2nd Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Saudi Arabia (2024), the 7th Singapore Biennale (2022), and the 3rd Lahore Biennale, Pakistan (2024). She recently had a solo presentation, curated by Shubigi Rao, at the Singapore Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2024). Zarina is the recipient of the 2022 IMPART Art Prize.
How might the architectural imagination make sense of the Earth at a moment in which the planet is presented in crisis? For Design Earth, imagination fuels the production of stories and images that come together as geographically situated speculations—neither documentary nor completely fictional.
Today we live in an epoch shaped by extensive shifts in industrialization, with environmental risks and destruction felt at a planetary scale. Paradoxically, while the threats are serious, we remain little mobilized—in part because of the “abysmal distance between our little selfish human worries and the great questions of ecology.”[1] If we are worried once again that the sky may be falling on our heads, how is it that we have done so little about it? In this light, the environmental crisis can be seen not only as a crisis of the physical and technological environments; it is also a crisis of the cultural environment—of the modes of representation through which society relates to the complexity of environmental systems.
Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate springs from the conviction that climate change demands urgent transformations in the ways we care for and design the Earth, moving away from a visual rhetoric of crisis that aestheticizes calamity. Design Earth, a research practice founded and led by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy engages the medium of the speculative architectural project to make public the climate crisis. Their design research brings together spatial history, geographic representation, projective design, and material public assemblies to speculate on ways of living with legacy technologies on a damaged planet. This work is developed simultaneously through the medium of drawing and the creation of books, two of which are excerpted and put in conversation in this art exhibition.
The first book, Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment (Actar Publishers, 2018), is a manifesto for environmental imagination in twelve architectural projects engaging the planetary scale through drawing divided by the organising principles of Aquarium, Terrarium, and Planetarium. This exhibition highlights three chapters from the larger work, each addressing a planetary common as matter of concern – the atmosphere, deep seabed, outer space: After Oil (2016), Pacific Aquarium (2016), and Cosmorama (2018). It examines geographies of extractive technological systems, foregrounding externalities as political concerns for architecture. Geographic portraits employing axonometry, sections, and split-level views describe the political and ethical implications of our ecological actions while speculating on survival and adaptation strategies that invite us to make sense of the Earth envision it in ways that generate inquisitive, delightful, and potentially subversive responses.
The second book, The Planet After Geoengineering (Actar Publishers, 2021) is a graphic novel which imagines the worlds of climate modification technologies and their controversies. It thinks with and against geoengineering – technologies that counteract the effects of anthropogenic climate change by deliberately intervening in Earth systems as a form of planetary management. In five chapters, The Planet After Geoengineering assembles a planetary section that cuts through the underground, crust, atmosphere, and outer space. Each geostory— Petrified Carbon, Arctic Albedo, Sky River, Sulfur Storm, and Dust Cloud—depicts possible future Earths that we come to inhabit on the heels of a geoengineering intervention all while situating such promissory visions within a genealogy of climate-control projects from nineteenth-century rainmaking machines and volcanic eruptions to
Cold War military plans.
Together these projects help us begin to address the open question of how (else) could we tell the story of the Earth? Beyond the binaries of the preservation of a Blue Marble and the promises of technological solutionism, what geostories can we imagine or envision?
[1] Laura Collins-Hughes, “A Potential Disaster in Any Language: ‘Gaïa Global Circus’ at the Kitchen,” New York Times, September 25, 2014.
Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate is co-organised by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art and ADM Gallery
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, 25 April 2025
6:30 – 8:30 pm
VENUE
ADM Gallery 2
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458
DATES
28 April to 13 June 2025
Open by appointment from 14 June to 15 August 2025
GALLERY HOURS
Monday to Friday: 10:00am to 5:00pm
Saturday: By appointment only
*Closed on Sunday and Public Holidays
ADMgallery@ntu.edu.sg
Public Programmes
Join DESIGN EARTH co-founders and co-directors Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy for their first presentation in Singapore, where they will share insights into their collaborative research practice centred on the speculative architectural project as a mode of making the climate crisis public. Their design research brings together spatial history, geographic representation, projective design, and material public assemblies to speculate on ways of living with legacy technologies on a damaged planet. Recipients of the United States Artist Fellowship and the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers, among other honors, Ghosn and Jazairy have made a practice of telling complex and unwieldy stories of the Earth. Learn more about their ongoing explorations of visual and spatial storytelling.
Friday, 13 June 2025, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
The Hall, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
6 Lock Rd, #01-09/10 Gillman Barracks 108934
DESIGN EARTH Workshop: Elephant in the Room and Other Creatures
DESIGN EARTH‘s latest project is a series of fables that addresses the elephant in the room—the climate crisis—by animating charismatic figures from natural history museums. This design research identifies and leverages figures from the collections all while unsettling the museum apparatus—the devices, archives, histories, and audiences. Some such figures include a taxidermy of an African matriarch elephant, the skeleton of a stranded blue whale, and a composite structure of a Diplodocuscarnegii. The fragmentary remains of such creatures are animated, brought back to life, so to speak in rhyming verse, colorful imagery, and with some poignant humor. These speculative afterlives stir up potent trouble on the breath-taking capture of life in the Anthropocene to ask how cultural institutions may be responsible to calls for decolonisation and decarbonisation. In Singapore, this hands-on, participatory workshop will focus on the cultural prehistory, present, and speculative futures of the Singapore saltwater (estuarine) crocodile and the Malayan tiger. Facilitated by Rania Ghosn, El Hadi Jazairy, and DESIGN EARTH team member Kelly Koh. Beginning with the Artist Talk on 13 June, participants will engage in DESIGN EARTH creative methodologies including site visits and the building of a research archive while looking into the facts and fictions of these creatures and their homes.
13 – 19 June 2025
The Hall, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
6 Lock Rd, #01-09/10 Gillman Barracks 108934
Curator’s Exhibition (de)Tour
Join NTU CCA Singapore Director Karin G. Oen for a closer look at the collaborative practice of DESIGN EARTH, including drawing, writing, animation, and sound components of Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate. Explore the research and influences that comprise these multi-layered artworks, from the terrestrial principles of geoengineering and petroleum geology, to the supranational domains of the deep seabeds and outer space. Highlighting the long traditions of poetry, science fiction, and image creation that help us to conceptualise these realms, we will consider what it means to tell the stories of the earth, and to live with unsightly “externalities.”
Saturday, 17 May 2025
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
ADM Gallery 2
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458
Student-Led Exhibition (de)Tour
Join Vaishnavi Peddapalli, NTU School of Humanities Class of 2025, for a student-led (de)tour of Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate that will explore how speculative fiction can reconsider Southeast Asian geographical catastrophes borne from human intervention. Considering localised discourse around climate change and its impact on younger generations, this experience provides space for speculation for our planet’s future.
Saturday, 31 May 2025
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
ADM Gallery 2
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458
Come walk, draw, and speculate. Drawing as a visual and creative practice can also be a tool for scientific inquiry and speculation. Plotting detailed lines can help process the larger picture of the distanced and abstracted planet crisis. Inspired by the exhibition, Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate, this drawing club invites artists, architects, designers, and students to probe how architectural drawings can unearth the more inconspicuous matters of climate change. Facilitated by Eunice Lacaste, Programme Associate, NTU CCA Singapore.
This Drawing Club invites artists, architects, designers, and students to present their annotated sketches at the NTU ADM Foyer from July to August 2025.
No technical drawing experience needed—just a willingness to trace complexity. Participants are encouraged to bring dry drawing media (markers, found images, etc) and reading references (articles, books, etc) to share, annotate, and get inspiration from during the session.
Saturday, 24 May 2025
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
ADM Gallery 2
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458
Decay, decomposition, weathering, rot. Landscapes eroding, architectures disintegrating, bodies breaking down, coming apart, becoming dirt. We hardly have a kinship with decay for, like dirt, decay is—in the words of anthropologist Mary Douglas—matter out-of-place in our perpetually renewing cities. Indeed, the city we are brought to inhabit and desire is built with ever-more weatherproof architectures, with cosmetic treatments that maintain the hardness of the buildings and the smoothness of their surfaces impervious to the traces of Nature’s time. In waterfront cities, which novelist Amitav Ghosh regards as a showcase of architectural mastery over the unruly environment, the cartography of terrestrial edges continues to reinforce the separation of interiorised human-made worlds from exteriorised more-than-human environment. Seen through the lens of the city, the design of the future Earth aspires to be atemporal. And like so many transient and shifting environments stilled in human projections of the Earth (from maps to masterplans), the “unweathered” city must thrive outside of time, devoid of stains and discolouration. But does the city have to be in an anxious race against Nature’s time?
Created and led by Superlative Futures, Drawing Dialogues: Stories of Decay is a workshop for re-attuning our urban selves to Nature’s time. The programme focuses on rethinking the place of decay in the wellbeing of cities and on re-presenting stories of decay as matters of care. The workshop will start off with a walk in the Berlayer Creek—a rare remnant of Singapore’s mangrove histories once denigrated as a place of dankness and disease—where participants will be led to uncover stories of decay and gather thoughts and materials of decomposition. The second part of the workshop will take place at NTU CCA Singapore where, drawing and dialoguing with decay, participants will be guided to create their own narratives and landscapes of decay culminating in a collaborative artwork. Expanding on Superlative Futures’ speculative design research on new ecological practices for weathering the future city, this workshop marks the beginning of a propositional archive—A Cartography of Decay—that charts different relationships between decay and the city.
It is recommended to bring water, sunblock, umbrella, mosquito repellent, and notetaking materials (e.g. pencil/pen and paper). This is a rain or shine event.
This event is a public programme created in response to the exhibition Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate, on view by appointment at NTU ADM Gallery 2 until 15 August 2025.
This programme is free with registration. Limited capacity.
Workshop Schedule
9:00 – 10:00am
Meet at Labrador Park MRT, Exit A
Move as a group to Berlayer Creek
10:30am – 12:00pm
Drawing session at The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
This workshop will revolve around The Planet After Geoengineering(2021), a graphic animation by Design Earth, where planetary imaginaries unfold through narrative fragments and visual speculation. Responding to the animation, participants will be prompted to ponder over climate change, environmental design, and planetary care and compose letters and/or postcards from a future Earth. In creating memories of futures yet to be experienced, participants are asked to time-travel into future climates and channel perspectives from the human and other-than-human inhabitants of the Earth to come. The workshop will culminate in a final sharing session where participants will be invited to present their pieces, exchange insights, and reflect on the power of storytelling. In closing, the group will consider how such narratives might shape our actions in the present.
The workshop seeks to make the immediacy of climate change tangible, not only intellectually, but also emotionally by foregrounding personal visions and speculative storytelling with letters serving as intimate vessels for messages of loss, change, and resilience.
We welcome the general public as well as creatives, artists, writers, architects, designers, students, and everyone interested in the topic of climate change. Suitable for all writing skill levels.
This workshop is facilitated by Leila Vignozzi, Intern, NTU CCA Singapore.
Saturday, 5 July 2025
2:00 – 4:00pm
The Hall, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
6 Lock Rd, #01-09/10 Gillman Barracks 108934
Inspired by Cosmorama (2018), one of four sections in the exhibition Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate, this third Drawing Club invites artists, architects, designers, and students to respond to the geostories of asteroid mining, orbital debris, and climate refuge in the age of the “New Space.”
The workshop zooms in on architectural drawing as practice to examine planetary issues such as satellite debris and airspace conflicts, that may seem distant from us. Participants will trace the macrocosmic consequences of extractive economies and of their politics beyond Singapore, and beyond the Earth itself, launching critical conversations into speculative drawings.
The annotated sketches produced during the workshop will be displayed at the NTU ADM Foyer until 13 August 2025, alongside the works produced at the previous Drawing Club.
Participants are encouraged to bring dry drawing media (markers, found images, etc) and reading references (articles, books, etc) to share, annotate, and get inspiration from during the session. No technical drawing experience needed.
This workshop is facilitated by Eunice Lacaste, Programmes Associate, NTU CCA Singapore.
Thursday, 7 August 2025. 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
ADM Gallery 2
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to present Nothing has to be the way it is, an exhibition featuring the artistic propositions created by Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng as part of their involvement in Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a five-month programme curated by Anna Lovecchio that interlaces artistic research, transdisciplinary encounters, and the formation of communities around shared interests to propel transformative understandings of technology.
The uncanny symbiosis between humans and the digital devices, interactive interfaces, online platforms, and global infrastructures that increasingly operate our lives is a defining feature of contemporary society. In these wired times of machine intelligence and computational acceleration, microchip wars and platform powers, the artworks featured in this exhibition cast a sideway look at techno-driven progress. Moving across different conceptual frameworks and a multiplicity of mediums, Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng share a common investment in reclaiming agency within the technosphere. They divert, possess, possibly disrupt the streamlined existence of technological artefacts through gestures that question the escalation of technological sovereignty and, ultimately, the role of technology in our lives. Purposefully, these artists do not position themselves at the edge of advanced technologies. Rather, they interfere with existing apparatuses and instil into them worldviews other than those that originally brought them about. The systems they envisioned proceed by appropriations and approximations, frictions and forays, scrambled codes and enigmatic conjectures. In the essay “It Doesn’t Have To Be the Way It Is” which inspired the title of this exhibition, Ursula K. Le Guin remarks that the subversive power of the imagination “gnaw(s) at the very foundation of the belief that things have to be the way they are”. Nothing has to be the way it is hints at the endless permutations of how things can be.
The exhibition will take place in The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore’s programme space nestled at the heart of the Research Centre and launched in September 2024. This event marks the first time The Hall hosts a group exhibition, bringing home the Centre’s longstanding commitment to dwell upon and experiment with the spaces of the curatorial.
As participants in Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng are conducting a residency at NTU CCA Singapore from October 2024 to February 2025. Revolving around critical engagements with the material, political, and spiritual layers of technology and the complexity of our relation to it, this multidimensional programme is a generative platform that provides artists with time, space, and resources to unravel their aesthetic inquiries and catalyse communities around their interests and creative processes.
Nothing has to be the way it is is couched between two series of public programmes— Empirical Workshops and the Transdisciplinary Lectures—developed in conversation with the artists themselves. Steeped in a do-it-yourself ethos, the Empirical Workshops took place in December 2024. Each workshop germinated by the artist’s own research and was aimed at creating knowledge through skill-sharing and the creative dabbling with raw materials. In Temporal Oscillations, Chok Si Xuan dived into the physics of circuitry and erratic electronics, teaching participants how to assemble common electronic components to modulate the flow of electricity and hijack standard systems of temporality. With METAL MACHINE MISCHIEF (or how to make noise music with bicycles), bani haykal took his workshop participants on an unconventional group ride. Through tinkering and drilling, cranking and whirring, discarded bicycle parts were assembled into unorthodox musical instruments activated in a final jam session that produced a one-of-a-kind audiovisual experience. Different wavelenghts resonated in Ong Kian Peng’s Natural Radio workshop where participants could explore a range of low frequency waves emitted by natural electromagnetic phenomena as a way to tune in to the inaudible voices of the environment.
Coming up in February 2025, the Transdisciplinary Lectures will bring the artists in conversations with philosophers, sociologists, scientists, and other creatives whose work significantly inspired them. Deepening the ramifications of their research in different disciplines, the Transdisciplinary Lectures will feature contributions by: Tiziano Bonini (Associate Professor, Sociology of Culture and Communication, University of Siena, Italy), Eugene Yew Siang Chua (Nanyang Assistant Professor of Philosophy, School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore), Lee Pooi See (Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, NTU, Singapore), Emiliano Treré (Beatriz Galindo Distinguished Professor, Language Theory and Communication Sciences, University of Valencia, Spain and Reader, Data Agency and Media Ecologies, Cardiff University, United Kingdom), and Boedi Widjaja (interdisciplinary artist, Singapore).
About Communities of Practice
Conceived as a seedbed for experimentation, Communities of Practice is a shapeshifting research platform that brings forth communities at the intersection of artistic practices. Holding a space where artistic research can develop through interdisciplinary collaborations, exchanges, and processes of co-creation, Communities of Practice advances the role of NTU CCA Singapore as convener, capacity builder, and incubator in the arts sector.
This workshop will explore how to use common electronic components to modulate the flow of electricity, assemble and hijack standard systems of temporality. Participants will learn how a 555 timer integrated circuit (IC) forms an astable multivibrator. The 555 timer IC is a tiny chip found in many everyday devices—blinking LED lights, kitchen timers, alarm systems, sound makers, etc.—that modulates the frequencies of electrical signals. The term ‘astable’ means ‘not stable’ because the circuit never settles into a single state, is a basic electronic circuit that generates a continuous oscillating output, switching between two voltage levels.
Working with pre-assembled circuits created by the artist, participants will be able to experiment with various components (small motors, LED lights, and speakers, etc) as outputs. Exploring the transformation of different forms of energy—chemical energy from batteries, mechanical energy , kinetic energy and byproduct thermal energy, the workshop accesses materiality as a manner of understanding the fundamental ways systems unfold.
Through engaging with electronic circuits in a hands-on and accessible way, participants can expect to develop a direct understanding of some visible and less visible aspects that power everyday technology. Participants are encouraged to bring their own components for experimentation. These may include battery-operated toys, LED lights or small light strips, buzzers or small speakers, direct current (DC) motors, small fans, switches or buttons, old electronic parts like sensors or wires, and similar items.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge of electronics is required.
“Riding bikes ain’t s#!+ without climate justice, without land back, without liberation of everybody.” Christina Torres, Cyclista Zine
The bicycle is more than just a means of transportation. In our increasingly car-centric and carbon-heavy lifestyle, cycling is a climate action that slows down the rate at which our planet is burning. Inspiring stories from Gaza have shown us how bicycles can be radically repurposed into washing machines, sewing machines, and even power generators.
In the first part of the workshop, participants will be offered a set of unused bicycle components and they will be guided to devise and conceptualise new musical or sonic instruments with them. In the second part, these unorthodox instruments will be played in a group jam session!
Participants are encouraged to bring personal items such as mallets, drumsticks, clarinet mouthpieces, and/or any musical bobs and bits they can incorporate into the instruments.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge or experience is required.
This workshop will introduce participants to natural radio. Natural radio is the emission of Very Low Frequency (VLF) and Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radio waves due to electromagnetic energy from natural phenomena. These emissions originate terrestrially from lightning and from the Sun’s interactions with the Earth’s magnetosphere, they are among the inaudible voices of the environment. If the low frequencies of these electromagnetic outbursts are transformed into acoustic waves, many of these signals may fall within the range of human hearing. Experiencing electromagnetic waves as acoustic waves will allow listeners to connect with the beauty and complexity of natural radio waves in a unique aural experience.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to assemble an analogue handheld radio device that tunes in to natural radio frequencies.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own headphones with a 3.5mm audio jack, along with an optional audio recorder to capture and share their auditory discoveries.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge of electronics is required.
What is reality? The models we use to conceptualise the world are increasingly under scrutiny, reshaped by the ecological crises of our time and the revelations of quantum theories. Classical distinctions between humans, non-humans, and objects are dissolving as we zoom in at the quantum level, revealing a world of entanglements and uncertainties. This event brings together artist Boedi Widjaja, whose practice explores the intangible and ephemeral, and philosopher of physics Eugene Chua, whose work delves into the complexities of quantum mechanics. Their presentations will be followed by a dialogue moderated by artist ong kian peng. The panel will unfold some intersections of art, science, and philosophy, offering new perspectives on how we perceive, construct, and engage with reality. Through this exchange, the audience will be offered new lenses for understanding the world and reimagine their place within a dynamic, interconnected cosmos.
This event is generated by ong kian peng within Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a research programme that aims to propel a transformative understanding of technology through artistic practices and transdisciplinary encounters.
Working across a broad range of mediums, including film, sound, VR, and electronics, ong kian peng (Singapore, 1981) situates his practice at the intersection of art, technology and ecology. His work explores ecological thinking through immersive multi-media environments and installations that address environmental crises, climate change, and the expanding field of human-technology interactions. Delving into the complex relationship between culture, nature, and technology, he creates visionary scenarios and raises existential questions about our role in shaping the future of a vulnerable planet. His work has been featured in international exhibitions and festivals such as, most recently, Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria, 2024) and Singapore Biennale (2022). In 2017, he co-founded Supernormal.space, an independent art space focusing on emerging and experimental art practices. He was awarded the President’s Young Talents award in 2015. He is currently a PhD candidate at the NTU School of Art, Design and Media and a recipient of the NTU Research Scholarship.
Today, a growing number of social interactions, economic transactions, political engagements, and affective relations are enabled and regulated by a global network of online platforms operated through algorithms. As algorithmic infrastructures become enmeshed in the fabric of society, more and more aspects of everyday life are being captured and released in data streams that feed digital entities unilaterally coded and controlled by profit-driven tech companies. Through extensive online and offline fieldwork conducted across the Global North and the Global South, Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Treré—co-authors of Algorithms of Resistance. The Everyday Fight Against Platform Power (The MIT Press, 2024)—ventured into uncharted alghoritmic territories. They encountered forms of agency, practices of resistance, and bonds of solidarity enacted by users who negotiate their own terms of existence within the platform regime. In this lecture, the speakers will reflect on how grassroots practices can spark emancipatory frictions that reinvent and disrupt the uneven power relation between users and platforms.
This event is generated by bani haykal within Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a research programme that aims to propel a transformative understanding of technology through artistic practices and transdisciplinary synergies.
The artistic practice of Chok Si Xuan (b. 1998, Singapore) is driven by a deep fascination for the complex relations that enmesh technology in the everyday. Exploring ways in which technology, machines, and industrial materials shape contemporary subjectivities and corporealities, her growing body of work features composite sculptures and kinetic installations that coalesce odd circuitries, feedback systems, found electronics, and material components of common technological devices. She is currently pursuing a degree in electronics engineering to gain a deeper understanding of the material nature of electronics and electricity. Her work has been shown in and commissioned by institutions such as ArtScience Museum (2024), Singapore Art Museum and Esplanade (both 2023) as well as independent art spaces in Singapore.
Image: Portrait of Chok Si Xuan. Photo by Kee Ya Ting. Courtesy NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.
Lecture by Professor Pooi See Lee (Singapore), followed by a conversation with artist Chok Si Xuan (Singapore)
Will electronics become flexible and soft? As technological advances shrink systems and transition from hard robots to soft machines, how will this affect the way we understand and relate to the devices we interact with?
Professor Lee Pooi See, whose research delves into human-machine interface, hybrid materials for soft robotics, and nanostructures, will share about the influences and current trajectories of material sciences and human-machine interfaces articulating her insights into the future of a softer and smaller world of technology. In conversation with Chok Si Xuan, the scientist and the artist will discuss the implications of a world driven by mechanisms that escape human vision and they will exchange ideas about the relational qualities of interfaces and the rise of biomimicry in the realm of technological innovation.
This event is generated by Chok Si Xuan within Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a research programme that aims to propel a transformative understanding of technology through artistic practices and transdisciplinary encounters.
Professor Pooi See Lee is the President’s Chair Professor in Materials Science & Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her current research focuses on soft electronics and energy devices, human-machine interface, sensors and actuators, soft robotics and healthtech. Professor Lee received the Nanyang Research Award in 2016, the Nanyang Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award in 2018. She was an awardee of the NRF Investigatorship 2016. She received the SNIC – AsCA2019 Distinguished Woman Chemist Award 2022. She was elected National Academy of Inventors Fellow in 2020, RSC Fellow 2022 and the MRS Fellow 2022.
What drives an artist to reconfigure the inner mechanisms of devices we have grown increasingly reliant upon? What acts of mobilisation can an artist perform within existing technological infrastructures to cultivate different types of cultural, social, and emotional agency? Can the artistic imagination interrogate the spiritual dimensions of technology and respond to escalating environmental crises determined by society’s current course of development?
In this joint talk, artists Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng reflect upon how these and other similar questions have oriented recent developments in their practices. By addressing structural opacities and power structures, and by fostering an ecological understanding of the relation between humans and technology, their work illuminates some dark corners of fast-paced technological advancement and experiments with alternative forms of being within existing structures. Their research is currently unfolding within the framework of Techno Diversions, the inaugural iteration of NTU CCA Singapore’s research platform Communities of Practice.
Communities of Practice fosters interdisciplinary collaborations and the coming together of communities around shared interests. It situates NTU CCA Singapore as an interdisciplinary body within the research-driven core of Nanyang Technological University, advancing its role as convener, capacity builder, and leading incubator in the arts sector.
Saturday 9 November, 3:00 – 4:30pm
The Hall
NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-10
Gillman Barracks, 108934
The first iteration of NTU CCA Singapore’s new research platform, Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions convenes three Singaporean artists—Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng—whose practice engage with the material, cultural, and emotional layers of technology, its evolving role in contemporary life, and the complexity of our relation to it. As a multidimensional platform that entwines artistic research, experimentation, and the formation of communities across shared interests, Techno Diversions aims to propel a transformative understanding of what technology is through the lens of artistic practices that pursue the renewal of our agency within the technosphere and the re-enchantment with its tools. In an increasingly techno-driven society, these artists embrace the urgency to think critically about the conceptual parameters and material manifestations of technological progress charting new paths of significance by creative acts of repurposing, disrupting, and re-envisioning commonly accepted ideas and existing devices.
As participants in the programme, the artists are offered a five-month residency at the NTU CCA Singapore Research Centre from October 2024 to February 2025 and the agency to shape a research framework in ways that are conducive to the advancement of their practice. The research framework may entail seminars, screenings, peer-oriented sessions, workshops or other programmes engaging interlocutors from various fields. Oriented towards the production and circulation of knowledge, these gatherings will be organised in close collaboration with the participating artists with the goal to unravel their aesthetic inquiries while also catalysing communities and propelling public discourse around the subjects and methodologies of their research.
The programme will culminate with the production of new artworks that will be presented in an exhibition at NTU CCA Singapore during the Singapore Art Week 2025 (17 – 26 January 2025).
Communities of Practice. Techno Diversionsis curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Programmes.
About Communities of Practice
Conceived as seedbed for experimentation, Communities of Practice is a shapeshifting research platform that brings forth communities at the intersection of artistic practices. Holding a communal space where artistic research can develop through interdisciplinary collaborations, exchanges, and processes of co-creation, Communities of Practice situates NTU CCA Singapore within the research-driven core of Nanyang Technological University by configuring the Centre as an interdisciplinary body and advancing its role as convener, capacity builder, and leading-edge incubator in the arts sector.
Exhibition from 17 to 26 January 2025
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to present Nothing has to be the way it is, an exhibition featuring the artistic propositions created by Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng as part of their involvement in Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a five-month programme curated by Anna Lovecchio that interlaces artistic research, transdisciplinary encounters, and the formation of communities around shared interests to propel transformative understandings of technology.
The uncanny symbiosis between humans and the digital devices, interactive interfaces, online platforms, and global infrastructures that increasingly operate our lives is a defining feature of contemporary society. In these wired times of machine intelligence and computational acceleration, microchip wars and platform powers, the artworks featured in this exhibition cast a sideway look at techno-driven progress. Moving across different conceptual frameworks and a multiplicity of mediums, Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng share a common investment in reclaiming agency within the technosphere. They divert, possess, possibly disrupt the undisturbed existence of technological artefacts through gestures that question the escalation of technological sovereignty and, ultimately, the role of technology in our lives. Purposefully, these artists do not position themselves at the edge of advanced technologies. Rather, they interfere with existing apparatuses and instil into them worldviews other than those that originally brought them about. The systems they envisioned proceed by appropriations and approximations, frictions and forays, scrambled codes and enigmatic conjectures. In the essay “It Doesn’t Have To Be the Way It Is” which inspired the title of this exhibition, Ursula K. Le Guin remarks that the subversive power of the imagination “gnaw(s) at the very foundation of the belief that things have to be the way they are”. Nothing has to be the way it is hints at the endless permutations of how things can be.
Nothing has to be the way it is will take place in The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore’s programme space nestled at the heart of the Research Centre and launched in September 2024. This event marks the first time The Hall hosts a group exhibition, bringing home the Centre’s longstanding commitment to dwell upon and experiment with the spaces of the curatorial.
As participants in Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng are conducting a residency at NTU CCA Singapore from October 2024 to February 2025. Revolving around critical engagements with the material, political, and spiritual layers of technology and the complexity of our relation to it, this multidimensional programme is a generative platform that provides artists with time, space, and resources to unravel their aesthetic inquiries and catalyse communities around their interests and creative processes.
The exhibition is couched between two series of public programmes— Empirical Workshops and the Transdisciplinary Lectures—developed in conversation with the artists themselves. Steeped in a do-it-yourself ethos, the Empirical Workshops took place in December 2024. Each workshop germinated by the artist’s own research and was aimed at creating knowledge through skill-sharing and the creative dabbling with raw materials. In Temporal Oscillations, Chok Si Xuan dived into the physics of circuitry and erratic electronics, teaching participants how to assemble common electronic components to modulate the flow of electricity and hijack standard systems of temporality. With METAL MACHINE MISCHIEF (or how to make noise music with bicycles), bani haykal took his workshop participants on an unconventional group ride. Through tinkering and drilling, cranking and whirring, discarded bicycle parts were assembled into unorthodox musical instruments activated in a final jam session that produced a one-of-a-kind audiovisual experience. Different wavelenghts resonated in Ong Kian Peng’s Natural Radio workshop where participants could explore a range of low frequency waves emitted by natural electromagnetic phenomena as a way to tune in to the inaudible voices of the environment.
Coming up in February 2025, the Transdisciplinary Lectures will bring the artists in conversations with philosophers, sociologists, scientists, and other creatives whose work significantly inspired them. Deepening the ramifications of their research in different disciplines, the Transdisciplinary Lectures will feature contributions by: Tiziano Bonini (Associate Professor, Sociology of Culture and Communication, University of Siena, Italy), Eugene Yew Siang Chua (Nanyang Assistant Professor of Philosophy, School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore), Lee Pooi See (Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, NTU, Singapore), Emiliano Treré (Beatriz Galindo Distinguished Professor, Language Theory and Communication Sciences, University of Valencia, Spain and Reader, Data Agency and Media Ecologies, Cardiff University, United Kingdom), and Boedi Widjaja (interdisciplinary artist, Singapore).
17 to 26 January 2025
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00 – 7:00pm
Friday 24 and Saturday 25 January, 12:00 – 10:00pm
Closed on Monday
Curator Tours
Saturday 18 January, 3:00pm and 5:00pm
Artists Tour
Saturday 25 January, 3:00 – 4:00pm
The Hall
NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, 108934
Part Of
by Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng
What drives an artist to reconfigure the inner mechanisms of devices we have grown increasingly reliant upon? What acts of mobilisation can an artist perform within existing technological infrastructures to cultivate different types of cultural, social, and emotional agency? Can the artistic imagination interrogate the spiritual dimensions of technology and respond to escalating environmental crises determined by society’s current course of development?
In this joint talk, artists Chok Si Xuan, bani haykal, and Ong Kian Peng reflect upon how these and other similar questions have oriented recent developments in their practices. By addressing structural opacities and power structures, and by fostering an ecological understanding of the relation between humans and technology, their work illuminates some dark corners of fast-paced technological advancement and experiments with alternative forms of being within existing structures. Their research is currently unfolding within the framework of Techno Diversions, the inaugural iteration of NTU CCA Singapore’s research platform Communities of Practice.
Communities of Practice fosters interdisciplinary collaborations and the coming together of communities around shared interests. It situates NTU CCA Singapore as an interdisciplinary body within the research-driven core of Nanyang Technological University, advancing its role as convener, capacity builder, and leading incubator in the arts sector.
Saturday, 9 November 2024, 3.00 – 4.30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, 108934
EMPIRICAL WORKSHOPS
This workshop will introduce participants to natural radio. Natural radio is the emission of Very Low Frequency (VLF) and Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radio waves due to electromagnetic energy from natural phenomena. These emissions originate terrestrially from lightning and from the Sun’s interactions with the Earth’s magnetosphere, they are among the inaudible voices of the environment. If the low frequencies of these electromagnetic outbursts are transformed into acoustic waves, many of these signals may fall within the range of human hearing. Experiencing electromagnetic waves as acoustic waves will allow listeners to connect with the beauty and complexity of natural radio waves in a unique aural experience.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to assemble an analogue handheld radio device that tunes in to natural radio frequencies.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own headphones with a 3.5mm audio jack, along with an optional audio recorder to capture and share their auditory discoveries.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge of electronics is required.
Saturday, 21 December 2024, 2 – 5pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
METAL MACHINE MISCHIEF (or how to make noise music with bicycles) by bani haykal
“Riding bikes ain’t s#!+ without climate justice, without land back, without liberation of everybody”
Christina Torres, Cyclista Zine
The bicycle is more than just a means of transportation. In our increasingly car-centric and carbon-heavy lifestyle, cycling is a climate action that slows down the rate at which our planet is burning. Inspiring stories from Gaza have shown us how bicycles can be radically repurposed into washing machines, sewing machines, and even power generators.
In the first part of the workshop, participants will be offered a set of unused bicycle components gathered by artist bani haykal and they will be guided to devise and conceptualise new musical or sonic instruments with them. In the second part, these unorthodox instruments will be played in a group jam session!
Participants are encouraged to bring personal items such as mallets, drumsticks, clarinet mouthpieces, and/or any musical bobs and bits they can incorporate into the instruments.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge or experience is required.
Saturday, 7 December 2024, 10:30am – 12:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
Temporal Oscillations. Electronics workshop led by artist Chok Si Xuan
This workshop will explore how to use common electronic components to modulate the flow of electricity, assemble and hijack standard systems of temporality. Participants will learn how a 555 timer integrated circuit (IC) forms an astable multivibrator. The 555 timer IC is a tiny chip found in many everyday devices—blinking LED lights, kitchen timers, alarm systems, sound makers, etc.—that modulates the frequencies of electrical signals. The term ‘astable’ means ‘not stable’ because the circuit never settles into a single state, is a basic electronic circuit that generates a continuous oscillating output, switching between two voltage levels.
Working with pre-assembled circuits created by artist Chok Si Xuan, participants will be able to experiment with various components (small motors, LED lights, and speakers, etc) as outputs. Exploring the transformation of different forms of energy—chemical energy from batteries, mechanical energy , kinetic energy and byproduct thermal energy, the workshop accesses materiality as a manner of understanding the fundamental ways systems unfold.
Through engaging with electronic circuits in a hands-on and accessible way, participants can expect to develop a direct understanding of some visible and less visible aspects that power everyday technology. Participants are encouraged to bring their own components for experimentation. These may include battery-operated toys, LED lights or small light strips, buzzers or small speakers, direct current (DC) motors, small fans, switches or buttons, old electronic parts like sensors or wires, and similar items.
This workshop is part of the Empirical Workshop Series of Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions.
This workshop is suitable for age 18 and above.
No prior knowledge of electronics is required.
Saturday, 7 December 2024, 10:30am – 12:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
Transdisciplinary Lectures
Presentations by Dr Eugene Chua (Singapore) and Boedi Widjaja (Indonesia/Singapore) followed by a conversation with ong kian peng (Singapore)
What is reality? The models we use to conceptualise the world are increasingly under scrutiny, reshaped by the ecological crises of our time and the revelations of quantum theories. Classical distinctions between humans, non-humans, and objects are dissolving as we zoom in at the quantum level, revealing a world of entanglements and uncertainties. This event brings together artist Boedi Widjaja, whose practice explores the intangible and ephemeral, and philosopher of physics Eugene Chua, whose work delves into the complexities of quantum mechanics. Their presentations will be followed by a dialogue moderated by artist ong kian peng. The panel will unfold some intersections of art, science, and philosophy, offering new perspectives on how we perceive, construct, and engage with reality. Through this exchange, the audience will be offered new lenses for understanding the world and reimagine their place within a dynamic, interconnected cosmos.
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
7 – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
Lecture by Professor Pooi See Lee (Singapore), followed by a conversation with artist Chok Si Xuan (Singapore)
Will electronics become flexible and soft? As technological advances shrink systems and transition from hard robots to soft machines, how will this affect the way we understand and relate to the devices we interact with?
Professor Lee Pooi See, whose research delves into human-machine interface, hybrid materials for soft robotics, and nanostructures, will share about the influences and current trajectories of material sciences and human-machine interfaces articulating her insights into the future of a softer and smaller world of technology. In conversation with Chok Si Xuan, the scientist and the artist will discuss the implications of a world driven by mechanisms that escape human vision and they will exchange ideas about the relational qualities of interfaces and the rise of biomimicry in the realm of technological innovation.
This event is generated by Chok Si Xuan within Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a research programme that aims to propel a transformative understanding of technology through artistic practices and transdisciplinary encounters.
Wednesday, 19 February 2025
7 – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
Algorithms of Resistance. Tracing tactics of agency and solidarity within platform society
Online lecture by Tiziano Bonini (Italy) and Emiliano Treré (Italy/United Kingdom) followed by a conversation with bani haykal (Singapore)
oday, a growing number of social interactions, economic transactions, political engagements, and affective relations are enabled and regulated by a global network of online platforms operated through algorithms. As algorithmic infrastructures become enmeshed in the fabric of society, more and more aspects of everyday life are being captured and released in data streams that feed digital entities unilaterally coded and controlled by profit-driven tech companies. Through extensive online and offline fieldwork conducted across the Global North and the Global South, Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Treré—co-authors of Algorithms of Resistance. The Everyday Fight Against Platform Power (The MIT Press, 2024)—ventured into uncharted alghoritmic territories. They encountered forms of agency, practices of resistance, and bonds of solidarity enacted by users who negotiate their own terms of existence within the platform regime. In this lecture, the speakers will reflect on how grassroots practices can spark emancipatory frictions that reinvent and disrupt the uneven power relation between users and platforms.
This event is generated by bani haykal within Communities of Practice. Techno Diversions, a research programme that aims to propel a transformative understanding of technology through artistic practices and transdisciplinary synergies.
Wednesday, 26 February 2025
7 – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 108934
Ceci n’est pas une exposition. This is not an exhibition. Perhaps this sounds like a counter-intuitive way to introduce an exhibition, or a space like this that has a lot in common with exhibitions.
So if this is not an exhibition, what is it? The French word “expérience,” sounds like the English word “experience,” but translates to “experiment.” It is definitely both an experiment and an experience. It is also a project, comprising interactive gallery-based installations and the activation of the ideas explored in those installations through related programmes. We borrow the idea that “Ceci n’est pas…” or “this is not…what it seems to be” from the Belgian artist René Magritte (1898-1967). Hopefully, this invites us to think about what is possible when one looks beyond what seems to be, and instead thinks about what could be.
Ceci n’est pas une exhibition, but it is art, it is science, it is play, it is imagination, it is nature, it is technology, and it is, above all, an invitation, and a space to be activated by your presence and participation.
This project presents the work of Dr Isabelle Desjeux, an artist, scientist, and educator who spent 25 years in Singapore, from 1999 to 2024. The project is simultaneously a reflection on her training as a molecular biologist, her experiences making art and building community, and a proposition for things that are yet to come. Things that she will do, and things that she hopes that you will take in new directions. Now, having recently relocated to Sweden, she is certain that some aspects of her practice in Singapore will adapt to her new environment, and some will not be transplantable.
Desjeux’s interests in following questions down meandering paths, tapping into curiosity about the environment, and in sharing meaningful experiences with others are common threads throughout her work for the past 25 years. This project invites you to be part of these experiences—not by simply viewing or learning from the installation areas within the gallery, but by participating in them, and making them your own. If you are ready to start down some meandering paths, you should stop reading here, and jump right into the experiment!
For those of you who are interested to learn more, here are a few more facts and speculations about this work, and the artist-scientist behind them.
The works in these galleries are just some of the many projects that Isabelle embarked upon while in Singapore. They were selected for this presentation as some of the pieces that best embody her way of working by collaborating with and learning from others; her interest in iterating projects in different spaces and contexts; and her genuine curiosity for the world.
Isabelle enjoys the quote by filmmaker Agnes Varda that, “I don’t want to show things, but give people the desire to see.”
You might see evidence of Isabelle’s own interest in giving people the “desire to see” in her work with lenses and modes of refracting images. In her playful explorations of cameras through low-tech manipulations of light inside the gallery you will find variations on the camera obscura – the term for a “dark chamber” in Latin and an important ancestor of the photographic camera that dates back to antiquity. The simple design of a camera obscura projects an inverted image of the outside world into a darkened space via a small opening.
Isabelle’s series of cameras obscura include both small scale sculptural objects designed to be worn over the viewer’s head (her series of papier-maché cameras include a teapot and several objects that look like aquatic creatures!) and larger-scale chambers that visitors can step inside. Her experiments with pinhole cameras operate on the same principle, using a small light-proof chamber containing light-sensitive paper and the timed uncovering of a small pinhole to expose that paper and make it a photograph – an image “written in light.” To see the image, this paper would have to be developed in a darkroom, which is another one of Isabelle’s objects that you will encounter: a light proof box that is small enough to carry out into the world. This wooden crate has been outfitted with the legs of well-worn jeans to cover the photographer’s arms and a small red viewing window that allows viewers to peer at the evolving photograph inside while filtering out the wavelengths of light that would overexpose the paper inside. Like many of her objects, this one begs multiple questions. Is it a work of engineering? A work of design? A work of art? Is it a tool to create something else, or an object of curiosity in its own right?
In the section dedicated to cameras, you will also find a fuchsia jumpsuit worn by Isabelle on her daily visits to neighbourhood community spaces for the Lengkok Bahru Pinhole Project (2019). Can an article of clothing be a way of making images? Is the invitation for community members to co-create photographs about the images themselves, or the relationships that can be formed by coming together to look at the world differently?
Nearby to the artists’ cameras, we find the Insect Inventorium (2023-2024), presented as a collaboration with the artist Quek See Yee. This project involves looking at and getting to know insects that have already been studied by entomologists, then using materials gathered from the natural world to imagine and visualise insects that might someday be discovered or known to us. Is the artist-scientist’s role to observe, or to speculate? Is it possible to do one without the other? Is science, or art, a fundamentally solitary endeavour, or a group activity?
On the other side of the gallery’s partition wall, an assortment of Isabelle’s “interactive objects” including a scarecrow and a large bird mask, bring up slightly different questions about our modes of engaging with the world around us. Does a functional scarecrow, activated by the weight of birds resting on it, protect us from or bring us in dialogue with our avian neighbours? How can interactivity remind us of how we are animals and sensory beings, part of the ecosystems in which we live?
In another section of the gallery, we encounter the House of Weeds (2020-2024), presented as a collaboration with the artist Debbie Ding. This project explores local weeds as botanical specimens brought together as subjects to be observed and investigated (especially by small observers of the world!), and as components of a sonic machine that integrates these plants into its electrical circuitry. Is it an interactive art installation? An educational experience? An example of citizen science? A carefully engineered series of surprises?
At the entrance to the gallery, we find Heavealogy – a series of works related to the study of the Parà rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. This series is simultaneously an investigation and portrait of the plant itself, including its exploding seeds, and research into why and how this type of tree was planted in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. It also provokes questions of what our understanding of this plant might mean for our future, and the future of the ecosystem in which it grows. In 1000 Rubber Seeds and One Mutant (2014), one of the works in this series, we see some of the threads of Isabelle’s practice woven together—her facility with photographic imaging, her curiosity for the interactions of nature and culture in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and her experience as scientific researcher with extensive knowledge of genetics. All of this is brought together by her humorous sensibility and penchant for finding inspiration and true beauty in the absurd and the counterintuitive. An artist-scientist who has operated in the formal and informal spaces of both art and science, and someone who has been part of the Institute of Unnecessary Research as the Head of Failure and later the Head of Curiosity Awareness, Isabelle Desjeux asks questions, experiments with process, gleefully deviates from plans, and invites others to do the same. In the artists’ book written to accompany the Heavealogy project in 2018 she invites and implores her readers to: “Ask questions with CURIOSITY, seek answers with EXCITEMENT, but leave a place for FAILURE in your interpretations.”
4 October – 7 November 2024
Free Entrance
Gallery, Level 2
Alliance Française de Singapour
Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday: 1.00 pm – 7.30 pm
Saturday: 9.00 am – 5.00 pm
Artist
Dr Isabelle Desjeux, artist-scientist
Collaborators
Quek See Yee, multidisciplinary designer and art practitioner
Debbie Ding, an artist-scholar
Exhibition Curator
Karin G. Oen
Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
Ng Mei Jia is currently Research Associate at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, managing the research projects Climate Transformation Programme (2024–2030), Developing and Evaluating Digital Tools for Participatory Climate Change Mitigation (2025–2026) and a research assistant on Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss (2021–2024), Environmentally-Engaged Artistic Practices in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (2021–2023), and Understanding Southeast Asia as a ‘Geocultural’ Formation (2021–2023). She was previously a Project Officer (Intangible Cultural Heritage) at the National Heritage Board, Singapore. Mei Jia holds an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.
