Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union Archives - NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

Drawing from oral histories and unwritten memories, the works of Saroot Supasuthivech unearth the multiplicity of narratives embedded in specific locations. His installations often combine moving image and sound to conjure the affective aura of a site and bring forth its intangible socio-historical stratifications. Using photogrammetry techniques, he turns 2D images into 3D models as a way of to blur the lines between the real and the mythical. His latest video installation, River Kwai: This Memorial Service Was Held in the Memory of the Deceased (2022), was featured in the Discoveries Section at Art Basel Hong Kong 2022.

The multimedia practice of Ngoc Nau encompasses photography, holograms, and Augmented Reality (AR) and she is currently working with 3D software and other open source technologies to create new possibilities for video installation. In Nau’s work, different materials and techniques attempt to capture the subtle ways in which new media shape and dictate our views of reality. Blending traditional culture and spiritual beliefs with modern technologies and lifestyles, her work often responds to Vietnam’s accelerated urban development. She has participated in several exhibitions across Asia, including the Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021) and the Singapore Biennale (2019) among others. She also participated in documenta 15, Kassel, Germany (2022) with Sa Sa Art Projects.

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and the European Union Delegation to Singapore are pleased to present the exhibition Hoo Fan Chon, Citra Sasmita, Vuth Lyno: New Works. The exhibition marks the culmination of the first cycle of SEA AiR—Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR). As participating artists in the inaugural cycle of SEA AiR, Hoo Fan Chon (Malaysia), Citra Sasmita (Indonesia), and Vuth Lyno (Cambodia) have each been awarded a three-month-long residency at an art institution in Europe as well as funding for the creation of artworks.

Stemming out of a year-long engagement, Hoo Fan Chon, Citra Sasmita, Vuth Lyno: New Works is the outcome of a multifaceted process made of journeys and institutional collaborations, fieldwork and encounters, research and artmaking.

In the first half of 2022, amidst unrelenting surges of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the artists took off from their home countries to conduct three-month-long residencies: Hoo Fan Chon at HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (Finland); Citra Sasmita at WIELS (Brussels, Belgium); and Vuth Lyno at Villa Arson (Nice, France). The artworks featured in the exhibition Hoo Fan Chon, Citra Sasmita, Vuth Lyno: New Works have been created by the artists in the months following their residencies, a much-needed time for critical reflection and material experimentation that allowed them to develop their research findings and creative inspiration into full-fledged artworks. Ranging from installation and video to sculpture and painting, some of these works also mark these artists’ first attempts at embracing new mediums and materials: 3D animation techniques for Hoo Fan Chon, video for Citra Sasmita, and paper for Vuth Lyno. Most importantly, they bear witness to how the artists’ interests in the cosmetics of food, cultural contaminations, decolonial practices, the empowerment of women, and the resilience of marginalised communities, have evolved over the last year.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Assistant Director (Programmes), and NTU CCA Singapore. The project leader of SEA AiR is Ute Meta Bauer Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University.

SEA AiR—Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union is funded by the European Union.

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents the second-cycle exhibition of SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR), a programme developed by NTU CCA Singapore and funded by the European Union. Titled Passages, this exhibition features new works by artists Priyageetha Dia (Singapore), Ngoc Nau (Vietnam) and Saroot Supasuthivech (Thailand), inspired by their three-month-long residencies in Europe.

As part of the SEA AiR programme, Dia had undertaken her residency at Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands), Nau at Rupert (Lithuania) and Supasuthivech at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany) through the summer. During their time in Europe, they were also funded for field trips supporting further inquiry into their respective areas of research. Passages speak of the three artists’ journeys across geographical and cultural boundaries from one continent to another; the cultural exchanges that take place during this time; and the continuous development of ideas as they return to their home countries to create new works for the exhibition in Singapore.

Employing new media technologies to aid their storytelling, each artist creates speculative narratives that traverse time and space, shifting between the past and present. Dia’s research on the colonial impact on Malayan plantations is manifested through soundscapes; Nau’s video work navigates the fast-changing urban and social landscape in Vietnam against a backdrop of its Socialist past and Supasuthivech’s installation traces the evolution of Thai funerary rituals and practices as they travel. While distinct in their artistic research and practices, their works evoke memories and explore meanings in liminal spaces, reverberating in their journey from one passage to the next.

Passages will be held through Singapore Art Week 2024, with a public programme taking place on 20 January 2024. Details will be updated here.

SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union is made possible thanks to a generous grant of the European Union.

Passages
SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union
Cycle 2 Exhibition

Opening reception:
28 November 2023, 6–9pm
Refreshments will be served

Opening hours:
1 December 2023 – 14 January 2024: Friday – Sunday, 1–7pm
19 – 28 January 2024: Tuesday – Sunday, 1–7pm
20 and 27 January 2024: Saturday, 1–9pm
Closed on 24, 25, 31 December 2023 and 1 January 2024

NTU CCA Singapore Residencies Studios
Block 38 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks
Singapore 109441

Priyageetha Dia is an arts practitioner who experiments with time-based media, 3D animation and game engine software. Her practice addresses the transnational migration of ethnic communities and the intersections of the colonial production with land, labour and capital in Southeast Asia through speculative methods and counter-narratives. She has been invited to participate in several exhibitions including the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2022); Attention Seeker, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Australia (2022); An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season, National Gallery Singapore (2020); 2219: Futures Imagined, ArtScience Museum Singapore (2019). She was a recipient of the IMPART Art Award in 2019.

The migratory movements of her ancestral lineage from Southern India to Malaysia, and later to Singapore, sparked Priyageetha’s deep-seated engagement in South Asian diasporic histories, the labour relations that underlie plantation agriculture in Malaya and the vast terrain of colonial narratives. Interweaving these research threads in her multimedia practice, her works figure alternative histories that empower subaltern forms of existence.

During her residency at Jan Van Eyck Academie, the artist is interested in delving deeper into the emergence and expansion of agro-industrial plantation projects, the dispossession and displacement of lands and communities in Southeast Asia, and their relation to The Netherlands through archival research. Moreover, the residency will provide her with a supportive environment to articulate critical viewpoints and counter-narratives through her ongoing and self-led experiments with computer-generated imagery (CGI), animation technologies and game engine software while also allowing her to gain an understanding of issues related to contemporary transnational interactions within Southeast Asia and Europe.

For his residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Saroot Supasuthivech will research the encounters of cultures, faiths and rituals among immigrant communities and local inhabitants. He is especially interested in the spiritual beliefs and ceremonial traditions by which humans ritualise the moment of death. With a focus on the historical impact of immigration on funerary practices across different regional and religious contexts, the artist will survey specific burial sites and rituals in Germany and Thailand looking at how foreign communities enact their funerary traditions abroad.

Major sites of interest for his research are the Protestant Cemetery in Bangkok and the Kurpark (Spa Park) in Bad Homburg, the only town outside of Thailand that features two Sala Thai (open pavilions). The Sala were gifted to the city of Bad Homburg by King Chulalongkorn of Siam (1853 to 1910) as a token of gratitude after the monarch’s illness was healed in the spa town in 1907. From the materials gathered through field trips, interviews and archival research, the artist plans to develop a video installation that will convey the mystical structures of those sites as well as the spiritual intersections engendered by global migrations.

During the residency, Ngoc Nau intends to research the impact of urbanisation and modernisation on contemporary living conditions, collective memories, traditional practices, and the natural landscape. Situating herself within the creative community of Rupert will allow her to explore Lithuanian cultural landscape and to access a new trove of materials, including oral traditions, historical archives, and ritual ceremonies. Through encounters will the local community, she intends to unearth the traditional values and ancient practices that have been lost to industrial and technological advancements in order to come to a better understanding of how different communities configure their values and identities within the fast-changing landscape of today. Nau is particularly interested in the gaps created by modern development in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and she plans to experiment with new media technologies to imagine modes of being that reconcile the past and the future.

Spanning moving image, sculpture, as well as performative installations, Priyageetha Dia (b. 1992, Singapore) addresses identity politics by questioning dominant narratives and socio-spatial relations. In the past few years, her practice has been consistently experimenting with a variety of world-making gestures that envision alternative futures. Her works have been part of several group exhibitions including, Attention Seeker, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Australia (2022); An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season, National Gallery Singapore (2020); 2219: Futures Imagined, ArtScience Museum Singapore (2019). She was a recipient of the IMPART Art Award in 2019.