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
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.
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore) presents the two-part research presentation Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss. First unfolding at TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space in Venice, Italy, the research inquiry later materialises in another configuration at ADM Gallery, a university gallery under the School of Art, Design, and Media (NTU ADM) at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
This twofold exhibition marks the conclusion of the eponymous research project led by Principal Investigator Ute Meta Bauer at NTU ADM. The inquiry started by asking: how has the slow erosion of diverse, multicultural, and more-than-human ways of living over time impacted the environments in which we live, and what are the longer-term consequences on habitats? Can we begin again with culture, to induce a necessary paradigm shift in the way we think about and respond to the climate crisis? Extending connections and conversations seeded during the inaugural cycle of TBA21–Academy’s The Current fellowship programme led by Bauer from 2015 to 2018, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss continues to build archipelagic networks across the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, deepening existing collaborations with Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies in Fiji, and developing new ones further in the South Pacific Ocean, through the art and media non-profit organisation Further Arts in Vanuatu.
Bridging conversations from the Pacific to Singapore in the Riau Archipelago, former fellows of TBA21–Academy’s The Currentand current research collaborators artist Nabil Ahmed, social anthropologist Guigone Camus, artist Kristy H.A. Kang, legal scholar Hervé Raimana Lallemant-Moe, and artists Armin Linke and Lisa Rave, join Singapore-based researchers Co-Investigator Sang-Ho Yun and Denny Chee of the Earth Observatory of Singapore – Remote Sensing Lab (EOS–RS) and the Asian School of the Environment, NTU ADM research staff Soh Kay Min and Ng Mei Jia, historian Jonathan Galka, and community organiser Firdaus Sani, as they explore the impacts of extreme weather, rising seas, climate displacement, ocean resource extraction, and the disappearance of material cultural traditions, occurring across what the visionary Pacific thinker Epeli Hau’ofa has termed “our sea of islands.” Featuring interviews, data visualisations, documentation, writings, and artisanal crafts made in collaboration with or generously gifted to the research team by knowledge bearers, community leaders, scientists, scholars, and artists, including writer and curator Frances Vaka’uta, masi artist Igatolo Latu,human rights defender Anne Pakoa and anthropologist Cynthia Chou, the exhibitions present the rich, complex, and multi-layered research findings accumulated over three years, since the Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss project first started in 2021.
At TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space, the Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss research inquiry sits adjacent to the exhibition Restor(y)ing Oceania, comprising two new site-specific commissions by Latai Taumoepeau and Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta. Curated by Bougainville-born artist Taloi Havini, whose curatorial vision is guided by an ancestral call-and-response method, the exhibition materialises as a search for solidarity and kinship in uncertain times, in order to slow down the clock on extraction and counter it with reverence for the life of the Ocean.
At ADM Gallery, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss is presented alongside the companion show Sensing Nature, curated by Gallery Director Michelle Ho. The exhibition showcases artists representing diverse disciplines, each offering their interpretation of the natural world and its intersection with urban life. Through reflection and experimentation, these works invite viewers to reassess our perceptions and behaviors toward the environment and phenomena beyond human influence. They advocate for a renewed understanding of society’s connection to nature and the land.
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss is supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 grant. The research presentation at Ocean Space coincides with the 60th International Art Biennale in Venice, Italy, with public programmes taking place through the exhibition durations in both Venice and Singapore.
Opening Dates
Ocean Space exhibition preview:
March 22, 6pm
Ocean Space, Venice, Chiesa di San Lorenzo Castello
Opening hours
March 23–October 13, 2024: Wednesday to Sunday, 11am–6pm
Ocean Space
Chiesa di San Lorenzo Castello 5069, Venice
April 12–May 24, 2024: Monday to Friday, 10am–5pm
ADM Gallery
81 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637458
This project examines how climate crisis and cultural loss interconnect. The core objective is the co-production of knowledge that can lead to a changed understanding of environmental justice, which, in turn, will suggest changes in existing legal and policy frameworks. The project hypothesises that a fundamental connection between people and their environments has been lost in contemporary urban contexts, resulting in feelings of indifference towards the climate crisis or unexplained feelings of climate anxiety.
It deploys a research team with transdisciplinary methods to build on emerging environmental jurisprudence in the Pacific region and produce narrative visualisations demonstrating the links between cultural loss and climate change. By combining scholarly knowledge with cultural and artistic practices, the project will develop an innovative framework for addressing the impact of accelerated climate change. Using tools from visual studies and forensic architecture, from ethnography and law, to make scientific evidence on climate change socially robust and impactful, it will also create a relay between local perspectives and knowledge generated in different academic fields. Data visualisation and audiovisual presentations of ecological and cultural loss will be instrumental to transform ecological grief and loss into catalysts for climate action. Such narrative visualisations make visible the necessity to re-establish a direct relation between human societies and the environment, especially in the rapidly-changing urban fabric of a metropolis like Singapore.
Research Outputs
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss Research Presentation, 23 March–13 October 2024, TBA21-Academy Ocean Space, Venice, Italy
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss Research Presentation, 12 April–24 May 2024, ADM Gallery, 81 Nanyang Drive, Singapore
Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss (Vol. XXVII, 2024), Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific (CLJP), Victoria University of Wellington
Research Publications:
Ahmed, N., Bauer, U. M., & Lallemant-Moe, H. R. (2024, October). Introductions to Cultural loss and climate change. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.
Ahmed, N., Camus, G., Lallemant-Moe, H. R., & Rave, L. (2022, November). Cultural loss and climate change – A new field of research. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, 28.
Soh, K. M. (2024, May). Monsoon equinox. Issue 13: Weather. LASALLE College of the Arts.
Shaleh, A. (2024, October). Linking the commons and climate change to collective actions. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.
This special issue strings together authorial perspectives from across disciplines and geographies that are concerned with topics at the nexus of the climate crisis and the links to cultural loss. This issue points to the needed legal approaches within the wider context of the Pacific. Writers include researcher Jake Atienza, artist Stefano Cagol, art critic and curator Maria Chiara Wang, law scholar Johanna Gussman, researcher Shabana Khan, climate advisor Renard Siew, computer scientist Nova Ahmad, and artist-activist Yoon Sun Woo.
Edited by Professor Nabil Ahmed, Professor Ute Meta Bauer, and Dr Herve Raimana Lallemant-Moe, assisted by Research Fellow Dr Adha Shaleh.
We thank the Editors-in-Chief Sage Yves-Louis and Tony Angelo.
This special issue is supported by the MOE AcRF Tier 2 Award, led by Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, with Research Associate Soh Kay Min, Research Assistant Ng Mei Hia, and Research Fellow Dr Adha Shaleh.
Journal on handwoven pandanus mat gifted by Further Arts, Vanuatu.
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.
The Han Nefkens Foundation was established in 2009 with the aim of connecting people through art. In 2016, Han Nefkens decided to focus exclusively on supporting emerging and mid-career international video artists through Awards, Production Grants, and Mentorship Grants. The Foundation is not only involved in producing new works with the artists, but also finding international residencies, producing publications, purchasing working tools, finding technical support, and bringing artists into contact with art institutions and peers. With an extensive network in countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Ecuador, Peru, Spain, and the Netherlands, the Foundation is able to present artists to a diverse and global audience.
Angela Ricasio Hoten is a research assistant at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University supporting the research projects Climate Transformation Programme (2024–2030), Developing and Evaluating Digital Tools for Participatory Climate Change Mitigation (2025–2026) and previously the Environmentally-Engaged Artistic Practices in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (2023–2024). Angela holds a BA (Hons) in Environmental Studies and minor in Anthropology from Yale-NUS College, Singapore. She was also the undergraduate research assistant for ‘Lala Land: Singapore’s Seafood Heritage’ edited by Anthony Medrano, published by Epigram Books.
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.
After a very successful first iteration of Climate Futures #1: Cultures, Climate Crisis and Disappearing Ecologies its second convening wants to build on its discussions and expand its understanding of the decline in cultural and ecological diversity in the region. It became very clear that such conversations require space and time to process complex issues, if we do not want to simplify and allow more than one way to process how people feel about their situations and want to be heard. Our futures require us to go beyond the status quo of current modes of operating. To not lose cultural knowledge and biodiversity Climate Futures #2: Belonging & Shared Responsibilities will share various narratives and practices that are already in place. It wants to further provide access to communities outside state and institutional structures to further nurture understanding of change in responsibilities and accountability.
The summit intents to further map how the climate crisis informs our contemporary world, and how diverse cultures can adjust or adapt without losing a sense of purpose. It comprises of discussions into alternative approaches to regional studies focusing on urgencies such as rising sea-levels and temperatures and the impact on natural resources of the region. A particular focus will be on areas such as the Mekong River and Delta (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) and its water street to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines including the Straits that plays an essential role in the regions shared history.
The holistic approach of Climate Futures #1: Cultures, Climate Crisis and Disappearing Ecologies showed already how it can successfully stimulate a debate between artists, designers, and architects, scientists, environmentalists, as well as local voices and policy makers. We seek to reach out to an even wider public including younger scholars and practitioners, as well as community leaders and policy makers from the ASEAN region.
The future of our shared prosperity relies on our collective ability to create an inclusive and sustainable foundation for growth.
Read the programme brochure here.
Thursday, 26 October – Saturday 28 October 2023
Sokhalay Angkor Villa Resort, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Thursday, 26 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 668981.
9:30am Registration & Coffee
10:00am Opening Addresses
Dr Piti Srisangnam, Executive Director, ASEAN Foundation
H.E. Min Chandynavuth, Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia
Prof. Tim White, Vice President (International Engagement); President’s Chair in Materials Science and Engineering; Professor, School of Materials Science & Engineering.
Welcome and Introduction by co-curators Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, and Professor School of Art, Design, and Media, NTU Singapore and Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), Curator Residencies and Programms, NTU Centre of Contemporary Art, Singapore
10:30am The Art of Living Lightly, Keynote Lecture by Rachaporn Choochuey (Thailand), Architect, Co-founder, Design Director, all(zone) ltd
11:40am Between Bots and the Biosphere: Machine Philosophy, Media Ecologies, and Digital Hieroglyphs for Climate Adaptation, Case Study by Nashin Mahtani (Indonesia), Director, PetaBencana.id
12:00pm An Uncommon History of The Common Fence: A Prologue (To the Coast), Case Study by Jason Wee (Singapore), Artist, Writer, Curator
12:20pm Sharing Climate Futures: Developing tools for climate care and action, Case Study by Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, and Professor School of Art, Design, and Media, NTU Singapore
1:00pm Discussion with Rachaporn Choochuey (Thailand), Nashin Mahtani (Indonesia), and Jason Wee (Singapore). Moderated by Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore)
3:30pm Belonging & Sharing Responsibilities, Closed Workshop by Claudia Lasimbang a.k.a Yoggie, Technical Coordinator Watersheds and Communities, Forever Sabah, Philip Chin a.k.a. Linggit, Technical Coordinator Certified Sustainable Palm Oil, Forever Sabah, and Yee I-Lan (all Malaysia), artist
Friday, 27 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 400242.
8:45am Registration & Coffee
9:00am Welcome & Introduction
9:10am Creative Digital Lab: how artists, cultural and creative professionals and technologists work together to explore the potentials of XR technology in protecting heritage, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and contributing to climate action. Lecture by Kamonrat Mali Chayamarit (Thailand), Culture Programme Officer, Lao PDR alternate Focal Point, UNESCO Culture related Conventions Advocate
9:40am Ecology for Non-Futures, Case Study by Binna Choi (South-Korea), Artists, part of Unmake Lab
10:20am Climate impact on social process and social structure, Case study by Daovone Phonemanichane (Laos), Strengthening Climate Resilience Project Manager, Oxfam Mekong Regional Water Governance Program
10:40am When Nature has Economic Value, Case Study by Som Supaprinya (Thailand), Artist
11:20am Discussion with Kamonrat Mali Chayamarit (Thailand), Binna Choi (South-Korea), Daovone Phonemanichane (Laos), and Som Supaprinya (Thailand). Moderated by Bejamin Hampe (Australia), Project Director, KONNECT ASEAN
1:00pm Glimpse of Life on the Water, Closed Workshop Sessions by Sovann Ke (Cambodia), Project Manager, OSMOSE
Saturday, 28 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 353177.
8:45am Registration & Coffee
9:00am Introduction & Welcome
9:15am Every (de)Force Evolves into A (de)Form, Lecture by Gahee Park (South-Korea), Curator, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
10:00am Pedagogy, Community, Art: Bottom-up Urbanism at Phnom Penh’s Wat Chen Dam Daek, Case Study by Lyno Vuth (Cambodia), Artist, and Eva Lloyd (Australia), Lecturer, University of New South Wales (UNSW)
10:20am Luang Prabang: From Cultural Landscape into Practice, Case Study by Phonepaseth Keosomsak (Laos), Architect, Artist
11:00am Snare for Birds: Rebelling Against an Order of Things, Case Study by Kiri Dalena (Philipines), Artist
11:20am Travelling through time, Case Study by Malin Yim (Cambodia), Artist
11:40am The New Word for World is Archipelago, Case Study by Nice Buenaventura (Philippines), Artist
12:00pm Discussion with Nice Buenaventura (Philippines), Kiri Dalena (Philipines), Phonepaseth Keosomsak (Laos), Gahee Park (South-Korea), Lyno Vuth (Cambodia), and Malin Yim (Cambodia). Moderated by Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore)
2:30pm Visit of Blue Art Centre. Welcome by Sareth Svay (Cambodia), Artists, Director, Blue Art Centre
3:00pm Closing workshop by Cynthia Ong (Malaysia), Chief Executive Facilitator Forever Sabah Institute, LEAP
Curated by NTU CCA Singapore
Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director and Magdalena Magiera, Curator, Residencies and Programmes
Supported by
ASEAN Secretariat
ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund
Mission of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN
ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting for Culture and Arts
Programme support by Ministry of Culture and Fine Art, Cambodia
PROJECT PARTNERS
ASEAN FOUNDATION
Since the formation of ASEAN in 1967, ASEAN has embarked on a journey to accelerate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region. After three decades, ASEAN leaders recognised there remained inadequate shared prosperity, ASEAN awareness, and contact amongst the people of ASEAN. As a result, ASEAN leaders established the ASEAN Foundation during the ASEAN 30th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 15 December 1997.
KONNECT ASEAN
As the post-Cold War reality of a new world has taken shape and formed new directions and conversations, ASEAN has re-entered the contemporary art space via collaborative efforts between various ASEAN bodies. The Republic of Korea celebrated 30 years of diplomatic relations with ASEAN in 2019 and in the same year established KONNECT ASEAN, an ASEAN-Korea arts programme. Supported by the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund and administered by the ASEAN Foundation, KONNECT ASEAN signals both an eagerness by ASEAN to revitalise its once integral role in contemporary visual arts and Korea’s sincerity in establishing closer ties with ASEAN.
The programme celebrates Southeast Asian and Korean arts using different platforms (exhibitions, education and conferences, public programmes, residencies, and publications and archives) to explore and discuss social, political, economic, and environmental issues in the region. The artists’ works and activities engages and strengthen the public’s understanding of ASEAN’s role in facilitating cultural diplomacy. Furthermore, the programme intends to connect with the three major stakeholder groups of government, business, and civil society to achieve the vision of an ASEAN Community. Outcomes provide permanent resources recording why ASEAN matters and its ongoing contribution to the region’s growth, prosperity, and stability.
NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Medicine, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes—the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering—and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).
Under the NTU Smart Campus vision, the University harnesses the power of digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources. Ranked amongst the world’s top universities, the University’s main campus is also frequently listed among the world’s most beautiful. Known for its sustainability, over 95% of its building projects are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a medical campus in Novena, Singapore’s healthcare district. For more information, visit ntu.edu.sg.
NTU CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART SINGAPORE
Situated within Singapore’s premier art precinct Gillman Barracks, NTU CCA Singapore is a pioneering institution that has been instrumental in shaping the contemporary art landscape in Singapore and beyond. With a focus on fostering creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, the Centre’s programmes have consistently challenged the status quo, encouraging artists to explore new realms of artistic expression. For more information, visit ntu.ccasingapore.org.
Image: Climate Futures #1, Jakarta (Indonesia), 2022. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore, Konnect ASEAN & ASEAN Foundation.
As part of his interest in trauma and the potential of ritual healing through performance, during the residency Irfan Kasban intends to work on a long-term research project tentatively titled Port of Reciprocity, with a special focus on “Acoustic Sculptures and Communal Activations for the Burn-out Artist”. Reacting to the tightly-knit architecture of Singapore’s public housing estates where the boundaries of individual and communal life are strictly compartmentalised and sound spillages are regarded as nuisances, the artist aims to unpack the socially-accepted notions that define noise pollution in the country. Irfan will experiment with building acoustic sculptures inspired by organic shapes that will augment the human voice without electronic intervention and enhance conscious listening through communal activations. Oscillating between different sonic dimensions, the human voice will be cast as a mode of disruption and forging connections. Throughout the residency, the artist also intends to conduct interviews and group discussions with fellow artists and creatives as a way of better understanding the causes of burnout and formulating strategies against it.
Expanding his ongoing enquiry into the historical narratives of power structures and their geopolitical reverberations onto the present, Anthony Chin will dedicate his residency to research the ramifications of Singapore’s colonial past. Prompted by the history of Gillman Barracks—where the Residencies Studios are located—as the site of the last battle before Singapore was surrendered to the Japanese. Soon after the Fall of Singapore (1942), the Imperial Japanese Army established OKA 9420, a research centre where experiments on Bubonic plague pathogens were conducted. Addressing lesser-known histories as well as the growing awareness of pathogens due to global events such as the recent pandemic, Anthony seeks to develop a deeper understanding of pathogens while unpacking the ethical concerns surrounding the rapid advancements in science and technology. The research process will encompass both primary and secondary sources and it aims to grow through connections and collaborations with historians, researchers, and scientists so as to lay the foundations for a long-term artistic project that addresses the impact of biochemical weapons on society.
Pursuing her ongoing research into intergenerational conflicts and trauma, Yanyun Chen will spend her residency examining methods of discipline within the family context. With a focus on Singaporean personal and communal childhood histories of discipline and punishment, the artist will explore how the indelible traces of disciplinary behaviour linger on in people’s bodies and minds and bleed into the everyday. Observing the irony and self-deprecating humour that come into play as a self-soothing practice in the retelling of such memories, she will also seek to unpack the heterogeneous ways in which pain and violence are remembered by conducting fieldwork, literary investigations, and interviews. The research weaves through histories of punishment and discipline in Singapore. Ultimately the artist intends to create large scale drawings that address these intergenerational wounds through the lens of medical, ethnographic, historical, and material studies.
In the Singaporean-Malay slang, “world” is used to signal boastful aspirations towards a social status higher than one’s own, often conveyed through self-aggrandising story-telling. Utilising this as an alternative framework to the postcolonial notion of “worlding”, whereby one’s conceptualisation of the world is devised through colonial attachments, the artist will spend his residency investigating the multitude of meanings behind the word’s usages as a way of unravelling sociolinguistic constructs and processes of identity formation. This research will ultimately result in lens-based explorations that engage with “world” through conceptual propositions and visual arrangements comprising archival photos and sociohistorical accounts.
Propelled by an interest in the conceptual frictions between art and craftsmanship, artistic and industrial labour, the artist intends to develop this research into a comparative study of masonry and ceramics, two techniques that have significant affinities in terms of materials but carry different class connotations. Focusing on existing sites such as local brick factories and heritage buildings made of bricks, he will also codify the schemas of bricklaying in an attempt to delineate different morphologies of brick architecture. This research will potentially culminate in a series of material experimentations and pictorial mappings of brick trade, bringing to the forefront the overlooked history of this material in the context of Singapore.
Working at the intersection of painting and sculpture, Ben Loong (b. 1988, Singapore) explores themes and questions of utility within traditional craftsmanship. Through the manipulation of industrial and mass-produced materials and the observation of textures and patterns in the everyday, his practice attempts to challenge the value systems embedded in our material culture. Ben has regularly presented in Singapore, in both solo and group exhibitions. His solo exhibitions include Squaring the Circle, Mizuma Gallery, Singapore (2021); MONO, S.E.A. Focus, Singapore (2020); and Aggregate, I_S_L_A_N_D_S, Singapore (2018). His group exhibitions include Ancient Future Myths, AC43 Gallery, Singapore (2021); FrictionaL and Lingering Manifestations, Pearl Lam Galleries, Singapore and River Stories, LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore (both 2018); Untapped Emerging, Visual Arts Development Association, Chan + Hori Contemporary, Singapore (2017); Ends, Hart Lane Studios and Joyless Unity, Mori + Stein, both London, United Kingdom (2014 and 2013). He received the Highly Commended mention in the Established Artist Category at the UOB Painting of the Year Competition in 2018.
With a body of work spanning across film, installation, and photography, the artistic practice of Zulkhairi Zulkiflee (b. 1991, Singapore) is committed to exploring Malay identity and its social ontology. His lens-based artworks investigate themes of Malayness in relation to local and global contexts, social agency, knowledge production, and notions of taste. Zulkhairi recently concluded his first solo exhibition, Proximities at Objectifs – Centre for Photography and Film, Singapore (2022). His work has also been presented in group exhibitions such as Kenduri Seni Nusantara, Patani, Thailand, Singapore Shorts ‘22, Asian Film Archive, Singapore, Mini Film Festival, S-Express Singapore, Kuching, Malaysia, and The Singapore Pavilion, Expo 2020, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (all 2022); The Body as a Dream, Art Agenda SEA, Singapore (2021) and How to Desire Differently, Lim Hak Tai Gallery, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore (2020) among others. Zulkhairi is also an educator, independent curator, and founder of Sikap, a project group that engages with the creative value of ‘let do’ in the form of organizational experiments. He was the Curatorial Winner of the IMPART Awards in 2020.
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.
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.
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.
Tekla Aslanishvili (b. 1988, Georgia) is an artist, filmmaker and essayist based between Berlin and Tbilisi. Her works emerge at the intersection of infrastructural design, history and geopolitics.
Tekla graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2009 and she holds a MFA from the Berlin University of the Arts – the department of Experimental Film and New Media Art. Aslanishvili’s films have been screened and exhibited internationally at PACT Zollverein, Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Baltic Triennial, Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Kasseler Dokfest, Kunsthalle Münster, EMAF – European Media Art Festival, Videonale 18, Tbilisi Architecture Biennial. She is a 2018–2019 Digital Earth fellow, the nominee for Ars-Viva Art prize 2021 and the recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award 2020.
Course Details
In this 2-hour workshop led by NTU CCA Singapore Artist-in-Residence Fazleen Karlan, children will act as both artists in the present, and archaeologists from the future. Participants, together with their guardian, will create their own artefact using an object of their choosing. Reversing the process where archaeologists dig and reconstruct fragmented pieces, participants will instead use clay, sand sediments, and paints, to mimic the rock layers that form around objects over time, thereby turning an object from the present, into a relic for the future! In the process, participants will put themselves in the shoes of archaeologists and learn how meanings and histories can be inferred from different items. The workshop will encourage participants to stretch the meaning of everyday objects across different temporalities and reflect on what we leave behind for future generations.
Date: 18 June 2022, Saturday
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm
Venue: NTU CCA Singapore, Residencies Studios, Block 37 Malan Road, #01-01, Singapore 109452
Free Admission (conditions below)
Register here.
Notes
· This programme is ideal for adult-child pairs. Each child must be accompanied by an adult for the entire programme.
· This programme is most suitable for children aged 7 and above
· This programme is free admission, but will require a $10 deposit to secure a spot. The deposit will be refunded upon attendance.
What To Bring
· comfortable attire
· a small object
· water
Cancellation Policy
· All cancellations/substitutions must be in writing, email us at NTUCCAResidencies@ntu.edu.sg
· All cancellation requests must be received by Wednesday, 15 June, 23:59pm.
· If, after booking, you are unable to attend, you are welcome to nominate someone else to attend in your place. All substitution requests must be received by Friday, 17 June, 13:00pm.
· The deposit will not be refunded due to failure to attend or failure to provide the 3 days notice.
Through the wide-angle lens of her research-based methodology, the artist will traverse the symbolic mapping of this migrant diaspora’s socio-cultural realities emblazoned in official accounts. She will focus on issues of exploitation and gender exclusion and employ computer-generated imagery and postcolonial linguistics to devise new storytelling approaches that subvert the hegemony of colonial epistemologies and bring to the surface silenced narratives, particularly those of Tamizh women.
Starting off the second season of AiRCAST, we hand over the microphone to curator and writer Anca Rujoiu to interview our Artist-in-Residence Priyageetha Dia. Priyageetha and Anca are fresh out of a year-long collaboration that culminated in Forget Me, Forget Me Not (2022), Priyageetha’s solo exhibition curated by Anca which opened last May. In this conversation they share about the background research, interests, and aesthetic strategies behind the new body of work presented in the exhibition. They also expand upon the significance of colonial histories and marginalised communities, agency and empowerment, as well as media and materials in Priyageetha’s practice.
Spanning moving image, sculpture, as well as performance and installation, the practice of Priyageetha Dia (b. 1992, Singapore) addresses identity politics by questioning dominant narratives, material histories, and socio-spatial relations. In the past few years, she has been experimenting with world-making gestures that rehash stories of repression and envision alternative futures. Her works have been included in 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).
Anca Rujoiu is a Romanian curator and editor who has been living and working in Singapore since 2013. Taking an artist-centred approach, she is committed to artistic practices beyond the West and to what falls through the cracks within its borders. She was a member of the founding team of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, as Curator of Exhibitions (2013–15) and Head of Publications (2016–18) and she has curated numerous exhibitions, public programs, and publishing projects. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate at Monash University with a research focused on institution building, artists-led institutions, and transnational exchanges.
Contributors: Priyageetha Dia, Anca Rujoiu
Editor: Anna Lovecchio
Programme Manager: Nadia Amalina
Sound Engineer: Ashwin Menon
Intro & Outro Music: Yuen Chee Wai
Cover Image & Design: Arabelle Zhuang, Kristine Tan
CREDITS
03’03”: Audio excerpt from WE.REMAIN.IN.MULTIPLE.MOTIONS_MALAYA, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
17’17”: Audio excerpt from WE.REMAIN.IN.MULTIPLE.MOTIONS_MALAYA, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
19’10”: Audio excerpt from WE.REMAIN.IN.MULTIPLE.MOTIONS_MALAYA, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
32’07”: Audio excerpt from WE.REMAIN.IN.MULTIPLE.MOTIONS_MALAYA, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
Vuth Lyno is an artist, curator, and educator who is interested in space, cultural history, and the production of knowledge through social relations. Drawing on a wide range of materials such as interviews, artifacts, and newly made objects, he creates spatial configurations that weave together personal stories and collective bodies of knowledge. Participatory and experimental in nature, his artistic and curatorial approach is rooted in communal learning and aims to engage a multiplicity of voices in the production of meaning. He is a member of Stiev Selapak, a collective which founded and co-runs Sa Sa Art Projects in Phnom Penh, a long-term initiative committed to the development of the contemporary visual arts landscape in Cambodia. His work has been presented at several group exhibitions and institutions such as the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand (2020) and the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, Australia (2019), amongst others.
Hoo Fan Chon is a visual artist whose practice explores taste and foodscapes as cultural and social constructs. His research-driven projects examine how value systems fluctuate as people move from one culture to another. Reframing mundane aspects of everyday life with irony and wry humour, his multimedia works address notion of cultural authenticity and they set in motion the frictions and the overlaps produced by the migration of cultural symbols between different sociocultural contexts. Hoo recently received a solo exhibition at The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2021) and he has participated in a number of group shows in Asia. Also active as a curator and a grassroot cultural producer, he is involved with Run Amok Gallery, an art gallery and alternative space in George Town he co-founded in 2013.
With a background in literature and physics, Citra Sasmita is a self-taught painter who turned to the visual arts after working as an illustrator at a local newspaper in Bali. By unravelling myths and misconceptions that persist in Balinese culture, her work imagines secular mythologies for a post-patriarchal future. She is deeply invested in the social empowerment of women and in questioning gender hierarchies and normative constructs. Her work is regularly exhibited within Indonesia and has been presented internationally at the Kathmandu Triennale, Nepal (2021–2022); and ParaSite Hong Kong (2020). In 2020, she received for the UOB Museum MACAN Children’s Art Space Commission and she is the Gold Award Winner of the UOB Painting of The Year 2017.
In this artist-led studio tour, Russell Morton will talk about his references and unpack some of the research materials that will be woven into the structure of his first feature film: a dark narrative of drifting away from crime and floating in punishment inspired by a grim historical episode which happened in Singapore in the early 1960s.
The filmic and performative practice of Russell Morton (b.1982, Singapore) explores folkloric myths, esoteric rituals, and the conventions of cinema itself. His film Saudade (2020) was commissioned for State of Motion: Rushes of Time, Asian Film Archives, Singapore, and presented at the 31st Singapore International Film Festival (2020); The Forest of Copper Columns (2015) won the Cinematic Achievement Award at the 57th Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greece (2016) and was selected for several festivals including the Short Shorts Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan (2017), the Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand, and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, Indonesia (both 2016).
Admission is free but registration is required. Please register here.
This event is part of Residencies OPEN, 18 September 2021 (1.00 – 7.00pm), for more info click here.
Image: Russell Morton, expired Super 8mm footage of life on a kelong in Singapore’s waters, 2021, film stills. Courtesy of the artist.
Completed during the residency, Russell Morton‘s latest short film revolves around the eclectic and versatile figure of Mohammad Din Mohammad (1955 – 2007). Artist and mystic, traditional healer and idiosyncratic collector of Southeast Asian cultural items, Mohammad Din Mohammad was also an actor and a silat master. Playfully disclosing the production limitations imposed by the pandemic, the film evokes Mohammad’s multifaceted personality through the faces, voices, and memories of the artist’s family members and an experimental process where affects and sounds are mediated by technology. As it unfolds, the film grows into an upbeat stream of visuals and sounds mixed by Momok, a computer algorithm created by artist bani haykal.
Mystic & Momok was commissioned by National Gallery Singapore for the exhibition Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965 (7 May – 22 August 2021) which featured Mohammad Din Mohammad’s works.
This event marks the opening of The Screening Room, NTU CCA Singapore’s cosy new space dedicated to film screenings and talks.
This event is part of Residencies OPEN, 18 September 2021 (1.00 – 7.00pm), for more info click here.
Image: Mystic & Momok, 2021, HD (16:9), video, stereo, 18min 10sec. Courtesy of the artist.
Come by the studios of our Artists-in-Residence: Tini Aliman and Russell Morton (both Singapore) for a special insight into their artistic process. This session of Residencies OPEN will allow you to encounter works-in-progress, watch a film screening, browse archival materials, and talk to the artists in person!
TINI ALIMAN
Open Studio
Saturday, 18 September, 1:00 – 7:00 pm
Block 37 Malan Road, #01-03
no registration required
As a new development of her long-term research on plant consciousness and biodata sonification, Tini Aliman has come to regard ‘dead’ trees as potential archives of environmental soundscapes, witnesses of urban development and extractive capitalism, ecological events and climate change. Breathing new life into tree stumps, fragments of felled trees, and repurposed wood from previous artworks, the artist is reconfiguring these materials into kinetic and sound sculpture prototypes and she is experimenting with a range of sensory and mechanical modes of activation. Conjunctly, inspired by the structural and functional similarities between Printed Circuit Board (PCB) etching designs and forest underground network ecosystems, Tini is also speculatively imagining a functioning network of closed electronic circuits that mimics how these trees would have communicated while they were still alive. This project is realised in collaboration with Trying.sg.
Working at the intersection of film, sound, theatre, and installation, often through collaborative projects, the sonic and spatial experiments of Tini Aliman (b. 1980, Singapore) focus on forest networks, plant consciousness, bioacoustics, and data translations via biodata sonification. Her recent projects and collaborations have been presented at Free Jazz III: Sound. Walks. NTU CCA Singapore (2021); An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season, National Gallery Singapore (2020); Sound Kite Orchestra, Biennale Urbana, Venice, Italy and Stories We Tell to Scare Ourselves With, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taiwan (both 2019).
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RUSSELL MORTON
Open Studio
Saturday, 18 September, 1:00 – 7:00 pm
Block 37 Malan Road, #01-02 & Block 38 Malan Road, #01-06
no registration required
For the past six months, Russell Morton has dived deep into gathering research materials and audiovisual references for the script of his first feature film. Inspired by a not well-known historical event—a prison riot which took place in Pulau Senang before Singapore’s independence—, the film interweaves the horrific events of the bloody riot with regional folklore. This open studio session presents a generous selection of archival materials, oral histories, and sound recordings relevant to the development of the script as well as the documentation (shot on Super 8mm film) of the artist’ site visits to a kelong, a type of vernacular architecture on the verge of disappearing that will feature prominently in the film.
Furthermore, there will be the opportunity to watch Morton’s most recent short film Mystic and Momok (2021), see below for more details.
The filmic and performative practice of Russell Morton (b. 1982, Singapore) explores folkloric myths, esoteric rituals, and the conventions of cinema itself. His film Saudade (2020) was commissioned for State of Motion: Rushes of Time, Asian Film Archives, Singapore, and presented at the 31st Singapore International Film Festival (2020); The Forest of Copper Columns (2015) won the Cinematic Achievement Award at the 57th Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greece (2016) and was selected for several festivals including the Short Shorts Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan (2017), the Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand, and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, Indonesia (both 2016).
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RESIDENCIES INSIGHTS
RUSSELL MORTON: ARTIST-LED STUDIO TOUR
Saturday, 18 September, 3:00 – 3:45pm
Block 37 Malan Road, #01-02
In this artist-led studio tour, Russell Morton will talk about his references and unpack some of the research materials that will be woven into the structure of his first feature film: a dark narrative of drifting away from crime and floating in punishment inspired by a grim historical episode which happened in Singapore in the early 1960s.
Due to safe-distancing measures, this event has limited capacity and is by registration only. Please register here.
TINI ALIMAN: OF UNDERGROUND SCHEMATICS & THE FALLEN TREE
Artist Talk and Performance
Saturday, 18 September, 4:30 – 5:30pm
Block 37 Malan Road, #01-03
In a two-part event consisting of a talk and a performance, Tini Aliman will share her findings and reflections on plant consciousness and on the parallels between the human and the vegetable sensorium, interweaving them with explorations in acoustic memory and sonic symbolism related to her personal musical journey. In the performance, she will engage with her long-standing collaborator, a ficus microcarpa (Malayan banyan tree) named Ara.
Due to safe-distancing measures, this event has limited capacity and is by registration only. Please register here.
MYSTIC & MOMOK BY RUSSELL MORTON
Film Screening (on loop)
HD video (16:9), stereo, 18min 10sec, 2021
Rating: PG
Saturday, 18 September, 1:00 – 7:00pm
The Screening Room
Block 38 Malan Road, #01-06
No registration required. Please expect waiting time if room capacity is reached.
Completed during the residency, Russell Morton’s latest short film revolves around the eclectic and versatile figure of Mohammad Din Mohammad (1955 – 2007). Artist and mystic, traditional healer and idiosyncratic collector of Southeast Asian cultural items, Mohammad Din Mohammad was also an actor and a silat master. Playfully disclosing the production limitations imposed by the pandemic, the film evokes Mohammad’s multifaceted personality through the faces, voices, and memories of the artist’s family members and an experimental process where affects and sounds are mediated by technology. As it unfolds, the film grows into an upbeat stream of visuals and sounds mixed by Momok, a computer algorithm created by artist bani haykal.
Mystic & Momok was commissioned by National Gallery Singapore for the exhibition Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965 (7 May – 22 August 2021) which featured Mohammad Din Mohammad’s works.
This event marks the opening of The Screening Room, NTU CCA Singapore’s cosy new space dedicated to film screenings and talks.
Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, an artist of African descent, was born in London and grew up in Nigeria, returning to London only in his late teens. His work explores issues of colonialism and postcolonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation, as well as race and class. Mixing Western art history and literature, he questions the construct of collective contemporary identity and its meaning within cultural and national definitions. Shonibare has participated in major international art exhibitions, including the 52nd and 57th Venice Biennale and Documenta11. His works are in prominent collections, including the Tate Collection, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome; and VandenBroek Foundation, the Netherlands. In 2004, Shonibare was nominated for the Turner Prize, the most prestigious annual art prize in United Kingdom, and was awarded the decoration of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). Fifteen years later, in January 2019, Shonibare was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE). That same year, he held a solo exhibition at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, Trade Winds: Yinka Shonibare CBE, which featured works connected by their use of Dutch wax fabric and a major installation that celebrates the contributions of immigrant and non-immigrant Africans, The African Library.
Diana Campbell Betancourt (b. 1984, United States) is currently Artistic Director of Samdani Art Foundation and Chief Curator of Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh, a major research and exhibition platform for art in South Asia. In addition, Betancourt is Artistic Director of Bellas Artes Projects, Bagac, Philippines. She has collaborated on commissions of Indian scupture with several sculpture parks across the world including, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom; de Cordova, Massachusetts, United States; and Wanas Konst, Malmö, Sweden. Betancourt has also curated numerous solo projects with artists such as Haroon Mirza, Simryn Gill, Tino Sehgal, Lynda Benglis, Shilpa Gupta, Shahzia Sikander, Naeem Mohaiemen, Runa Islam, Shumon Ahmed, Pawel Althamer among others. She chairs the board of the Mumbai Art Room, has been a Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, United Kingdom and the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France.
The artist practice of Bui Cong Khanh (b. 1972, Vietnam) often addresses social and political implications embedded in the notion of cultural heritage. He first gained international recognition in the 1990s through performances that questioned restrictions of individual expression in his own country at a time of political turmoil. Initially focused on oil painting, his practice has come to encompass mediums such as sculpture, installation, video, and drawing often combining traditional fine arts and a conceptual approach.
Recent solo projects include exhibitions at Sàn Art and The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2016). His works have been presented at the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (2009); Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand (2013 and 2015), and Arter, Istanbul, Turkey (2014). He currently lives and works between Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An, Vietnam.
During the 1950s, in many Eastern Bloc countries, cultural houses and clubs were created to fulfil the utopian dream of providing ‘culture for everybody’ whilst also structuring opportunities for people to participate in the collective production of culture. At the same time, these communal environments often enabled the state to monitor leisure time and socio-cultural activities. In order to expand their long-term comparative research on these institutions, Irina Botea Bucan and Jon Dean will investigate the history and current role of community centres in Singapore. Aiming to produce an experimental documentary, they will conduct archival and sociological research to understand how these centres operate and the criteria by which they were designed and managed to provide a specific range of social, cultural, and educational activities at a foundational moment in the country’s history. In particular, they are interested in the process of community-building, the nature of people’s participation, and the role community centres played in the formation of Singapore’s post-colonial identity.
No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia is part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative which was launched in April 2012, a multi-year collaboration that charts contemporary art practice in three geographic regions—South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa—and encompasses curatorial residencies, international touring exhibitions, audience-driven education programming, and acquisitions for the Guggenheim’s permanent collection.
Curated by June Yap, No Country at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore brought the artworks back to the Southeast Asia region from which many of the artists hail and called for an even closer examination of regional cultural representations and relations. This return suggests the possibility of a renewed understanding through a process of mutual rediscovery that transcends physical and political borders. The exhibition in Singapore also marked the debut of two works from the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund not previously shown as part of No Country: Loss by Sheela Gowda and Morning Glory by Sopheap Pich.
