This research is an inquiry into curatorial, artistic, and academic networks of exchange that foster a pluriversal understanding of Southeast Asia. It will highlight the potential of open-ended curatorial, artistic and textual endeavours that formulate their own modus operandi. Analysing motivations, methods, and audiences of three distinct art initiatives by local practitioners will provide valuable insights for the writing of future cultural policies and alternative metrics to evaluate the impact of nonconforming approaches within regional studies. This will reshape and expand policies and programmes that seek to internationalise or regionalise Singapore art scenes. Acknowledging the long-term impact of such critical thinking and the creation of alternative knowledges and transnational networks would advance traditional perspectives in Southeast Asian scholarship and its funding mechanisms.
Research Outputs
Understanding Southeast Asia as a “Geocultural Formation”: Three Case Studies of Artistic Initiatives from the Region Closed-Door Forum
Programme
Welcome by Ahmad Mashadi, Introduction by Ute Meta Bauer and David Teh
ROUND-ROBIN: INTRODUCING THE CASE STUDIES, response by John Tain
The Flying Circus Project, Introduction by SEON, Presentation by Ong Keng Sen
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary Art and Modern Art in Asia, Introduction by Ho Tzu Nyen, Presentation by Thanavi Chotrapdit, Vera Mey and Roger Nelson
The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia, Introduction by Ong Keng Sen, Presentation by Ho Tzu Nyen
CONVERSATION: PATRICK FLORES & HSU FANG-TZE, moderated by Siddhartha Perez
CONVERSATION: GRIDTHIYA GAWEEWONG & MELATI SURYODARMO, moderated by Ute Meta Bauer
PANEL: HEIDI ARBUCKLE & KATHLEEN DITZIG, moderated by David Teh
Granted by
Since 2020, Joy Chee has been the resident bartender/gardener (or bardener, if you will) at Native, a Singaporean restaurant-bar focused on working with local and regional craftsmen and communities. Drawn to them for their ethos of sustainability and commitment to highlighting native produce, she has been working on rewilding the gardens with local kampung herbs and supporting the garden-to-table concept. When she’s not elbow-deep in compost, she can be found shaking up a cocktail or two at 52 Amoy Street.
Committed to socially engaged practices, multi-disciplinary theatre practitioner Han Xuemei (b. 1987, Singapore) employs art as a tool for bringing communities together and engaging the audience in visceral and personal ways. In her practice, she creates spaces and experiences that incite participants to think outside the box of existing paradigms and articulate forms of hope and resistance. Since 2012, she is Resident Artist at the Singapore-based theatre company Drama Box. Her recent projects include the experiential installation FLOWERS (2019), the community project The Gift (2018), and the participatory experience Missing: The City of Lost Things (2018).
In partnership with Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd., Culture City. Culture Scape. is a public art education programme launched in 2017. A first of its kind in Singapore, the programme features a series of newly commissioned public art works by Dan Graham, Zul Mahmod, Tomás Saraceno and Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA), nestled at Mapletree Business City II, and aims to bring the arts closer to the communities.
Inspired by the idea of expanded sculptural environments, the artworks explore the interplay between landscape, architecture, and the broader social and economic environments they are placed in. More than being monumental or site-specific, each work alters or permeates its local context to invite visitors to a broader, richer engagement.
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.
In partnership with Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd., Culture City. Culture Scape. is a public art education programme launched in 2017. A first of its kind in Singapore, the programme features a series of newly commissioned public art works by Dan Graham, Zulkifle Mahmod, Tomás Saraceno and Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA), nestled at Mapletree Business City II, and aims to bring the arts closer to the communities. Find out more at https://www.mapletreearts.sg/
NTU CCA Singapore developed this virtual tour to give context on the Culture City. Culture Scape. project and create awareness of the Mapletree Public Art Trail as well as the walking tours that our Centre conducts. Used in combination with the Educational Resource Guide for schools, this tour will serve as a starting point to encourage people to come see the work in person at MBC II.
Dr Michael Birchall is Curator of Public Practice at Tate Liverpool and Senior Lecturer in Exhibition Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom. His curatorial practice and research concern socially engaged art, performance, and notions of publicness in museums. He has previously held curatorial appointments at The Banff Centre’ Walter Phillips Gallery and The Western Front (both Canada), as well as at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (Germany). His writing has appeared in Frieze, ARKEN Bulletin, OnCurating, Modern Painters, C Magazine, Art & the Public Sphere, and various exhibition catalogues. Recently, he co-edited Collective Good/Collaborative Efforts (Stavanger: Rogaland Kunstsenter, 2017) and co-curated O.K. – The Musical(2017), an iterative community theatre musical by Christopher Kline at Tate Liverpool.
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.
Formally trained in sculpture, Zul Mahmod has continued to build and expand his practice over the last three years to include sculpted sound and live sound performances. Zul’s practice investigates the aural architecture of spaces in order to explore the emotional, behavioural and visceral responses of its inhabitants. While in residence, Zul will explore the aural relationship between readymade sound sculptures and the architecture of space. Sonic characteristics, forms and textures of everyday objects will be examined in order to compose an orchestra of sonic sculptures.
Iranian-born artist Siah Armajani merges architecture and conceptual art in his sculptures, drawings, and public installations. Informed by democratic ideologies and inspired by American vernacular architecture, his works include gathering spaces for communality, emphasizing the “nobility of usefulness.” His highly acclaimed public art and architectural projects have included bridges, gardens, and outdoor structures, that have been commissioned and presented worldwide. A retrospective featuring his artistic career spanning over more than five decades was recently on view at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and inaugurates in March at The MET Breuer, New York.
Alan OEI currently serves as the Artistic Director at The Substation. Founded in 1990, The Substation is Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre. Under Oei’s stewardship, The Substation has initiated programmes engaging in discourse on public space such as Discipline the City (2017) and A Public Square (2019). Oei is also co-founder and executive director of OH! Open House and was the former Artistic Director for Sculpture Square from 2012 to 2014. He holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Columbia University and a diploma in fine arts from LASALLE College of the Arts.
Amanda CRABTREE (United Kindgom/France) established artconnexion, an independent non- profit cultural production agency based in Lille in 1994 and joined the organisation full-time in 2001. Prior to this, she worked at the British Council, Paris; Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing; Le Magasin contemporary art centre, Grenoble, and the Centre d’art contemporain of Geneva. She teaches at the University of Lille and directs the Master’s programme in Art and Society with a particular focus on the production of contemporary artworks within the public realm. She has just established a short-course University Diploma entitled Reclaiming Art/Reshaping Democracy based on the protocol of New Patrons public art projects.
Antonia CARVER (United Arab Emirates) is a member of NTU CCA’s International Advisory Board and is currently the Director of Art Jameel, Dubai, an organisation that fosters and promotes a thriving arts and culture scene and support the development of creative enterprises in the region of Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and beyond. Art Jameel is the founding partner of Edge of Arabia, The Crossway Foundation, Jeddah Art Week, and The Archive. Prior to joining Art Jameel, Antonia was the director of Art Dubai, where she has overseen its development into the leading art fair of the Middle East and South Asia, along with its diverse programmes, artists residencies and commissions as well as other educational initiatives and prizes. Before relocating to the UAE, Antonia was editor at Phaidon Press and had roles at Institute of international Visual Arts and G+B Arts International.
Ashley THOMPSON (United Kingdom) is Hiram W. Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London, where she leads the Research and Publications division of the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme. She is a specialist of Cambodian cultural history, with a focus on classical and pre-modern arts and literatures, in the larger South and Southeast Asian context, with a view to theorising politico-cultural formations. Formative experiences include working under Vann Molyvann for the creation of a Cambodian national management structure for Angkor, and with the Théâtre du Soleil and Phare Ponleu Selpak on the direction of a Cambodian production of Cixous’ Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia. Recent publications include Hiding the female sex: a sustained cultural dialogue between India and Southeast Asia and Emergenc(i)es: History and the Auto-Ethnographic Impulse in Contemporary Cambodian Art (both 2017).
Catherine DAVID (France) is the Deputy Director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From 1982 to 1990, David was curator at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and from 1990 to 1994 she was curator at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris. From 1994 to 1997, David served as Artistic Director for documenta X in Kassel (1997). Since 1998, she has been director of the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations, which began at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. Between 2002 and 2004, David was director of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. In 2016, David curated Reframing Modernism at the National Gallery Singapore, which brought together over 200 iconic works from the collections of the National Gallery Singapore and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Dan Graham is an influential pioneer of conceptual art and performance-related video art. His multi-disciplinary practice, spanning across curating, writing, performance, installation, video, photography, and architecture, aligns itself with popular culture more than contemporary art. His work is informed by a social awareness, often working with hybrids that oscillate between quasi-functional spaces and installations to expose processes of perception, of which his freestanding, sculptural structures called Pavilions are an example. NTU CCA Singapore collaborated with Mapletree to permanently install Elliptical Pavilion (2017) at Mapletree Business City II.
Daniel Mudie CUNNINGHAM (Australia) is Director of Programs at Carriageworks in Sydney, Australia. He has held curatorial roles at Artbank and Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, and academic positions at Western Sydney University, where he completed his doctorate in cultural studies in 2004. At Carriageworks he is currently leading the curatorial delivery of a major public art strategy tied to the redevelopment of South Eveleigh in Sydney. Cunningham is a widely published academic and arts writer and has authored numerous artist monographs and edited publications, including the magazine Sturgeon (2013–16).
Eileen GOH (Singapore) is an Assistant Manager for the Art in Transit programme at the Land Transport Authority (LTA), Singapore. Goh oversees and leads a team in the initiation, development, and implementation of the Art in Transit programme as well as other special art-related projects undertaken by LTA. Goh plays a large part at every stage of the process of conceptualising, developing and delivering the artworks commissioned to be displayed in the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations managed by LTA. This includes working closely with various internal and external stakeholders— including civil contractors—in the fabrication and installation of artwork to presenting the artworks to Ministers and public communities. Goh is a graduate of LASALLE College of the Arts with a BA (Hons) in Arts Management.
Hongjohn LIN (Taiwan/Singapore) is an artist, writer and curator. Lin has a PhD in Arts and Humanities from the New York University. He has participated in exhibitions including Taipei Biennial (2004), Manchester Asian Triennial 2008, Rotterdam Film Festival 2008, and Taipei Biennial (2012), China Asia Biennial (2014), and Guangzhou Triennial (2015). Lin was curator of the Taiwan Pavilion Atopia, Venice Biennial (2007), co-curator of Taipei Biennial (with Tirdad Zolghadr, 2010). Currently he is serving as Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts. His writings can be found in international magazines, journals, and publications. He wrote the Introductions for Chinese edition of Art Power (Boris Groys) and Artificial Hells (Claire Bishop and his publications in Chinese include Poetics of Curating (2018).
Jasmeen PATHEJA (India) lives and works in Bangalore. She is founder andfacilitator of Blank Noise, a community of Action Sheroes, Heroes, Theyroes, citizens and persons, taking agency to end sexual and gender based violence. Patheja initiated Blank Noise in 2003, in response to the normalisation and the silence surrounding street harassment. Over the last 16 years, Patheja has designed a wide range of interventions to trigger discourse and shift public consciousness. Her work rests on the power of collaborations and community. Patheja is a TED speaker and Ashoka Fellow. In 2015, she received the International Award for Public Art, for the project Talk to Me (Blank Noise). She is currently shortlisted for the Visible Award and was shortlisted for the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics. She works as artist in residence at Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology.
Katherine Tuider, Executive Director and Co- founder of Honolulu Biennial Foundation, will speak about building a biennial from the ground up in what has been described as the most isolated, populated landmass in the world, Hawai‘i. Despite the perceived challenges associated with building an international, city-wide exhibition with no start-up capital in a seemingly isolated place, the contributions and involvement of the local community in Hawai‘i made the Honolulu Biennial a success. Prioritising the needs and desires of the local community was an integral part of the planning process in order to create a biennial that was locally relevant, while also being reflective of what makes Hawai‘i so unique for those who were visiting. A biennial that honours and involves its community is not only more sustainable, but also more interesting for those who visit because the biennial serves as a portal for understanding the history and culture of that place. As urban spaces rapidly grow and change, Tuider will explain why a “community-first” approach is essential in order to create successful public art exhibitions that are reflective of the past, while also relevant in the future.
KOK Heng Leun is a prominent figure in the Singapore arts scene, having built his artistic career as a theatre director, playwright, dramaturg and educator. Koh is known for his ability to engage the community on various issues through the arts, championing civil discourse across different segments of society. Having begun his work in the theatre almost 30 years ago, some notable directorial works include Manifesto (2016), Drift (2007), Trick or Threat (2007), and Happy (2005). His explorations with multi-disciplinary engaged arts has produced works like It Won’t Be Too Long (2015), which touched on the dynamics of space in Singapore, Both Sides, Now (2013, 2014), a project that seeks to normalise end-of-life conversations, and Project Mending Sky (2008, 2009, 2012), a series on environmental issues. Koh’s contributions to the arts have landed him the National Arts Council Singapore Young Artist Award in 2000 and the National Arts Council Cultural Fellowship in 2014. Koh is currently the Arts Nominated Member of Parliament.
Lewis BIGGS (United Kingdom) is an independent curator (Co-Curator, Aichi Triennale 2013; Curator, Folkestone Triennial 2014, 2017, 2020; Curator, Land Art Mongolia 2018; advisory curator Kaunas Biennial 2019). As International Adviser and now Distinguished Professor of Public Art at Shanghai University (since 2011) he is also Chairman of the Institute for Public Art, dedicated to the research, propagation, and advocacy of artist-led urbanism. He was a Director of Tate Liverpool (1990–2000); and General Series Editor for Tate Modern Artists Series, Tate Publishing 2001–14. Lewis was the Artistic Director / CEO of Liverpool Biennial 2000–11. The Biennial exhibitions under his leadership focused on newly-commissioned art, much of it site specific for the urban environment, researched collaboratively and realised by a team of locally based curators.
Lilian Chee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture in the National University of Singapore (NUS). She is a writer, academic, designer, curator, and award-winning educator who has lecturered at the Bartlett, Delft, ETH Zurich, Melbourne, and the Berlage Centre. Her work is situated at the intersections of architectural representation, gender, and affect in a contemporary interdisciplinary context. Her research explores the emergence of architecture through, and from within, everyday encounters and its archives, influenced by film, art and literature. She conceptualised, researched, and collaborated on the award-winning architectural essay film about single women occupants in Singapore’s public housing 03-FLATS (2014), which won the best ASEAN documentary Salaya (2015); shortlisted for the Busan Wide Angle Documentary Prize 2014; and screened at the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2016. She is working on a book about public art in Singapore, and co-editing a volume on domesticity in architecture.
Lorenzo PETRILLO (Italy/Singapore) is a designer and community driver. He began his career in Italy, designing for esterni, an association that develops cultural projects for public spaces (among them, the Public Design Festival). Petrillo then moved to Asia in 2007, first to Shanghai and then three years later to Singapore. His experience over the last eight years has been predominantly in the brand experience space, as a lead designer for MNCs such as Bata and Samsung. His travels around the globe inspired him to start his own business, LOPELAB, a design consultant agency that redesigns public spaces through marrying urban structures and social ideas for a more enjoyable and sustainable city. Since then, Petrillo and his team at Lopelab have organised eight Urban Ventures events that have seen over 50,000 visitors.
Low Eng Teong (Singapore) is an Assistant Chief Executive, Sector Development, National Arts Council Singapore.
Massamba MBAYE (Senegal) is an art critic, exhibition curator, and communication theories historian. Mbaye is a lecturer at Dakar Cheikh Anta Diop University and at the Virtual University of Senegal (UVS). Mbaye is a member of the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dak’Art Steering Committee and the Communication Officer of the Biennale. A member of the International Association of Art Critics (IAAC), he is the Executive Director of a media and communications group. Furthermore, Mbaye is a member of the editorial board of Afrik’Arts, an international visual arts magazine published by Dak’Art. He is an associate curator at Raw Material Company (RAW) and he is the lead curator of Kemboury Gallery. He has been regularly writing about aesthetics for the last 20 years. In 2019 Mbaye was a juror for the International Award for Public Art.
Milenko PRVAČKI (Singapore) was born in 1951 in (former) Yugoslavia. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Institutul de Arte Plastice “Nicolae Grigorescu” in Bucharest, Romania. Prvački is one of Singapore’s foremost artists and art educators, teaching at LASALLE College of the Arts since 1994. He was Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for 10 years, and is currently Senior Fellow, Office of the President at the College. He is also Founder of ART WALK Little India and Tropical Lab. Prvački participated in major exhibitions, most notably the Biennale of Sydney (2006). His work is in various private and public collections, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia; Singapore Art Museum, National Gallery Singapore; amongst others. He was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2011, and Singapore’s Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 2012.
Philip TINARI has served as Director of UCCA, Beijing, the institution at the heart of Beijing’s 798 Art District, since late 2011. His programme has brought to China international figures including Robert Rauschenberg, Elmgreen & Dragset, Haegue Yang, William Kentridge, Taryn Simon, and Tino Sehgal, and has tracked China’s evolving art scene through retrospectives and surveys of artists including Zhao Bandi, Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Wei, Xu Zhen, Wang Keping, Wang Xingwei, Kan Xuan. In 2009, he launched LEAP, an internationally distributed, bilingual art magazine published by the Modern Media Group. He is a contributing editor of Artforum, and was founding editor of the magazine’s online Chinese edition. He holds degrees from Duke University and Harvard University, and is currently a PhD candidate in art history at the University of Oxford.
Richard LIM (Singapore) is an art management professional, currently caring for CapitaLand’s corporate art collection in four broad ways: acquisition, display, promotion, and maintenance. As a champion of art and education, Lim regularly runs art-related activities for the enrichment of family, friends, and colleagues. He is also passionate about supporting emerging regional artists, with a special focus on Singaporean, Indonesian, and Thai art. Lim was invited to be a guest speaker at Art World Forum 2016, and has authored several articles related to corporate art acquisition processes in both English and Mandarin. In Lim’s personal artistic practice, he creates installations, paintings, and various craft-linked media, which often speak as social commentary on contemporary life.
Richard Serra is one of the most preeminent and visionary artists of his generation. In the 1960s, he and other Minimalist artists employed non-traditional, industrial materials to emphasise the materiality of their work. He subsequently expanded his spatial and temporal approach to sculptures to large-scale, site-specific work, of which his arcs, spirals, and ellipses are most renowned. These monumental works engage their viewers as they are experienced in situ. In 1968, he produced his first short film and experimented with video in the 1970s. Serra has held numerous museum shows and participated in important international exhibitions around the world.
WANG Dawei (China) is PhD supervisor, Executive Dean of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Editor- in-Chief of Public Art Magazine, Vice Director of the Graphic Design Art Committee of the Chinese Artists Association, a member of the Design Discipline Review Group of the State Council Academic Degrees Office, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Federation of Cultural and Art Circles, and Chairman of the Shanghai Creative Designers Association. His “Public Art Teaching and Research Practice” won the first prize of Shanghai Teaching Achievement in 2009 and himself was awarded the title of “Shanghai Leading Figure.”
Zulkifle Mahmod is a sound-media artist. Formally trained in sculpture, Zulkifle has expanded his practice to include sculpted sound and live sound performances. Zulkifle’s practice investigates the audible attributes of physical space to explore the emotional responses of its inhabitants. Zul is one of the participants for the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy for the Singapore Pavillion in 2007 along with three other artists. Zul‚ practice signals an encompassing and expanded visual arts sensory experience.
Between February and June 2016, Zulkifle was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he explored the aural relationship between ready-made sound sculptures, and the architecture of space, and examined the sonic characteristics, forms, and textures of everyday objects.
Culture City. Culture Scape. documents a major public art commission for a newly designed business park in Singapore, Mapletree Business City II, featuring works by international and local artists Dan Graham, Tomás Saraceno, Yinka Shonibare CBE, and Zul Mahmod, which draw upon regional histories and urban politics.
The curators’ conversations with the artists and with Edmund Cheng, Chairman of Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd, as well as reflective essays on the development process and the potential of art in public spaces, lend context on the multiple points of view that must be reconciled to create meaningful public spaces and explore the role art can play in public education and social corporate investment.
Culture City. Culture Scape.
Published by NTU CCA Singapore, 2021
Edited by Ute Meta Bauer, Sophie Goltz, and Khim Ong
Design by Studio Vanessa Ban
© 2021 by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore ISBN: 978-981-14-4377-0
Distributed by NUS Press (Asia Pacific and the Americas)
Copies are available for sale at NTU CCA Singapore and through NUS Press
To purchase your copy, please contact ntuccapublications@ntu.edu.sg
