Spaces of the Curatorial Archives - NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun, the first solo exhibition for the Amsterdam-based artist in his home country since 2019. The exhibition captures a significant chapter of Chan’s artistic trajectory, focusing on the growing entanglement of the artist’s tropical imaginaries with the escalation of the climate crisis in recent years. Featuring a newly commissioned film, performance, and print series alongside a selection of recent works, Three Acts of the Sun gathers speculative visions on the future of our planet.

Global warming is a planetary process whose compounding complexity engenders far-reaching and profoundly interdependent consequences across ecology and society, economy and culture, politics and emotions. The exhibition charts the tension between the reality of a planet increasingly dominated by heat and Chan’s desire to imagine the tropics in the future tense. It is from this vantage point of impending change that the artist looks forward and summons worlds to come. Set in unspecified futures, the artworks included in Three Acts of the Sun envision scenarios of advanced global warming where the climate demarcations of today have dissolved into a sweeping “tropicalisation” of the Earth. Framing this climatic shift through the prism of the embodied human experience, Chan’s narratives speculate over environmental migrations, the burden of intergenerational injustice, and the hubris of technological mastery of the weather, all haunted by memories of lost climates. The exhibition serves as a portal into the speculative climate futures conjured by the artist, transporting the public into possible worlds ahead where the tales and the songs of our descendants reveal stories of human life as it unfolds on a heated planet.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the new moving-image work, Weather Casting. Conflating prediction and actualisation, weather lore and techno-agency, divination and doom, the film builds upon the evolution of human relations to the weather from a history of reverence, adaptation, and survival towards one of technologically-empowered intervention addressing our rising ambitions for an engineerable Earth. Weather Casting delves in radical shift from forecasting the weather to casting weather into reality through geoengineering, large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system. A series of fictional news presenters report on geoengineered weather along the route of the Asian-Pacific monsoon—one of the largest weather systems in the world—that connects Southeast and East Asia as the two lobes of the same planetary engine. In this speculative era of ‘Tropics_Domain’, the technological mastery of the weather is enacted by AI-driven systems, that are named after ancient local deities once believed to preside over the elements and natural harmony. Programmed to clear the clouds, harness the winds, and rule over rainfall in service of human needs, these “deities” ultimately give voice to geopolitical antagonisms, environmental disruptions, and existential crises.

For this presentation, the exhibition space—situated on the verge of a secondary tropical rainforest—will relinquish its climate control, allowing Singapore’s heat and humidity to become atmospheric contributors to the exhibition. Through the deliberate immersion of the artworks in the tropical temperature they are informed by, viewers are brought to experience the core concerns of this project not just visually, sonically, and intellectually, but in the flesh of their bodies.

Three Acts of the Sun contributes to NTU CCA Singapore’s Climates.Habitats.Environments., a long-term line of inquiry aimed at a holistic understanding of this vital triangulation. Initiated in 2017, Climates.Habitats.Environments. focuses on environmentally engaged artistic practices and interdisciplinary collaborations to foster critical thinking and public awareness about the ecological complexities and the escalating climate crisis of our time.

Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun is curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, NTU CCA Singapore and is part of Singapore Art Week 2026.

Part of

Supported by

Video documentation of the exhibition Kent Chan. Three Acts of the Sun, 18 January – 1 February 2026. Video by Min-Wei Ting. Courtesy NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

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.

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.

Binna Choi (b. 1977, South Korea) is Director of Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Netherlands where she employs art and art institutional practice as a way to build a (micro) society in tandem with social movements. At Casco she has conceived and co-developed numerous long-term projects such as Composing the Commons (2013-2015) and Grand Domestic Revolution (2009/2010-2013). Her most recent curatorial projects include the three-day seminar Cultivate or Revolutionize? Life Between Apartment and Farmland (with Nikita Choi) at Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2014); the summer school and exhibition Group Affinity (with Bart van der Heide, 2011) at Kunstverein Münich, Munich, Germany; the 11th Gwangju Biennale, The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju, South Korea (2016). As part of her practice, she also engages with writing, editing, publishing, and contributes to discursive platforms with lectures, discussions, and workshops. Choi has been a faculty member at the Dutch Art Institute/ Masters of Fine Arts Programme in Arnhem, Netherlands.

During the residency, Barbara London will connect with local artists and institutions in Singapore. Reflecting on her experiences at MoMA where she founded the video exhibition and collection programmes, London will deliver a public lecture that will touch upon the museums’ support of the medium from its early formative years to the present. She will also conduct a two-day professional short course titled Time-Based Media in Collections.

Syafiatudina will discuss the practice of organizing spaces with few initiatives, collectives, institutions which are related to arts and culture in Singapore. Furthermore, she wants to investigate on how a space for critical engagement can be established in Singapore where owning a place is consider to be a luxury.

Simon Soon is a Senior Lecturer in the Visual Art Department, Culture Centre, University of Malaya, Malaysia. His research focuses on 20th-century art in Southeast Asia. He is a member of the editorial collective of Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art and a team member of the Malaysia Design Archive. He was an Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore in May 2015.

As part of her time in Singapore she presented the lecture “Non-transmittable form? Thoughts on the impossibility to show what might need to be shown today” which she described as “It is a contemporary given that cultures are replete with forms that have been transmitted from elsewhere. Most discourse on global art either assumes that this transmission has been easy and neutral, or fraught and based on power relations. Whether the problem of transmission is articulated or not, it is commonly taken for granted that exhibitions are functioning transmission machines. But what about form that simply does not transfer? Or does not transfer simply?”

Noack also spent time in Singapore further understanding different institutional structures.

Using Singapore as a case study, during the residency, Riksa Afiaty will explore the infrastructures of art institutions, economics, education, and production and the way in which these situations shape and affect art production. These investigations are part of Afiaty’s wider research on art infrastructures in Indonesia, and the conceptualisation of a new space and site of encounters whose commitments are in line with the political, societal as well as cultural shifts taking place both locally and globally.

Riksa Afiaty (b. 1986, Indonesia) lives and works in Jakarta. She recently co-curated with Charles Esche the exhibition Power and Other Things: Indonesia & Art (1835-NOW) at Bozar‚ Palais des beaux arts in Brussels for Europalia Art Festival 2017. She was part of the Curators Lab of the Jakarta Biennale 2015. As a member of the contemporary art organization ruangrupa from 2011 to 2016, she was involved with OK Video ‚ Indonesia Media Art Festival and ARTLAB. In 2013, she received a grant from Rumah Seni Cemeti to pursue her research on street art and graffiti. Her current research on non-Western models for art institutions is supported by a grant from the Foundation for Arts Initiatives.

A researcher and curator based in Berlin, Miya Yoshida develops different formats of projects based on her artistic research. She obtained her Master in Art History at Goldsmith College, University of London, and her PhD, Philosophy in Arts at Malmö Art Academy, Lund University. She has collaborated with art academies and universities in Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Her recent curatorial projects include Amateurism (Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2012), Art and Measurement (Kunstraum, Lüneburg/ Archive Kabinett, Berlin, 2012-13, 2018) and the annual exhibition project,Sharing as Caring (Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2012–16, 2018–ongoing). With the support of Stiftung Kunstfonds. and Stiftung für modern und zeitgenössische Kunst, she published Art and Measurement, Towards (Im)Measurability of Art and Life (Archive Books, Berlin, 2017).

Responding to the context of the exhibition The Making of an Institution, Emily Pethick will present a talk on The Showroom, London, United Kingdom looking at its mission statement and how this was developed in tandem with the organisation’s development. This talk is part of Reason to Exist: The Director’s Review that brings together directors and founders of organisations that adopt critical and innovative strategies to advance the development of contemporary art practices and discourses. Pethick will also engage and connect with local artists and institutions.

Dirk Snauwaert will connect with local artists and explore the Singapore art scene as well as the larger region of Southeast Asia. Snauwaert will also give a public talk presenting ideas related to the exhibition Atopolis, organised by WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre (Brussels) in collaboration with Mons 2015 – European Capital of Culture, which presented a group of artists interested in phenomena of circulation, diaspora and cultural dislocation. Twenty-three artists temporarily installed a proposal for an atopolis, or for an ideal city, connected to everyplace or anyplace. Snauwaert will also provide insight into the institution he directs – WIELS which combines a set of complementary functions: exhibition, production through an international residency programme and a robust education focus.

Maria Lind (b. 1966, Sweden) is Director of the Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm and Artistic Director of the Gwangju Biennale 2016. Lind is also an independent curator and writer interested in exploring the formats and methodologies connected with the contemporary art institution. Previous positions include, director of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2008-2010). Curatorial projects include co-curator of Manifesta 2, Europe’s biennale of contemporary art and was responsible for Moderna Museet Projekt; What if: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design and guest-curated the group exhibition Abstract Possible: The Tamayo Take at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. She has contributed widely to newspapers and magazines and to numerous catalogues and other publications. She is the 2009 recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. In the fall of 2010 Selected Maria Lind Writing was published by Sternberg Press.

Responding to the context of the exhibition The Making of an Institution, Diana Campbell Betancourt will present a talk on the Dhaka Art Summit, reassessing the landscape for cross-border artistic initiatives in South Asia and addressing the urgent need to research the history of institutional building in the region, specifically in Bangladesh. This talk is part of Reason to Exist: The Director’s Review, a series of events that brings together directors and founders of organisations that adopt critical and innovative strategies to advance the development of contemporary art practices and discourses.

Betancourt will also engage and connect with local institutions, with a focus on building connections between South and Southeast Asia.

Marco Scotini (Italy) is a curator, writer, and art critic based in Milan. He is currently Artistic Director of the FM Centre for Contemporary Art, Milan. Since 2004, he has been Head of the Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies Department at NABA, Milan and, since 2014, he has been Head of Exhibitions Program at Parco Arte Vivente (PAV), Turin. During his career, Scotini has curated more than 200 solo exhibitions of artists and has collaborated with art institutions such as Documenta (2017); MSU, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (2015); SALT, Istanbul (2014); Castello di Rivoli (2013); Raven Row, London (2013); Bildmuseet Umeå (2012); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2011); Manifesta (2009); and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2007), amongst many others. He curated the Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015 and co-curated the 1st edition of the Anren Biennale, China, in 2017. He is Artistic Director of the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale that will open in June 2018. Image credit: Copyright Mousse Agency, 2018.

While in residence, Corinne Diserens will connect with local artists and explore the Singapore art scene as well as the region of Southeast Asia. Diserens will also give a public talk discussing the exhibition as medium with the Taipei Biennial as a study, as well as touch on past exhibitions she had curated for artists Dieter Roth, Lygia Clark, and Marcel Broodthaers, amongst others. Diserens will also elaborate on research in the frame of art school and out of school, in relation to her experience as Director of the ERG, higher art and research academy in Brussels, Belgium.

Featuring:
Denise Yap, Apartment 2079, 2020
Moses Tan, Study for Dramatic Venus, 2020
Ruby Jayaseelan, STOP., 2020
passthejpeg, passthetime, 2020

<!DOCTYPE work> is a curatorial project that encourages people to rethink productivity in creative practices, influenced by forced remote work situations due to the global pandemic. Borrowing a programming language for the compliance of HTML standards, highlights the use of digital tools and formats for telecommuting. It also signifies the start of an experiment that is open-ended and process-based. Given the context of this current situation, it seeks to chart out the process of exhibition-making while reflecting on these questions: How are our creative practices responding to situational changes and remote working? What are the trajectories of discourse that can arise from the idea of “productivity” in the creative field? What does “productivity” mean to us?

This project, conceived by Leon Tan, Shireen Marican, and Tian Lim, is a pilot programme of the Platform Projects Curatorial Award overseen by NTU CCA Singapore. Currently in its inaugural year, this award supports a curatorial project exploring Spaces of the Curatorial by recent graduates of NTU CCA Singapore and NTU ADM’s MA programme in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, as well as NTU ADM’s research-oriented MA and PhD programmes.

Selene Yap is a Programme Manager for Visual Arts at The Substation. From 2014 to 2015, she was a member of Curating Lab, a curatorial mentorship programme by National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum. Yap’s previous projects include Objects in the Mirror Are Closer than They Appear (2015), a site-specific exploration on the experience of space and material in Singapore’s Dakota Crescent estate. Her interest in discursive engagements on the politics of urban space and culture is a development from her studies in NUS where she read Sociology and Southeast Asian Studies. Image credit: Susie Wong, image of selected pages from (her) Book of Solitude (2014).

Melanie Pocock is Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts and Editor-at-large of Kaleidoscope Asia. A graduate of the Royal College of Art’s MA in Curating Contemporary Art, she previously held curatorial positions at Art Scene China and Modern Art Oxford, where she worked on solo exhibitions by Shezad Dawood and Stephen Willats. Pocock’s projects and writing explore shifting modalities in contemporary media and the influence of intercultural exchange on artistic practices. Exhibitions she has curated include Jack Tan: How to do things with rules (2015), Countershadows (tactics in evasion) (2014) and Michael Lee: A machine for (living) dying in (2014). In 2014, Pocock edited and co-authored Sulaiman, the first monograph on the work of Malaysian artist Shooshie Sulaiman.

Siddharta Perez is an Assistant Curator at the NUS Museum, focused on developing exhibitions and programmes around the museum’s South & Southeast Asian Collection. Previously based in Manila, she is the co-founder of Planting Rice, an independent curatorial and resource platform, and worked as the curatorial associate for The Drawing Room’s Manila and Singapore galleries (2012-2015). Her other previous projects include LOSTprojects (2009-2012) – an independent space for Australia and Philippine artist exchange, the coordination of the Roberto Chabet retrospective (2011) and as an exhibition manager/curator for the Valentine Willie Fine Art galleries (2008-2011).

CITIES FOR PEOPLE is the pilot edition of the annual NTU CCA Ideas Fest, a platform to catalyse critical exchange of ideas and encourage thinking “out of the box”. It is a bottom-up approach linking the artistic and academic community with grassroots initiatives. This pilot edition expands artistic interventions and engages contemporary issues such as air, water, food, environment, and social interaction in connection to artistic and cultural fields, academic research, and design applications.

The 10-day programme, coinciding with Singapore Art Week 2017 and Art After Dark at Gillman Barracks, comprises a conglomerate of performances, public installations, participatory projects and social experiment, urban farming initiatives, public dialogues, and a variety of workshops. It cumulates in a three-day summit that brings together a prominent group of architects, theorists, researchers, curators, and community groups to discuss and exchange ideas about urbanism, modes of exchange, critical spatial practice, and to envision a future city. CITIES FOR PEOPLE offers a platform to contemplate the possibilities for our shared space, reformulate our demands accordingly, and project solutions and desires for the future.

CITIES FOR PEOPLE, borrowing the title from a book by eminent Singapore architect William S. W. Lim published in 1990, expands on some of the ideas Lim developed, particularly in relation to tropical environments and recycling, as well as his call for a humanistic architecture. Organised on the occasion of the exhibition Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts at Critical Spatial Practice, this event is an invitation to share and engage in cooperative projects and collective experiences that critically reflect on current challenges in urban and social development.

Sufian Samsiyar is an artist. Their work was featured in exhibitions at the National Gallery Singapore and the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

Sophie Goltz was Deputy Director, Research & Academic Programmes at NTU CCA Singapore, and Assistant Professor at the NTU School of Art, Design and Media. Goltz was the Artistic Director of Stadtkuratorin Hamburg (City curator) from 2013 to 2016, and has worked as Senior Curator and Head of Communication and Public Programmes at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein between 2008 and 2013, becoming Associate Curator in 2014. Goltz worked as a freelance curator, as well as an art educator for various international exhibitions, including Documenta11 and documenta 12 (2002 and 2007), 3rd berlin biennale for contemporary art (2004), and Project Migration (2004-06).

Dr Anna Lovecchio (Italy/Singapore) is a curator committed to foster the processes of artistic research and create platforms for the production and circulation of knowledge, critical discourse, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Since 2016, she works at the NTU CCA Singapore where she has developed a broad range of programmes, including residencies, exhibitions, publications, and a podcast. Previously, she was Junior Curator at Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa, Italy where she has worked on exhibitions by Tomás Saraceno, Tony Conrad, Susan Philipsz, Pino Pascali, Julieta Aranda, and Zhang Enli, amongst others. She was Executive Editor of the art journal Around Photography International from 2007 to 2008. She holds a PhD in the history of contemporary art from the University of Bologna, Italy, and an MA in Contemporary Art and Museum Studies from Tufts University, Boston, United States.

Developed during his residency at NTU CCA Singapore, Creatif Compleks (2018) is the culmination of Michael Lee’s reflection on the function of the artist’s studio within the arts ecology of a city. The work takes the form of a diagram about a hypothetical property development consisting of various configurations of the artist’s home/studio. The use of LED light strips, a popular fixture in advertising and interior design, alludes to latent apprehensions about the development and promotion of the arts in Singapore which today are, arguably, at a feverish pitch. Informed by myths and fantasies of artists in their studios, the work takes a speculative leap into the utopian and the absurd.

Dr June Yap is a curator, art historian, and Director of Curatorial, Programmes and Publications at the Singapore Art Museum. She is the author of Retrospective: A Historiographical Aesthetic in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia (2016) and curator of the Singapore Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). In April 2012, Yap was selected as Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia. This led to the exhibition No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia that was also presented at NTU CCA Singapore between May and July 2014.

Magdalena Magiera is Curator, Outreach & Education at NTU CCA Singapore. She was an independent curator, Managing Editor of frieze d/e, and currently Editor of mono.kultur, a quarterly interview magazine. She co-curated Based in Berlin (2011) as well as exhibitions for The Building and SPLACE in Berlin. Magiera was Project Manager of The Maybe Education and Other Programs at dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2012), and UNITEDNATIONSPLAZA, Berlin (2006–08). Prior to joining NTU CCA Singapore, she worked for e-flux exhibitions and public programmes in New York City.

While in residence, Erin Gleeson gave a public talk with her nomination for the NTU CCA Singapore Residency Programme, Artist-in-Residence, Luke Willis Thompson. She also had introductory visits and curatorial tours to important institutional spaces and made a number of first-contact studio visits, finding synergies with CCA artist-in-residence, Koh Nguang How’s research for Shui Tit Sing – 100 Years of an Artist through his Archives as part of his Singapore Art Archive Project @ CCA (SAAP@CCA).

The political aspiration to map and shape a regional identity through historical writing and cultural planning stumbles upon a multi-layered subject difficult to grasp or define. The diversity of voices in this publication mirrors the complexity of the region itself: its various curatorial spaces, infrastructures, and political systems. The publication includes contributions by Ute Meta Bauer, Zoe Butt, Kevin Chua, Patrick D. Flores, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Tony Godfrey, Yin Ker, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Seng Yu Jin, Simon Soon, Nora A. Taylor, and David Teh. The publication was launched in several places across the wider region including Singapore, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong.

To purchase your copy, please contact ntuccapublications@ntu.edu.sg

Anca Rujoiu is a curator and editor based in Singapore. As curator for exhibitions and later head of publications (2013–2018), she was part of the founding team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. In 2019, she was the co-curator of the third edition of the Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara, approached as a one-year institutional programme. Whether working in a contemporary art centre, an independent space, an art school, or in the context of a biennial, she has been passionate about stretching art’s publicness, working across formats. First-Person Institutions, her PhD research at Monash University in Melbourne is focused on institution building, artists’ archives, and transnational imaginaries.

Brigitte Oetker was a Professor for Creative Processes at KMM, Institut für Kultur- und Medienmanagement, Hamburg, Germany, from 2008 to 2016. She has been the editor of Jahresring—Annual of Fine Arts since 1989. Since 1988 she has been a member of the board of Villa Romana Residency in Florence, which gives grants to young artists, and assumed the mantle of chairwoman from 2019. She also serves on the board of the Friends of the German Pavilion of the Biennale di Venezia. She is a member of the International Council of MoMA, New York and of the International Council of Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez is an Associate Professor of the University of the Philippines Diliman Department of Art Studies. Currently working within UP’s Doctorate in Social Development program in line with long-term research on site-specific community art initiatives across the Philippines, she continues to work across the fields of criticism and art history. She presently serves as editorial collective member of the journal Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia.

Grace Samboh lives and works between Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Medan, doing curatorial work as well as groundwork research. In 2011, she co-founded Hyphen —, a research initiative that aims to publish reference books on recent art practices. She is program manager for the Equator Symposium (2012–2022, Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation) and programme director of RUBANAH Underground Hub, a gallery-based initiative in Jakarta, established in 2018.Grace Samboh has been involved in a variety of exhibition projects as curator, advisor or contributor, including Unorganised Response (AutoItalia, London, 2019), Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2019), Choreographed Knowledges (Institute for Art and Society, Yogyakarta, 2019).

Gridthiya Gaweewong is currently a Curator and Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. She is co-founder and director of Project 304, a non-profit art space based in Bangkok, focusing on multidisciplinary and cross-cultural contemporary art projects by local and international artists. Gridthiya has curated numerous exhibitions and films festival including the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (1997-2007), Under Construction (2002), Politics of Fun (2005), Saigon Open City (2006-7), Short Film Festival from Southeast Asia (2009), Between Utopia and Dystopia (2011) and Primitive (2011).

Guo-Liang Tan is an artist working primarily with painting and text. Tan’s practice explores the tension between the phenomenological and the psychological in the process of painting and writing. His artist publication, Aversions (2009), brought together reflections from Singaporean artists on writing, drawing, and conceptualism. Between December 2015 and April 2016, Tan was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he continued his research on abstraction and the notion of touch as an indexical and invocative gesture.

Ho Weng Hin is partner and conservation specialist consultant of Studio Lapis, an architectural conservation consultancy involved in major local and regional projects. He is also a founding director of the Singapore Chapter of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an advisory body to UNESCO on heritage conservation, and represents Singapore as expert voting member on its International Scientific Committee on 20th Century Heritage. He serves on government advisory panels on heritage policy and planning. Ho Weng Hin is an adjunct senior lecturer at the Department of Architecture at National University of Singapore, and he obtained his specialist postgraduate degree in conservation from the University of Genoa, Italy. He is the co-author of several books including Our Modern Past: A Visual Survey of Singapore Architecture, 1920s-70s, and former co-editor of The Singapore Architect, the professional journal of the Singapore Institute of Architects.

Kevin Chua is an Associate Professor of Art History at Texas Tech University, USA. He specializes in the history of 18th- and 19th-century European and Southeast Asian art, and has published in a wide range of journals, including Art History, Representations, Art Journal, Third Text, Artforum, and nonsite.

Lee Weng Choy is president of the Singapore Section of the International Association of Art Critics, and a part-time consultant with A+ Works of Art in Kuala Lumpur. Previously, Lee was Artistic Co-Director of The Substation, Singapore; he has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art—Singapore. His essays have appeared in journals such as Afterall, and anthologies such as Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology (Cornell SEAP, 2012), Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture (MIT Press, 2004), and Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). He writes the “Ask a Critic” column for Plural Art Mag.

Nora A. Taylor is the Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asia Art and Chair of the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, United States. She is the author of Painters in Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art (University of Hawaii Press, 2004, and NUS Press, 2009) and co-editor of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology (Cornell SEAP, 2012).

Patrick D. Flores is a Professor of Art History and Criticism at the Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, where he is also the curator of the Jorge B. Vargas Museum. In 2015, he curated the Philippine Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. Recent publications include “Contemporaneity and Art in Southeast Asia,” a special issue of Third Text (2011), co-edited with Joan Kee, and Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (NUS Museum, 2008). He is the Curator of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022.

Dr. Pwint is Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Architecture at Yangon Technical University (YTU), Myanmar. She received her PhD in Architecture from Yangon Technical University in 2006. Sheworks in the areas of heritage conservation management, architecture education, sustainable architecture, and vernacular architecture. She is a local expert for the development of building control guidelines for the Pyu Ancient Cities, a UNSECO World Heritage Site. Apart from YTU, Pwint has worked with the Myanmar Ministry of Science and Technology. She is a member of the Bagan Master Plan Team, Myanmar ICOMOS, a former executive member of the Association of Myanmar Architects (2015–2018),and was a member of the Three Pyu Ancient Cities Property Management Plan Team (2012–2014).

Seng Yu Jin is an art historian and Senior Curator at The National Gallery Singapore. He completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne. He lectures at the National University of Singapore’s Minor in Art History, and LASALLE College of the Arts’ MA in Asian Art Histories programme. Seng’s research interests include the modern and contemporary histories of Southeast Asia, focusing on exhibition histories, collectivism, and forms of socially engaged artistic practices in the region.

Syafiatudina‚ (b. 1988, Indonesia) curatorial practices lies inthe interplay between theory and practice, thinking and doing. Her ideasstemfrom the belief that artistic practices are part of knowledge inquiriesthat contribute to social and political change. She is currently working as researcher and curator at KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Tony Godfrey is an art historian and curator. His most recent curatorial collaboration was “Far away, but strangely familiar: twenty-three contemporary artists from the Philippines” (2019). From 2014 to 2020, he published Tuesday in the Tropics, an online-distributed illustrated weekly letter. In 2020, his book on the Chinese painter Ding Yi was published (co-written with Wang Kaimei, publ. Lund Humphries), as was his history of contemporary art, The Story of Contemporary Art (Thames and Hudson). He was a research fellow at NTU CCA Singapore in 2015.

Research Focus

1. Conceptual art in Southeast Asia (Maritime) and its relationship to conceptual art globally

2. The status of conceptual art and nature of installation art in Southeast Asia

Yin Ker is Assistant Professor at the School of Humanities and School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She owes her training in art history to the Sorbonne University. Her work focuses on Myanmar’s pioneer modern painter, Bagyi Aung Soe (1923–1990). Her research interests include “art” and “art history” as variable constructs, “art” and matrices of power and authority, and the intersections of ancient and modern methods of knowledge and image-making.

Zoe Butt is a curator, writer, speaker, and educator. Her curatorial practice centers on building critically thinking and historically conscious artistic communities, fostering dialogue among cultures of the globalizing souths. She is currently Artistic Director of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City; formerly in directorial/curatorial roles with Sàn Art (Ho Chi Minh City), Long March Project (Beijing); Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane). Her work has been published by Sharjah Art Foundation, Hatje Cantz, ArtReview, ArtAsiaPacific, JRP-Ringier, Routledge, and Sternberg Press, amongst others.

Free Jazz, NTU CCA Singapore’s inaugural programme brings together artists, curators, art critics and scholars to imagine and contribute to the thinking and envisioning of the potentials for this new Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore. As the title suggests, Free Jazz is about improvisation, the ability to listen, to respond and engage into a less prescribed and controlled environment. Improvisation stands for a form of inquiry that can become an active tool to generate new possibilities for conceptualising and programming art institutions. Free Jazz at NTU CCA Singapore presents a series of paired presentations and juxtaposes different approaches into a single platform as a playful way to encourage conversational and performative interactions that can take spontaneous, fluid, unplanned moves.

The Disappearance situates itself in the architectural setting of a previous exhibition Paradise Lost. It works with what is left out: the traces of the show in the space; its echoes in our memory, The Disappearance conceals and reveals: what has happened before and what will follow. Subject to operations of installation and de-installation, an exhibition space if continuously edited: we erase one text to inscribe another. The Disappearance acknowledges the inherent changes into an exhibition space and its continuous rewriting. What happens after an exhibition is over? What we remember? How we remember?

Curated by Anca Rujoiu (Curator for Exhibitions) and Vera Mey (Curator for Residencies), The Disappearance is conceived as a durational event unfolding over two days including a continuous series of manifestations from live performances to film screenings.