Cultural Heritage]]> Oceans & Seas]]> 22 February - 22 May 2022
Artist-in-Residence at HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (Finland)

Born into a fisherman’s family that regularly hosted and attended seafood banquets, fish has always been a mainstay in Fan Chon’s diet. In recent years, fish has also become a recurring motif in his practice. Foreign invasive species, such as the Tilapia fish, mythical creatures, such as the half-dragon half-fish Shachihoko ubiquitous in Japanese culture, and the dolphins on George Town’s municipal coat of arms regularly appear in his work. Fan Chon understands food consumption as a constant negotiation between nature and culture inflected by social norms. During the residency, he intends to research the plating aesthetic and the obsession with freshness, exemplified by aquarium displays of live fish, typical of Chinese culture. Specifically, he will explore banquet dining practices of diasporic Chinese communities in Finland and Finland’s own fish culture, consumptions habits, and industry. At the same time, he will also explore the host country with an open mind looking for accidental discoveries of cultural artefacts and practices that might appear foreign and yet familiar.]]>
Hoo Fan Chon]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Identity]]> History]]> Politics]]> Yee I-Lann]]> Curating]]> Photography]]> Southeast Asia]]> Architecture]]> Simon Soon]]> Southeast Asia]]> Ecology]]>
The ephemeral element of the whole idea and process of the project is to investigate Southeast Asia's ancestors and technologies in a cultural pattern that can bring hope and understanding to a new legacy. This project also attempts to pursue questions of property, public space and ecology and to understand more about the authority that claim the land and the sky.]]>
Shooshie Sulaiman]]> Drawing]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Activism]]> Politics]]>
True to his existing practice, during his time as an Artist-in-Residence, Ise will note take through drawing and create a series of events utilising food as a social binder whilst also going deeper into its layered histories and how this connects to Southeast Asia.]]>
Roslisham Ismail ]]> Ise]]> Roslisham Bin Ismail]]> Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Topography]]> Monica Ursina Jäger]]> Monica Ursina Jager]]> Installation]]> Sculpture]]> Southeast Asia]]> Urbanism]]> Topography]]> History]]> Izat Arif]]> Installation]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]> Urbanism]]> Nature]]> Animals]]> The Economy of Birds (and Maximum Standard of Living), a research-based project that looks at how contemporary societies in Southeast Asia determine the minimum standard of living. The artist investigates the notion of “human dwelling” through a comparison between the human and the animal world by drawing a parallel between the practice of farming swiftlet birdhouses for sale and consumption and the typology of the metropolitan apartment block. In the artist’s vision, a comparative analysis of airflows, relative humidity, air temperature distribution, and light intensity that characterize the farming of edible bird’s nests and the technical requirements that make a human dwelling comfortable and efficient, is instrumental to rethink the guidelines for socially acceptable living environments as well as their implications in terms of economics and human rights.]]> Chris Chong Chan Fui]]> Installation]]> Print]]> Southeast Asia]]> Globalisation]]> History]]> Chia-Wei Hsu]]> Chia Wei Hsu]]> Film]]> Video]]> Asia]]> History]]> Identity]]> We Were Once a Nation is a research project about nation building which unearths the histories of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. The research will focus on the years between 1963 and 1965, when Singapore and Malaysia split from the merger, in order to map a shared history of hopes, conflicts, and anxieties. Searching Singapore archival materials to decode Malayan history and, therefore, his own Malaysian identity, chi too aims to address the political and personal implications embedded in the construction of a nation state.]]> chi too]]> Installation]]> Performance]]>