<!DOCTYPE work> ]]> Ecosystems]]> Labour]]> Knowledge Production]]> Spaces of the Curatorial]]> 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.]]>
Denise Yap]]> Moses Tan]]> Ruby Jayaseelan]]> passthejpeg]]> Leon Tan]]> Shireen Marican]]> Tian Lim]]> Installation]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Sculpture]]> Photography]]> Print]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Bring it to LIFE]]> Migration]]> Capitalism]]> Knowledge Production]]> Public Sphere]]> Bring it to LIFE is a curatorial project that engages with NTU CCA Singapore’s Artist Resource Platform which aims to overcome the mediated experience and create direct encounters with artistic production. Structured in four different episodes, Bring it to LIFE brings to the fore artworks by Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Kray Chen, Sufian Samsiyar, and Geraldine Kang that directly engage with the subject matter of PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL. through themes of migration and capital transactions. In addition, it uses spatial interventions as a tool to highlight that the production of meaning is also a spatial process and our movement into a confined place impacts upon the way we relate to it and make meaning out of it.

The work of Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor produced during their residency at NTU CCA Singapore is conceived as a visual poem focused on the migrant workers whose individual destinies are influenced by the wider movements of capital flow. Kray Chen’s contribution is a playful installation highlighting how transactional activities such as cutting queues, getting out of a train or simply shopping are punctuating our everyday life. Sufian Samsiyar’s collaborative project tests the thin boundaries between work and life space. Geraldine Kang’s intervention into the spatial arrangement of the Platform is a proposition for another reading and way of engagement with an archive that eschews linearity and prescribed movement into the space.

Conceived by a constellation of voices from NTU CCA Singapore, Bring it to LIFE is curated by Shona Findlay, Curatorial Assistant, Residencies, Syaheedah Iskandar, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions, Samantha Leong, Executive, Conference, Workshops & Archive, and Kimberly Shen, Manager, Communications.]]>
Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor]]> Kray Chen]]> Sufian Samsiyar]]> Geraldine Kang]]> Shona Findlay]]> Syaheedah Iskandar]]> Samantha Leong]]> Kimberly Shen]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Video]]> Installation]]> Object]]> Print]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.]]> Performance]]> Body]]> Nature]]>

Collaborative and experimental by nature, Free Jazz III builds upon its past iterations by activating and challenging common understandings of exhibition-making and the use of space. Sound walks. Machines listen. We are living through unusual times. 

As the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore approaches a major transformation away from a permanent exhibition space in early 2021, Free Jazz III continues to explore the possibilities of an international research centre for contemporary art, featuring many artists who have been part of NTU CCA Singapore’s exhibitions, residencies, and programs since 2013, when the Centre presented Free Jazz as its inaugural event. The project began as a form of inquiry and an active tool to generate new possibilities for conceptualizing and programming an art institution. Free Jazz III convenes diverse projects united by themes of adaptation via masterful improvisation, trans-mediatic pivots, and the conscious renegotiation of our relationships to nature, technology, and each other. The disparate components of Free Jazz III explore the elements of dissonance, resistance, and innovation embedded in its musical namesake and the ability for sound and art to transcend physical and social distance. Embracing sound and walking as two powerful ways to overcome distance and bring people together, Free Jazz III comprises projects that can take place in non-gallery spaces, independently, asynchronously, or in purposeful syncopation with the present moment, reflecting on the past and looking forward to the future. 

Admission to all programmes and events is free.

Sound. Walks.
January–March 2021 (On-site and online)

Reflecting on the loss of physicality through increased virtual interactions as well as many histories of sound and walking, artists address common life and communality in times of social distancing. In this series of performative explorations of sound, music, and community building, reflections take the form of soundwalks, sonic wayfinding and other physical and aural experiences, offering multiple ways for the public to actively witness, listen and participate, both remotely and on-site. Soundwalks by Tini Aliman (Singapore), Christa Donner and Andrew S Yang (United States), and Diana Lelonek (Poland) and Denim Szram (Poland/Switzerland) are propelled by sonic outputs of nature. Storytelling, correspondence, and the impossibility of direct communication factor into projects by Cheryl Ong (Singapore), Ana Prvački (Romania/Germany) in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh (Singapore) and Galina Mihaleva (Bulgaria/Singapore), and Vivian Wang (Singapore/Switzerland). Sound, history, culture, and space overlap and intertwine in works by Arahmaiani (Indonesia) and Jimmy Ong (Singapore), bani haykal (Singapore) and Lee Weng Choy (Malaysia), Reetu Sattar (Bangladesh), and anGie Seah (Singapore).

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. is curated by Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Curator, Education and Outreach, and Dr Karin Oen (United States/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes

Under the Skin
1 December 2020 – 31 January 2021 (Online)

World premiere and special performance
1 December 2020, 7pm SGT

This trio of performative works by artists George Chua (Singapore), Nina Djekić (Slovenia/Singapore/Netherlands), and Noor Effendy Ibrahim (Singapore) engages with sound, bodily movements, and performance. These new pieces are cinematically translated into the medium of video by filmmaker Russell Morton (Singapore) and viewed online, acknowledging the curatorial premise that, “the pandemic has pushed us into a space of dramatic convergence—where a deep tech, hyper-connected future collides with social political unrest,” in both the work itself and the medium in which it is presented.

Under the Skin is curated for Free Jazz III by artist Cheong Kah Kit (Singapore) as part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, a united response to the changes brought about by COVID-19 hosted by twelve Singapore arts institutions, initiated by the National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum.

Partner programmes:

Machine Listening, a curriculum
From October 2020 (Online)

Expanded collaborations and explorations of curatorial spaces also took form in support of Machine Listening, a curriculum instigated by Melbourne-based Liquid Architecture. This evolving online resource, comprising existing and newly commissioned writing, interviews, music and artworks is a new investigation and experiment in collective learning around the emergent field of machine listening. It premiered with three online sessions open to all as part of Unsound 2020: Intermission, an experimental sound festival in Krakow, Poland. NTU CCA Singapore and Liquid Architecture will convene another collaborative online session open to the public in early 2021.

Machine Listening, a curriculum is curated by Sean DockrayDr James Parker, and Joel Stern (all Australia).

Visit the evolving open source curriculum and the recorded Unsound sessions:

(Against) the coming world of listening machines
Lessons in How (Not) to be Heard
Listening with the Pandemic

Sollum Swaramum
26 February 2021, 7.30 – 9.00pm
On-Site at Blk 43 Malan Road

Presented in collaboration with The Arts House’s Poetry with Music series, the 4th edition of Sollum Swaramum, brings together musicians Ramesh Krishnan, Mohamed Noor and Munir Alsagoff in exploration of the synergies between music and text, with devised and improvised texts based on the work of Tamil literary stalwarts P Krishnan, Ma Ilangkannnan and Rama Kannabiran. These newly devised texts are written by Harini V, Ashwinii Selvarai and Bharathi Moorthiappan, performed by Sivakumar Palakrishnan, and art direction by Laura Miotto.

Curated by Magdalena Magiera, Curator, Outreach and Education, and Dr. Karin Oen, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore. 

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. presented in partnership with Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, The Arts House, Liquid Architecture, as part of Singapore Art week, supported by National Arts Council.

]]>
Tini Aliman]]> Christa Donner]]> Andrew S Yang]]> Diana Lelonek]]> Denim Szram]]> Cheryl Ong]]> Ana Prvački]]> Joyce Bee Tuan Koh]]> Galina Mihaleva]]> Vivian Wang]]> Arahmaiani]]> Jimmy Ong]]> bani haykal]]> Lee Weng Choy]]> Reetu Sattar]]> anGie Seah]]> Magdalena Magiera]]> Karin Oen]]> George Chua]]> Nina Djekić]]> Russell Morton ]]> Noor Effendy Ibrahim]]> Cheong Kah Kit]]> Liquid Architecture]]> Ramesh Krishnan]]> Laura Miotto]]> Mohamed Noor]]> Harini V]]> Ashwinii Selvarai]]> Bharathi Moorthiappan]]> Sivakumar Palakrishnan]]> Munir Alsagoff]]> Nanthiyni Aravindan]]> Sean Dockray]]> James Parker]]> Joel Stern]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Free Jazz]]> Spaces of the Curatorial]]> Performance]]> 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.]]> Lee Wen]]> Lucy Davis]]> Grieve Perspective]]> OFFCUFF]]> Bani Haykal]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Lee Weng Choy]]> Anca Rujoiu]]> Cosmin Costinas]]> Ade Darmawan]]> Mark Nash]]> Zai Kuning]]> Bige Örer ]]> Geert Lovink]]> Nikos Papastergiadis ]]> Southeast Asia]]> Non-Aligned Film Programme: Third Way / After Bandung]]> Identity]]> History]]> Decolonialism]]> Postcolonialism]]> Inequality]]>

This film programme was originally intended to be screened on-site in parallel with the exhibition Non-Aligned. During Singapore’s Circuit-Breaker period, selected films were available to be streamed on our website for limited periods of time, even after the Centre re-opened to the public on 27 June 2020. As of 18 August 2020, the Film Programme is being screened exclusively on site in the Single Screen, with limited capacity and physical distancing measures in place. NTU CCA Singapore gratefully acknowledges the collaboration of the curators, filmmakers, and distributors in making online screening possible during the global COVID-19 crisis.

____

This programme features films that engage post-colonial processes covering different moments and geopolitical contexts. The Asian-African Conference in 1955, known as the Bandung Conference, amidst the complex processes of decolonization, established self-determination, non-aggression, and equality as part of the core values that then formed the Non-Aligned Movement. This history is unpacked and contextualised through this series of screenings.

Co-curated by writer and curator Mark Nash and film researcher Vladimir Seput.

Screening on loop during opening hours.

Joris Ivens, Indonesia Calling, 1946 
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 22 min

This film shows the role trade union seaman and waterside workers in Sydney played in Indonesia’s independence struggle after World War II. Comprising different nationalities and races, they united together to prevent the departure of Indonesia-bound Dutch ships that carried weapons meant to bring the Indonesian National Revolution to a halt. The film seeks to distil aspects of the historical context of the events depicted in the film and gives insight to the major re-alignments in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

4 – 16 August 2020 (On loop in The Single Screen and also available online) 
First conference of Non-Aligned Movement, 1961
Archive footage, colour, sound, 10 min 51 sec

Archive footage from the first conference of the 1961 Non-Aligned Movement, otherwise known as the Belgrade Conference, presenting historical events from the meeting. The inaugural conference was initiated by three key figures: Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia; Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt; and Jawaharlal Nehru, First Prime Minister of India. Attended by 25 countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the conference is a direct response to the division of sphere of influence settled between the major world forces after WWII and the Cold War, enabling members to independently formulate their own position in international politics.

18 – 23 August 2020 (On loop in The Single Screen)
Ousmane Sembène, Borom Sarret, 1963
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 18 min

Borom Sarret, considered to be the first African film by a black African, is a portrayal of poverty and inequality in postcolonial Africa. It follows the daily life of a Dakar “borom sarret”, or cart driver in Wolof (a language of Senegal), who is constantly being taken advantage of by others. Feeling hopeless about his situation, he compares modern life to that of a working slave, imprisoned in a cycle of poverty.  

Restored in 2013 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project in association with Institut National de l’Audiovisuel and the Sembène Estate. Restoration work was carried out at Laboratoires Éclair and Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Restoration funding provided by Doha Film Institute. 

Mikhail Kalatozov, I am Cuba (Soy Cuba), 1964
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 141 min

Narrated by Raquel Ravuelta, a seminal figure in Cuban theatre, film, television and radio, as “The Voice of Cuba,” I am Cuba follows four stories of Cubans during the Cuban Revolution. Maria works at a Havana nightclub; Pedro is a tenant farmer; Enrique, a young university student, is part of the intellectual resistance; and Mariano is a peasant who joins the rebel army. The script was co-authored by the Cuban novelist Enrique Pineda Barnet and the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

25 – 30 August 2020 (Every hour in The Single Screen)
Ousmane Sembène, Black Girl (La noire de… ), 1966 
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 60 min

The film chronicles Senegal’s first years of independence by following a young ambitious woman, Diouana, who moves to the French Riviera with a bureaucrat and his wife who return to France after working in Dakar. Originally hired as the family nanny, she becomes enslaved as a maid in France. A human drama and a radical political statement, Black Girl critiques the enduring colonial mind-set of a supposedly postcolonial world. Black Girl was Ousmane Sembène’s first feature film and the first black African feature film which screened at Cannes. It alsowon the Prix Jean Vigo and top prize at the Carthage Film Festival. 

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of The Film Foundation. 
Restored by Cineteca di Bologna/ L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with the Sembène Estate, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, INA, Eclair laboratories and the Centre National de Cinématographie. Restoration funded by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project. 

1 – 6 September 2020 (12pm, 1.45pm, 3.30pm, 5.15pm in The Single Screen)
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 97 min

The film’s narrative, based on the novel Inconsolable Memories by Edmundo Desnoes, is presented through the lens of Sergio, a wealthy bourgeois aspiring writer, during the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. His family decides to retreat to Miami during the turmoil of social changes. The film is interspersed with real-life documentary footage of protest and political events in which Sergio’s life and personal relationship unfolds. As the threat of foreign invasion looms over Sergio, his desire for companionship also intensifies. 

Restored by the Cineteca di Bologna at L’ Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC). Restoration funded by the George Lucas Family Foundation and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project.

8 – 20 September 2020 (12pm, 1.30pm, 3pm, 4.30pm, 5.45pm in The Single Screen)
Želimir Žilnik, Early Works (Rani Radovi), 1969
35mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 58 min

Winner of the Golden Berlin Bear Award at the 19th Berlin International Film Festival, Early Works (Ravi Radovi) focuses on the June 1968 student demonstrations in Belgrade, as well as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the same year. Both incidents happened against an international backdrop of student protests, political movements and anti-colonial struggles around the world. In the film, three young men and a girl called Yugoslava attempt to start a revolution in the countryside after being inspired by the early writings by Karl Marx, but are unsuccessful.

8 – 20 September 2020 (In The Single Screen)
Želimir Žilnik, Shorts: Black Film (Cri Film), 1971
16 mm transferred to digital file, b&w, sound, 14 min

An example of the Yugoslav Black Wave, the film movement in Yugoslavia in the 1960s to 1970s, Shorts: Black Film (Cri Film) is a spontaneous effort by Žilnik to highlight socio-political issues. In the wee hours, he approaches six homeless men on the streets of Novi Sad. Žilnik interviews them and allows them to sleep over at his home. Over the next few days, he speaks to members of the public, social workers, and the police, but nobody is able to offer any solutions. 

Karpo Godina, Litany of Happy People (Zdravi ljudi za razonodu), 1971 
35mm transferred to digital file, colour, sound, 15 min

The Litany of Happy People is a song-film about the diverse group of people living harmoniously in rural Vojvodina, an autonomous province of Serbia known for its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic identity. The film presents families with multi-ethnic backgrounds, standing in front of their seemingly similar but colourful rural houses. The film won numerous awards at short film festivals.

Karpo Godina, About Art of Love or a Film with 14441 Frames (O ljubavnim veštinama ili film sa 14441 kvadratom), 1972 
Colour, sound, 10 min

This film presents an almost journalistic report of the female textile workers and male military soldiers in the Macedonian village of Stip. Interwoven with military footage and shots of the village, the alternating scenes present the two groups in proximity, while being completely isolated.  The film went through a thorough restoration process in 2016 and was shown at the 30th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy. 

22 – 27 September 2020 (12pm, 1.30pm, 3pm, 4.30pm, 5.45pm in The Single Screen)
Isaac Julien, Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask, 1995
35mm transferred to digital file, colour, sound, 70 min

This film interrogates the life and work of Frantz Fanon, a highly influential anti-colonial writer, civil rights activist, and psychoanalytic theorist from Martinique. The docudrama is interspersed with archival footage of Fanon as well as interviews with family members and colleagues. Reflecting on the black body and its representations, the film is rooted in the black arts movement in Britain and North America.

]]>
Mark Nash]]> Vladimir Seput]]> Joris Ivens]]> Ousmane Sembène]]> Mikhail Kalatozov]]> Tomás Gutiérrez Alea]]> Želimir Žilnik,]]> Karpo Godina]]> Isaac Julien]]> Africa]]> South America]]> Europe]]> Asia]]>
And in the Chapel and in the Temples: research in progress by Buddhist Archive of Photography and Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho]]> Archival Practice]]> Artistic Research]]>
The Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang, Laos, has gathered over 35,000 photographs either taken or collected by monks since 1890. The photographs have recently been digitised and catalogued, using innovative methodologies attentive to climatic, cultural, and religious circumstances. This Archive is, therefore, a fascinating instance of specifically 21st-century contemporary practice, as much as it is a unique collection of 19th and 20th-century modern photographs. This is the first time images from the Buddhist Archive of Photography are publicly presented in Asia, outside of Luang Prabang. The Archive has also published a series of bilingual English and Lao research volumes, which are made available in this presentation.

When considering this vast repository of images, several tropes and questions recur. What is photography’s relationship to anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering), and anatta (non-self), the three marks of existence in Buddhist thought? What role did Buddhists and photographers play in the Southeast Asian theatre of the global Cold War? And what are the limits of architectural modernity? These questions are explored in three distinct collections of photographs selected for this presentation. The first is a series of portraits of the late Most Venerable Pha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thera (1920–2007), co-founder of the Buddhist Archive, taken every year from the age of seven until his death. The second selection comprises photographs collected by photographer-monk Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro (1901–1987), which protest the effects of civil war in Laos from 1959 to 1975, as well as photographs taken by another photographer-monk Pha Oun Heuane Hasapanya Maha Thela (1928–1982), who chronicled rarely seen aspects of Buddhist life, such as women’s vipassana meditation retreats. The third selection of images depicts the 1950s modernising renovations of Wat Saen Soukharam temple, under the direction of the late Most Venerable Pha Khamchan. These photographs, and the publications which accompany them, reward historical, spiritual, aesthetic, and other modes of attention and analysis.

And in the Chapel and in the Temples: research in progress by Buddhist Archive of Photography and Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho is conceived and organised by Dr Roger Nelson, an art historian and curator specialising in modern and contemporary art in Southeast Asia, and currently Postdoctoral Fellow at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The presentation draws on Nelson’s ongoing art historical archival research in the Buddhist Archive, and his ongoing curatorial dialogue with Lien and Camacho.

Presented as a Fringe Programme of the 6th Singapore International Photography Festival.

Roger Nelson thanks Dr Khamvone Boulyaphonh, Hans Georg Berger, the Acuña family, Lynda Tay, the caretakers of Gillman Barracks, Drusilla Tay, Marc Glöde, Guo-Liang Tan, Patrick D. Flores, Simon Soon, and others who assisted in the development and realisation of this presentation.]]>
Roger Nelson]]> Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho]]> The Buddhist Archive of Photography]]> Photography]]> Print]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Artist Resource Platform Activate!]]> Artistic Research]]> Regionalism]]> Geopolitics]]> Knowledge Production]]> Artist Resource Platform: activate! is an ongoing project that engages with and expands upon the Artist Resource Platform, a growing collection of visual and audio materials from over 90 artists and independent art spaces. The series will negotiate with the limitations of an archive by initiating conversations and experimentations, offering the audience multiple access points to the resource materials and the artists’ practices.

This edition of Artist Resource Platform: activate! will feature three curators based in Singapore, providing a conceptual framework to understand their practices and how they are situated within the local and international contemporary art scene.

Public Programme

Artist Resource Platform: activate! I with Sidd Perez (The Philippines/Singapore), Assistant Curator, NUS Museum Wednesday, 18 May, 7.30 – 9.00pm

Artist Resource Platform: activate! II with Selene Yap (Singapore), Programme Manager (Visual Arts), The Substation Friday, 27 May, 7.30 – 9.00pm

Artist Resource Platform: activate! III with Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore), Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts Friday, 10 June, 7.30 – 9.00pm]]>
Sidd Perez]]> Melanie Pocock]]> Selene Yap]]> Print]]> Photography]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again]]> Oceans & Seas]]> Ecology]]> The Anthropocene]]> Politics]]> Geopolitics]]> Archipelagic State]]> Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again, an exhibition project that initiated from a conversation between Belgian curator Philippe Pirotte and Jakarta-based artist Ade Darmawan. Reconsidering Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s epic book Arus Balik (1995), which could be translated into English as a “turning of the tide,” the eponymous exhibition takes the novel as a starting point to reflect on perspectival shifts in geopolitical, cultural, social, religious, and natural spheres.

In his fictional account, Pramoedya elaborates on the weakening of the maritime culture of Javanese kingdoms in the early 16th century, the progressive Islamisation, and the beginning of Portuguese occupation on parts of the now Malay and Indonesian peninsula and archipelago. Important is that Pramoeda’s reversal of perspective as a meta-geographical impulse is comparable to the notion of the “inverted telescope” Benedict Anderson advances in his seminal book Spectre of Comparisons (1998): as a non-Eurocentric method of comparison in which for example Portugal is viewed from the standpoint of Southeast Asia, as through an inverted telescope, which causes a kind of vertigo. Pramoedya suggests that the final decline of the Majapahit empire, and the “change from traditional independence to colonial possession,” was largely caused by the different Javanese kingdoms having gradually turned their backs to the sea.

The participating artists expand on this prompt through installations, sculptures, films, performances, and texts, both existing works as well as new commissions. Ade Darmawan re-read Arus Balik with a special focus on how protagonists use natural resources, and will create a distilling dispositive with alkaline water from the straits, recalling that all the scrambling for the control of the archipelago was about the extraction of ore and goods. ila questions what it means to be Boyanese, Buginese, Minangkabau, or Javanese through encounters with Singapore residents now conflated as Malay. Their testimonies will be written on her body and wither, while exposed to salty water and weather on reclaimed areas of Singapore island. Paradise Blueprint (2017), a wallpaper designed by Zac Langdon-Pole, based on a cyanotype photogram of the removed legs of a so-called “Bird of Paradise,” addresses the history of cultural exchange and mythology surrounding the birds native to Papua New Guinea. Lucy Raven creates silk paintings or monoprints, made by imprint of sedimentation in erosion tables, as scrim backdrops she uses for a forthcoming film-production, called Kongkreto, inspired by the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines that finally chased off the Americans from Clark Airbase. Book-aficionado, artist, and writer Shubigi Rao delves into the stories related to the difficult conditions, but also extraordinary examples of solidarity Pramoedya faced on prison island Buru while writing Arus Balik. A new video-installation by Melati Suryodarmo, Dancing under the Black Sky (2019), traces the history behind Reog performances, an art form of resistance and criticism of Ponorogo people of East Java towards Bhre Kertabhumi, a Majapahit king who slowly lost his authority in the 15th century, before Islam became a major force in Demak and controlled the coastal region of Java.

The exhibition Arus Balik aims to imagine the implication of histories and politics in processes of transition, such as colonisation and decolonisation, or shifts in maritime power for people and ports below (the straits of Malacca, South China Sea, Java Sea, and further east) and above (the Indian Ocean and further West) the wind. Have the multiple colonisations in Southeast Asia alienated the people from the sea coast? Is it possible to attempt a return? The reversal of the colonial fact, the promise of reversal of a geo-political, -cultural, and social systems, initially embodied by the Bandung conference in 1955, caused Afro-American author Richard Wright to write that “it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces.”

The accompanying public programmes further investigate the topics raised, including a conversation on Saturday, March 23, around the book Arus Balik and the reception of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s oeuvre. On Saturday, May 25, another conversation will focus on living with the sea and the history of the straits.

Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again is NTU CCA Singapore’s response and contribution to this year’s nation-wide bicentennial commemorations that reflect on Singapore’s history since the arrival of the British statesman Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, considered the founder of modern Singapore.

Guest curated by Philippe Pirotte, Rector, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, and Director, Portikus, Frankfurt, and Visiting Professor (2018/19), MA Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, School of Art, Design and Media, NTU.]]>
Ade Darmawan]]> ila]]> Zac Langdon-Pole]]> Lucy Raven]]> Shubigi Rao]]> Melati Surydarmo]]> Philippe Pirotte]]> Video]]> Film]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Drawing]]> Photography]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]>
CITIES FOR PEOPLE NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/7]]> Knowledge Production]]> Public Sphere]]> Urbanism]]> Ecology]]> Spaces of the Curatorial]]> Architecture]]> Environmental Crisis]]> 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.]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> indieguerillas]]> Lulu Lutfi Labibi]]> Ari Wulu]]> Lucy + Jorge Orta]]> Foodscape Collective]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Laura Anderson Barbata]]> Brooklyn Jumbies]]> Misso Russell Keith]]> Post-Museum]]> Xu Tan]]> Edible Garden City]]> Michelle Lai]]> Dan Susman]]> Victoria Marshall]]> Performance]]> Sound]]> Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Culture City. Culture Scape. Art, Urban Change, and the Public Sphere]]> Public Sphere]]> Urbanism]]> Geopolitics]]> 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.

Conceived as a research presentation at NTU CCA Singapore’s The Lab, Art, Urban Change, and the Public Sphere engages with the making of the Public Art Trail at Mapletree Business City II in the context of Privately-Owned Public Spaces (POPS) together with other artistic and urban developments in Singapore. The works of the Public Art Trail by international renowned artists Dan Graham, Zulkifle Mahmod, Tomás Saraceno and Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA)are animated through augmented reality in a unique spatial setting. The presentation reflects on emerging discourses such as Future Asian Spaces or Art in the Public Sphere and situates the interconnectedness of cultural politics, urban developments and economic conditions in today’s Singapore. A same-titled Public Art Education Summit in October will reflect on the socio-poltical changes and challenges of Art in the Public Sphere with a focus on community engagement, social (corporate) responsibility, and new artistic approaches in an ever-expanding urban setting.

Contributors include: Lewis Biggs, Chairman, Institute for Public Art; Lilian Chee, Associate Professor & Deputy Head (academic), Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore; Connie Chester, Head of Research and Communication, Studio Tomás Saraceno; Heman Chong, artist; Speak Cryptic, artist; Priyageetha Dia, artist; Eileen Goh, Assistant Manager, Art-In-Transit; Jeremy Hiah, artist and founder, Your Mother gallery; Ruth Hogan, Studio Manager; Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA)Kevin Hsiu, Assistant Director, Liveable Cities; Eileen Lee, Manager, Corporate Communications, Mapletree Investments; Vincent Lee, Principal Architectural Assistant, Art-In-Transit; Samantha Lo/SKL0, artist; Zulkifle Mahmod, artist; Khim Ong, independent curator; Seelan Palay, artist and founder, Coda Culture; Aurel von Richthofen, Senior Researcher, Singapore-ETH Centre SEC; Regina de Rozario, PhD candidate, NTU ADM; Peter Schoppert, Managing Director, National University of Singapore Press; Mustafa Shabbir, Senior Curator, National Gallery Singapore; Angela Tan, Assistant Director, Sector Development (Visual Arts), National Arts Council; Isaiah Tan, 3D Modeler; Ludovica Tomarchio, Research Assistant, Singapore-ETH Centre SEC; Ian Woo, artist; Robert Zhao, artist; Epigram Books; Lisson Gallery; DCA Architects,; Shma Company Limited,; Shimizu Corporation; and among others.]]>
Dan Graham]]> Zulkifle Mahmod]]> Tomás Saraceno]]> Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA)]]> Lewis Biggs]]> Lilian Chee]]> Connie Chester]]> Heman Chong]]> Speak Cryptic]]> Priyageetha Dia]]> Eileen Goh]]> Jeremy Hiah]]> Ruth Hogan]]> Kevin Hsiu]]> Eileen Lee]]> Vincent Lee]]> Samantha Lo/SKL0]]> Khim Ong]]> Seelan Palay]]> Aurel von Richthofen]]> Regina de Rozario]]> Peter Schoppert]]> Mustafa Shabbir]]> Angela Tan]]> Isaiah Tan]]> Ludovica Tomarchio]]> Ian Woo]]> Robert Zhao]]> Epigram Books]]> Lisson Gallery]]> DCA Architects]]> Shma Company Limited]]> Shimizu Corporation]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]>