Dr Fang-Tze Hsu (Taiwan/Singapore) holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the National University of Singapore and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently Curator at NUS Museum, Singapore. Her dissertation research, Cold War Acousmêtre: Artist Films and the First Island Chain, was supported by the President’s Graduate Fellowship and the FASS Promising Graduate Scholar Award. Previously, she worked as digital manager at Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong) and as curator at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. In 2016, she co-curated Negative Horizon: 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei (Taiwan).
CREDITS
12’38”: Audio excerpt from MISSING: The City of Lost Things, 2018. Courtesy Drama Box.
15’07”: Audio excerpt from MISSING: The City of Lost Things, 2018. Courtesy Drama Box.
19’15”: Audio excerpt from FLOWERS, 2019. Courtesy Drama Box.
21’00”: Audio excerpt from FLOWERS, 2019. Courtesy Drama Box.
26’24”: Audio excerpt from Taipei Main Station & Research Field Recording workshop part of
Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance Artist Lab, 2019. Courtesy the artist.
35’30’’: Audio excerpt from Han Xuemei, field recordings at Tanah Merah, January 2022. Courtesy the artist.
For our fifth episode of AiRCAST, we entrusted curator and scholar Hsu Fang-Tze to pick the mind of our Artist-in-Residence Han Xuemei. In their insightful exchange, Xuemei discusses how her urgency for engagement steers her fluid theatre practice towards experimenting with different modes of audience participation. As she shares about her current efforts to carve out “intervals of quiet” and “plots of rest” in the hectic context of Singapore, you will also discover that the research on the topic of “rest as resistance” she conducted throughout her residency at NTU CCA Singapore grows out from another residency she did in Taipei a few years ago.
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. In 2021 she received Young Artist Award, Singapore’s highest award for young arts practitioners.
Hsu Fang-Tze is a lecturer at the Communications and New Media Department, National University of Singapore where she is also a coordinator of the M.A. in Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship. Her research interests include the formation of audiovisual modernity in Asia, Cold War aesthetics, philosophies of sonic technology, and the embodiment of artistic praxis in everyday life. Apart from her academic work, she is also active as a curator and has curated exhibitions such as Art Histories of a Forever War: Modernism between Space and Home at the Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan (2021-2022) and Wishful Images at National University of Singapore Museum (2020).
Contributors: Han Xuemei, Hsu Fang-Tze
Editor: Anna Lovecchio
Programme Manager: Kristine Tan
Sound Engineer: Ashwin Menon (The Music Parlour)
Intro & Outro Music: Tini Aliman
Cover Image & Design: Arabelle Zhuang, Kristine Tan
CREDITS
12’38”: Audio excerpt from MISSING: The City of Lost Things, 2018. Courtesy Drama Box.
15’07”: Audio excerpt from MISSING: The City of Lost Things, 2018. Courtesy Drama Box.
19’15”: Audio excerpt from FLOWERS, 2019. Courtesy Drama Box.
21’00”: Audio excerpt from FLOWERS, 2019. Courtesy Drama Box.
26’24”: Audio excerpt from Taipei Main Station & Research Field Recording workshop part of
Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance Artist Lab, 2019. Courtesy the artist.
35’30’’: Audio excerpt from Han Xuemei, field recordings at Tanah Merah, January 2022. Courtesy the artist.
Saturday, 18 November 2017, 12.00 – 7.30pm
Film and Cinema as Ghost
Short films, 12.00 – 1.15pm
Straight 8, Ayisha Abrahams, India, 2005, 17 min
Imaginati, akumassa, Indonesia, 2013, 13 min
A Presentation By Proxy, Erika Tan, UK, 2014, 21 min
Horor Satu Menit / One Minute Horror, Otty Widasari, Indonesia, 2005, 1 min
Mesures et Démesures, Angela Su, Hong Kong, 2015, 6 min
History is a Silent Film, K. M. Madhusudhanan, India, 2007, 17 min
Conversation, 1.15 – 1.35pm
Feature film: 1.35 – 3.00pm
People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose 89’, John Torres, Philippines, 2016, 89 min
Acting and Re-enacting
Short films, 3.00 – 4.15pm
4×4 — Episodes of Singapore Art: Episode 3 — Tang Da Wu, The Most Radical Art Gesture, Ho Tzu Nyen, Singapore, 2005, 23 min
On the Origin of Fear, Bayu Prihantoro Filemon, Indonesia, 2016, 12 min
The History of Riots (The DJ), Lee Kai Chung, Hong Kong, 2013, 7 min
The Educational System of an Empire, Hikaru Fujiii, Japan, 2016, 21 min
Portrait of a Young Samurai, Meiro Koizumi, Japan, 2009, 10 min
Conversation, 4.15 – 4.35pm
Feature film, 4.35 – 7.30pm
Shakespeare Must Die, Ing K, Thailand, 2012, 176 min
Sunday, 19 November 2017, 12.00 – 7.00pm
Histories Turning Ghosts
Short films, 12.00 – 1.25pm
The Impossibility of Knowing, Tan Pin Pin, Singapore, 2010, 12 min
A Brief History of Memory, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Thailand, 2010, 14 min
The War That Never Was, Chien-Chi Chang, Taiwan/Austria, 2017, 16 min
Landscape Series #1, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Vietnam, 2013, 5 min
Monologue, Vandy Rattana, Cambodia, 2015, 20 min
A Ripe Volcano, Taiki Sakpisit, Thailand, 2011, 16 min
Sukati / A Tale of Heaven, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, Thailand, 2010, 6 min
Conversation, 1.25 – 1.45pm
Feature film, 1.45 – 3.30pm
Snakeskin, Daniel Hui, Singapore/Portugal, 2014, 105 min
Rituals
Short films, 3.30 – 5.25pm
Anito, Martha Atienza, Philippines, 2012, 8 min
Vakratunda Swaha, Ashish Avikunthak, India, 2010, 21 min
Off Takes, Hao Jingban, China, 2016, 22 min
Ashura, Köken Ergun, Turkey, 2013, 25 min
Naptwe, the feast of the spirits, Tiane Doan na Champassak and Jean Dubrel, France, 2012, 31 min
Spring Comes Winter After, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Vietnam, 2008, 5 min
Conversation, 5.25 – 5.45pm
Feature film, 5.45 – 7.00pm
Foreign Sky, Soni Kum, Korea/Japan, 2005, 70 min
A public programme of Ghosts and Spectrres – Shadows of History.
Saturday, 18 November 2017, 12.00 – 7.30pm
Film and Cinema as Ghost
Short films, 12.00 – 1.15pm
Straight 8, Ayisha Abrahams, India, 2005, 17 min
Imaginati, akumassa, Indonesia, 2013, 13 min
A Presentation By Proxy, Erika Tan, UK, 2014, 21 min
Horor Satu Menit / One Minute Horror, Otty Widasari, Indonesia, 2005, 1 min
Mesures et Démesures, Angela Su, Hong Kong, 2015, 6 min
History is a Silent Film, K. M. Madhusudhanan, India, 2007, 17 min
Conversation, 1.15 – 1.35pm
Feature film: 1.35 – 3.00pm
People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose 89’, John Torres, Philippines, 2016, 89 min
Acting and Re-enacting
Short films, 3.00 – 4.15pm
4×4 — Episodes of Singapore Art: Episode 3 — Tang Da Wu, The Most Radical Art Gesture, Ho Tzu Nyen, Singapore, 2005, 23 min
On the Origin of Fear, Bayu Prihantoro Filemon, Indonesia, 2016, 12 min
The History of Riots (The DJ), Lee Kai Chung, Hong Kong, 2013, 7 min
The Educational System of an Empire, Hikaru Fujiii, Japan, 2016, 21 min
Portrait of a Young Samurai, Meiro Koizumi, Japan, 2009, 10 min
Conversation, 4.15 – 4.35pm
Feature film, 4.35 – 7.30pm
Shakespeare Must Die, Ing K, Thailand, 2012, 176 min
Sunday, 19 November 2017, 12.00 – 7.00pm
Histories Turning Ghosts
Short films, 12.00 – 1.25pm
The Impossibility of Knowing, Tan Pin Pin, Singapore, 2010, 12 min
A Brief History of Memory, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Thailand, 2010, 14 min
The War That Never Was, Chien-Chi Chang, Taiwan/Austria, 2017, 16 min
Landscape Series #1, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Vietnam, 2013, 5 min
Monologue, Vandy Rattana, Cambodia, 2015, 20 min
A Ripe Volcano, Taiki Sakpisit, Thailand, 2011, 16 min
Sukati / A Tale of Heaven, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, Thailand, 2010, 6 min
Conversation, 1.25 – 1.45pm
Feature film, 1.45 – 3.30pm
Snakeskin, Daniel Hui, Singapore/Portugal, 2014, 105 min
Rituals
Short films, 3.30 – 5.25pm
Anito, Martha Atienza, Philippines, 2012, 8 min
Vakratunda Swaha, Ashish Avikunthak, India, 2010, 21 min
Off Takes, Hao Jingban, China, 2016, 22 min
Ashura, Köken Ergun, Turkey, 2013, 25 min
Naptwe, the feast of the spirits, Tiane Doan na Champassak and Jean Dubrel, France, 2012, 31 min
Spring Comes Winter After, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Vietnam, 2008, 5 min
Conversation, 5.25 – 5.45pm
Feature film, 5.45 – 7.00pm
Foreign Sky, Soni Kum, Korea/Japan, 2005, 70 min
A public programme of Ghosts and Spectrres – Shadows of History.