<i>Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again</i>
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NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to present <i>Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again</i>, an exhibition project that initiated from a conversation between Belgian curator <b>Philippe Pirotte</b> and Jakarta-based artist <b>Ade Darmawan</b>. Reconsidering Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s epic book <i>Arus Balik</i> (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. <br /><br />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 <i>Spectre of Comparisons</i> (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. <br /><br />The participating artists expand on this prompt through installations, sculptures, films, performances, and texts, both existing works as well as new commissions. <b>Ade Darmawan</b> re-read <i>Arus Balik</i> 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. <b>ila</b> 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. <i>Paradise Blueprint</i> (2017), a wallpaper designed by <b>Zac Langdon-Pole</b>, 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. <b>Lucy Raven</b> creates silk paintings or monoprints, made by imprint of sedimentation in erosion tables, as scrim backdrops she uses for a forthcoming film-production, called <i>Kongkreto</i>, 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 <b>Shubigi Rao</b> delves into the stories related to the difficult conditions, but also extraordinary examples of solidarity Pramoedya faced on prison island Buru while writing <i>Arus Balik</i>. A new video-installation by <b>Melati Suryodarmo</b>, <i>Dancing under the Black Sky</i> (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. <br /><br />The exhibition <i>Arus Balik</i> 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.” <br /><br />The accompanying public programmes further investigate the topics raised, including a conversation on <b>Saturday, March 23</b>, around the book <i>Arus Balik</i> and the reception of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s oeuvre. On <b>Saturday, May 25</b>, another conversation will focus on living with the sea and the history of the straits. <br /><br /><i>Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again</i> 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. <br /><br />Guest curated by <b>Philippe Pirotte</b>, 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.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ade+Darmawan">Ade Darmawan</a>
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Philippe Pirotte
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<i>Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again</i> Exhibition Brochure
<i>Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again</i> Exhibition Brochure
2019-03-22
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ade+Darmawan">Ade Darmawan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=ila">ila</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Zac+Langdon-Pole">Zac Langdon-Pole</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Lucy+Raven">Lucy Raven</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Shubigi+Rao">Shubigi Rao</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Melati+Surydarmo">Melati Surydarmo</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
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<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
In Conversation Part I: Arus Balik with Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, and Melati Suryodarmo, moderated by Philippe Pirotte<br /><div class="event_single_venue">
<div class="event_single_venue"></div>
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<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Postcolonialism">Postcolonialism</a>
<div class="event_single_venue">The first session of a two-part conversation, this panel discussion will focus on the book Arus Balik (1995) by Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, which is the starting point for the eponymous exhibition that will be on view. Three of the participating artists will be joined by Philippe Pirotte, the curator of the exhibition, to discuss Ananta Toer’s body of work, its influence and legacy, as well as notions of censorship and the forbidden book.</div>
2019-03-23
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Arus+Balik">Arus Balik</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ade+Darmawan">Ade Darmawan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Shubigi+Rao">Shubigi Rao</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Melati+Suryodarmo">Melati Suryodarmo</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
Screening and Conversation: Kiri Dalena and Lucy Raven, moderated by Philippe Pirotte
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Activism">Activism</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Politics">Politics</a>
<div class="event_single_dates text__exhibitions">14 May 2019, Tue 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM</div>
<div class="event_single_venue">The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road</div>
<br />Screenings by Filipino human-right activist, artist, and filmmaker Kiri Dalena and by American artist Lucy Raven will be followed by a conversation with both artists. Based on the true story of the drowning of a young activist, Dalena’s film <i>From The Dark Depths</i> (2017) opens with a beautiful and surreal sequence underwater in which a woman dances slowly brandishing a red flag. Around her, many red flags are planted in the seabed. This hypnotic and captivating dream is shuttered by sequences with authentic 16mm, analog and digital video footage from the artist’s own archive with documentation of political unrest spanning for two decades, and an ominous long-track of a police car at night prompting the citizens to respect the curfew—a gloomy reminder of a lost freedom. Lucy Raven will screen materials connected to a new film-in-progress, alongside several recent short videos. <br /><br />A public programme of <em>Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again</em>.
2019-05-14
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Kiri+Dalena">Kiri Dalena</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=+Lucy+Raven"> Lucy Raven</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=North+America">North America</a>
In Conversation Part II: Living with the Sea with ila (Singapore), Mirwan Andan (Indonesia), Nirwan Ahmad Arsuka (Indonesia), Zac Langdon-Pole (Aotearoa New Zealand/Germany), Dr Imran bin Tajudeen (Singapore), and Juria Toramae (Thailand/Singapore), moderated by Philippe Pirotte (Belgium/Germany)
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Oceans+%26+Seas">Oceans & Seas</a>
<div class="event_single_dates text__exhibitions">25 May 2019, Sat 03:30 PM - 05:30 PM</div>
<div class="event_single_venue">The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road</div>
<br />The second session of a two-part conversation, this panel discussion will focus on the history of the straits, historical maps, and the geography of maritime Southeast Asia. This involves an approach to Southeast Asia through underlying indigenous patterns, which will necessarily stretch the limits of ingrained westernised cultural visions and mental habits. The participants will discuss complexities of heritage, notions of belonging, and strategies of mapping. Rather than a static given, the Straits will be considered as an environment with an incipient psychology, invoking a transpiring age-old knowledge of the region, but also as a habitat that continues to profoundly influence our existence. <br /><br />A public programme of <em>Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again</em>.
2019-05-25
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=ila">ila</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Mirwan+Andan">Mirwan Andan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Nirwan+Ahmad+Arsuka">Nirwan Ahmad Arsuka</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Zac+Langdon-Pole">Zac Langdon-Pole</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Imran+bin+Tajudeen">Imran bin Tajudeen</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Juria+Toramae">Juria Toramae</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
Alignments from the Archive
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Geopolitics">Geopolitics</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Decolonialism">Decolonialism</a>
In this period of solidarity, the Centre brings forth a collection of archival videos, featuring lectures, conversations, and discussions that relate to themes of decolonisation, legacies of colonialism, and post-war independence movements explored in the exhibition Non-Aligned.<br /><br /><p><strong><i>#1: Mise-en-Scéne and Misalignments: Resetting the Postcolonial Stage</i></strong></p>
<p>While the Cold War raged on in the years following 1945, in the spaces between East and West, smaller theatres of war were emerging throughout the postcolonial world. This collection highlights moments of mise-en-scène that reset a global stage framed by colonial axes of power, featuring thinkers and artists such as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Isaac Julien, Mark Nash, Stefano Harney, Škart,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Bojana Piškur.</p>
<p><strong><em>Paradise Lost: </em>Lecture: Postcolonial critique today – Stefano Harney</strong><br />7 March 2014</p>
<p>Referencing the works of Zarina Bhimji and Trinh T. Minh-ha in the exhibition<em>Paradise Lost</em>, Dr Stefano Harney investigates the renewed power of postcolonial critique today. By returning to the great thinkers of the “colonial situation” and its aftermath, Harney re-evaluates the proposition that globalisation has erased “old ideas of the lines between coloniser and colonised.”</p>
<p><strong><em>Theatrical Fields: </em>Special Brunch and Screening Session with Isaac Julien and Mark Nash</strong><br />26 October 2014</p>
<p>Dr Mark Nash and Isaac Julien discuss theatricality as criticality through<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Vagabondia</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(2000), Julien’s seven-minute film for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Theatrical Fields</em>, in which the figure of the vagabond is used to explore how the Sir John Soane’s Museum collection has benefitted from colonisation. Julien’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Playtime</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(2014), a part-documentary part-fiction exploration of global capital, plays following their conversation.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Residencies Insights: Non-Aligned Movement: New Spaces of Liberty, New Lines of Alliance, New Modes of Creativity</strong><br />22 November 2017</p>
<p>Belgrade-based collective<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Škart<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Bojana Piškur<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>situate the Non-Aligned Movement’s ideas, ideals, and principles in the present and apply them to exhibition-making and cultural exchange. Looking beyond the complex history of the Non-Aligned Movement, they map out possible prototypes for institutions, networks, and politics within art and culture today.</p>
<p><strong>#2: <em>Phantasms and Futurities: Decolonial Propositions </em></strong></p>
<p>From a global stage reset in <em>Mise-en-Scéne and Misalignments</em>, this collection rescripts the linear trajectories of colonial pasts and postcolonial presents, towards the realisation of decolonised futures. Prof Timothy Murray noted in his keynote lecture that “the theatrical script always opens to the arrival of the future; they are contingent and dependent upon futurity”. Artists, performers, and curators, such as Zarina Muhammad and Brigitte van der Sande enact and identify heterotopias — spatial alterities or counter-sites wherein alternative realities are constructed — that rewrite these politicised narratives through explorations of mythmaking and science fiction.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong><em>Theatrical Fields: </em>Symposium: <em>Screening Theatrical Phantasms: Toward an Uncertain Futurity</em></strong><br />Keynote Lecture by Prof Timothy Murray<br />23 August 2014</p>
<p>This talk addresses the fascination of artworks in our previous exhibition <em>Theatrical Fields</em> in 2014, which introduces theatricality as a critical strategy in performance, film and video. In providing a brief theoretical overview of “the politics of theatricality,” Murray will reflect on the exhibition’s screenic re-possession of cinematic characters, buried stories, and influential texts in ways that challenge the historical groundings of theatricality in the ethnocentric certainty of culture and law. <br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Lecture Performance: <em>Flowers from our Bloodlines </em>by Zarina Muhammad, artist; Stefania Rossett, choreographer; Vivian Wang pianist; Eric Lee, artist; and Tini Aliman, sound artist</strong><br />22 September 2017</p>
<p>Drawing from concepts of the demonised and desired body, gender-based archetypes, and mythmaking, this lecture performance invokes family histories and revokes the lineages of colonisation in Southeast Asia. Intergenerational and cross-cultural exchanges, facilitated by storytelling, rituals, gestures, and embodied movement, are explored through the rites of the Wolf Spider and the Harimau Jadian (Were-Tiger), and their multiple translations and adaptations.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Residencies Insights: <em>Speculations on other futures </em>by Brigitte van der Sande, former Curator-in-Residence</strong><br />6 December 2018</p>
<p>Brigitte van der Sande explores how science fiction is used to envision alternative futures and critique existing power structures while shunning censorship, within countries where continuous change is the status quo because of war or political instability. Her long-term project Other Futures, “a multidisciplinary online and offline platform for thinkers and builders of other futures”, features non-Western science fiction makers and thinkers.</p>
<p><strong>#3: <em>Tidalectic Topographies, Counter Cartographies </em></strong></p>
<p>Extending the exploration of counter-sites from <em>Phantasms and Futurities</em>, this collection carries postcolonial inquiry from landlocked cartographies to liquid liminalities. Reflecting on shifting geopolitical, sociocultural, ethnoreligious, and environmental rhythms that ripple throughout the global hydrosphere, artists, curators, and scholars including Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, Melati Suryodarmo, Prof Philippe Pirotte, Tita Salina, Irwan Ahmett, Dr Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta, and Dr Cynthia Chou introduce a tidalectic worldview – in the tradition of Barbadian poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite – as a way of troubling territorial borders that became embedded during the post-Cold War wave of nationalist independence movements.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>In Conversation Part I: <em>Arus Balik w</em>ith artists Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, and Melati Suryodarmo, Moderated by curator Philippe Pirotte</strong><br />23 March 2019</p>
<p>This panel discussion focuses on the Indonesian epic <em>Arus Balik</em> (1995) – loosely translated to mean “turn of the tide” – by revolutionary writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, which served as the starting point for the eponymous exhibition <em>Arus Balik – from below the wind to above the wind and back again</em>(2019). Three of the participating artists – Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, and Melati Suryodarmo – join exhibition curator Philippe Pirotte in a discussion on Pramoedya’s body of work, its influence and legacy, as well as notions of censorship and the forbidden book.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Performance: <em>A Tumbling Inch </em>by Former Artists-in-Residence Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina</strong><br />11 June 2019</p>
<p><em>A Tumbling Inch</em> is a performative action by Jakarta-based artists Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina, which crystallised in the hydrospheric spatiality between Batam, the Indonesian island closest to Singapore, and the undulating maritime borders between the two countries. The work revolves around a nostalgic longing for the Lion City. Following the free movement of sea waves across the Straits of Malacca, the performance addresses archipelagic histories and the impact of global economic development.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>The Current </strong><em><strong>Convening #3 Tabu / Tapu – Who Owns the Ocean?</strong><br /></em><strong><em>Rights of Cultures, Rights of Nature: Case Studies </em>by Dr Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta, Director, Oceania Centre for Arts, and Dr Cynthia Chou, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa<br /></strong>27 January 2018</p>
<p><em>Rights of Cultures, RIghts of Nature</em> features case studies that position oceanic spaces as charged relational spaces. Dr Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta’s exposition on <em>tabu/tapu </em>– the Fijian indigenous practice of taboo – outlines the relationality between environment and peoples, complicated by histories of colonial extractivism and the globalising project of cultural and environmental commodification. Dr Cynthia Chou brings these relationalities closer to home with a study of the <em>Orang Suku Laut</em> of the Riau archipelago. The practices of oceanic indigenous communities presented explore how a tidalectic way of living can inform modes of engagement with the hydrosphere, challenge conceptions of land-based embeddedness, and contribute to a vision of fluid futures.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>#4: <em>Summoning Spectres: Historiography as Hauntology</em></strong></p>
<p>This month’s curated selection of NTU CCA Singapore’s past programmes draws on Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology – the return or persistence of elements from the past manifesting as ghosts and apparitions. – Summoning Spectres: Historiography as Hauntology speaks to the remnants of personal and collective cultural memory incompletely erased by imperial and colonial violence. These traces of erasure remain inscribed in post-Cold War regional histories and embedded in their lexicon and legacy. Using historiography as a method of inquiry, this playlist showcases the ways in which curator Dr June Yap, artists Sung Tieu, Amy Lien, and Enzo Camacho approach the subjectivation of colonial spectres through their practices, to surface historical narratives of oppression and to summon the ghosts of lost futures.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Symposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History</strong><br /><strong><em>In the Interest of Time </em>by Dr June Yap, Director of Curatorial Programmes and Publications, Singapore Art Museum</strong></p>
<p>28 October 2017</p>
<p>Through a survey of historiographical works by artists Nguyen Trinh Thi and Ho Tzu Nyen, Dr June Yap addresses how cinematic works engage their medium specificity in a play of historical phantoms and repressed collective memories. These works contribute to a broader artistic tradition involving the subjectivation of histories, which is at its heart a process of self-determination: “in subjectivation there is constitution — the constitution of the self and or an identity… as a rising, as produced or perpetuated… as temporal, as arising from relations, as produced in a struggle”. As Yap aptly phrases, “in temporal consciousness, an identity is arrived.”<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>Residencies Insights: <em>Two Worlds, Four Spirits</em> by Sung Tieu, Former Artist-in-Residence</strong></p>
<p>3 December 2019</p>
<p>Central to the artistic practice of Sung Tieu is a personal experience of migration from Vietnam to Germany, which impels her to address Post-Cold War histories and the multiple negotiations that underpin a diasporic identity haunted by the spectres of French colonialism in Vietnam and Cold War military violence during the American-Vietnam wars. In this talk, the artist discusses recent projects — <em>Memory Dispute</em> (2017), <em>Coral Sea As Rolling Thunder</em> (2017), <em>Remote Viewing</em> (2017) and <em>Loveless</em>(2019) — which variously employ text, performance, installation, moving image, and sound to convey a sense of dislocation while offering deliberate interventions into canonical readings of history.</p>
<p><strong>Behind the Scenes: On Alfonso Ossorio’s <em>Angry Christ</em> mural by artists Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho </strong></p>
<p>1 December 2018</p>
<p>In this talk, collaborating artists Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho present their research on the Filipino-American modernist painter, Alfonso Ossorio (1916–1990), focusing on his 1950 mural, <em>Angry Christ</em>. For the artists, this mural, located in the province of Negros Occidental, the “sugar bowl of the Philippines”, is a “multivalent cipher”. When it is decoded, spectres of sixteenth century Spanish colonial violence — from the accorded name “Negros” to enforced religious, economic, and environmental functions — and the ghosts of indigenous people who were displaced or exterminated materialise. Lien and Camacho question whether the <em>Angry Christ</em> can be “radically reprogrammed” from the specific and highly privileged subjectivity of Ossorio, its maker, and the Ossorio family’s sugar dynasty, its commissioning patron.</p>
4 April - 27 September 2020
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Isaac+Julien">Isaac Julien</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Mark+Nash">Mark Nash</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Stefano+Harney">Stefano Harney</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%C5%A0kart">Škart</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Bojana+Pi%C5%A1kur">Bojana Piškur</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Timothy+Murray">Timothy Murray</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Zarina+Muhammad">Zarina Muhammad</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Stefania+Rossett">Stefania Rossett</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Vivian+Wang">Vivian Wang</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Eric+Lee">Eric Lee</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Tini+Aliman">Tini Aliman</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Brigitte+van+der+Sande">Brigitte van der Sande</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ade+Darmawan">Ade Darmawan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Shubigi+Rao">Shubigi Rao</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Melati+Suryodarmo">Melati Suryodarmo</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=+Tita+Salina"> Tita Salina</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Irwan+Ahmett">Irwan Ahmett</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Cresantia+Frances+Koya+Vaka%E2%80%99uta">Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Cynthia+Chou">Cynthia Chou</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=June+Yap">June Yap</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Sung+Tieu">Sung Tieu</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Amy+Lien">Amy Lien</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Enzo+Camacho">Enzo Camacho</a>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7098739">Alignments from the Archive video collection</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
In Conversation Part II: Living with the Sea
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Geopolitics">Geopolitics</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=History">History</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Politics">Politics</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Postcolonialism">Postcolonialism</a>
25 May 2019, Sat 03:30 PM - 05:30 PM <br /><br />The second session of a two-part conversation, this panel discussion will focus on the history of the straits, historical maps, and the geography of maritime Southeast Asia. This involves an approach to Southeast Asia through underlying indigenous patterns, which will necessarily stretch the limits of ingrained westernised cultural visions and mental habits. The participants will discuss complexities of heritage, notions of belonging, and strategies of mapping. Rather than a static given, the Straits will be considered as an environment with an incipient psychology, invoking a transpiring age-old knowledge of the region, but also as a habitat that continues to profoundly influence our existence.
2019-25-05
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Mirwan+Andan">Mirwan Andan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Nirkan+Arsuka">Nirkan Arsuka</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Zac+Langdon-Pole">Zac Langdon-Pole</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=ila">ila</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Juria+Toromae">Juria Toromae</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=42&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Video">Video</a>
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
Screening and conversation: Kiri Dalena and Lucy Raven, moderated by Philippe Pirotte
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Oceans+%26+Seas">Oceans & Seas</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Postcolonialism">Postcolonialism</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Politics">Politics</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Identity">Identity</a>
14 May 2019, Tue 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM <br /><br />Screenings by Filipino human-right activist, artist, and filmmaker Kiri Dalena and by American artist Lucy Raven will be followed by a conversation with both artists. Based on the true story of the drowning of a young activist, Dalena’s film From The Dark Depths (2017) opens with a beautiful and surreal sequence underwater in which a woman dances slowly brandishing a red flag. Around her, many red flags are planted in the seabed. This hypnotic and captivating dream is shuttered by sequences with authentic 16mm, analog and digital video footage from the artist’s own archive with documentation of political unrest spanning for two decades, and an ominous long-track of a police car at night prompting the citizens to respect the curfew—a gloomy reminder of a lost freedom. Lucy Raven will screen materials connected to a new film-in-progress, alongside several recent short videos.
2019-05-14
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Kiri+Dalena">Kiri Dalena</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Lucy+Raven">Lucy Raven</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=42&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Video">Video</a>
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>
In Conversation Part I: <em>Arus Balik</em> with artists Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, and Melati Suryodarmo, Moderated by curator Philippe Pirotte
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Postcolonialism">Postcolonialism</a>
This panel discussion focuses on the Indonesian epic Arus Balik (1995) – loosely translated to mean “turn of the tide” – by revolutionary writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, which served as the starting point for the eponymous exhibition Arus Balik – from below the wind to above the wind and back again (2019). Three of the participating artists – Ade Darmawan, Shubigi Rao, and Melati Suryodarmo – join exhibition curator Philippe Pirotte in a discussion on Pramoedya’s body of work, its influence and legacy, as well as notions of censorship and the forbidden book.
2019-03-23
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ade+Darmawan">Ade Darmawan</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Shubigi+Rao">Shubigi Rao</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Melati+Suryodarmo">Melati Suryodarmo</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Philippe+Pirotte">Philippe Pirotte</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>