Institutional Critique]]> Geopolitics]]> Urbanism]]>
The title of the book refers to the framework employed at NTU CCA Singapore in its first cycle of activities, from 2013 to March 2017, which took Singapore, the world’s second-largest trading port and the economic epicentre of Southeast Asia, as a point of departure to investigate the notion of place, the intersection between locality and the global, labour, and flows of capital.

Unfolding across four broad sections of “The Making of an Institution,” “The Geopolitical and the Biophysical,” “Incidental Scripts,” and “Incomplete Urbanism,” this publication reads as an exhibition. Drawing connections across disciplines and merging theory with practice, Place.Labour.Capital. weaves together a constellation of different bodies of materials from essays, poetry, and fiction to artworks and documentation of the Centre’s past exhibitions.

Richly illustrated, the publication brings together the voices of more than 80 contributors, from former Research Fellows such as Tony Godfrey (Philippines), Regina (Maria) Möller (Germany), T. K. Sabapathy (Singapore), Yvonne Spielmann (Germany), to former Artists-in-Residence including Tiffany Chung (Vietnam/United States), Amanda Heng (Singapore), Shooshie Sulaiman (Malaysia), Lee Wen (Singapore), and Yee I-Lann (Malaysia). Other contributions include those from the Centre’s exhibitions and public programmes such as artists, academics, and curators including Amar Kanwar (India), Lee Weng Choy (Malaysia), David Teh (Australia/Singapore), and June Yap (Singapore).

This extensive publication “reminds us that institution building remains enormously significant as a means of opening up new spaces, claims, communities, dialogues, publics, and trajectories for critical artistic practice.” (Felicity D. Scott, Associate Professor Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, New York)

“Drawing together stories, voices, and thinking by leading artists and academics, Place.Labour.Capital. traces the invention of a remarkable model of an institution. The publication is an inspiration and a valuable tool to anyone trying to find ways of building releveant arts institutions for the future.” (Sally Tallant, Director, Liverpool Biennial)

Place.Labour.Capital. takes a reflective look the art institution, and serves as a means to review the parameters of its own position in the present globalised art world and knowledge-production economies.

The visual concept of the book was conceived by renowned Singapore design firm H55.]]>
Mousse Publishing]]> H55]]> Koh Nguang How]]> Paul Tan]]> Eugene Tan]]> T. K. Sabapathy]]> Khim Ong]]> Fareed Armaly]]> Jesko Fezer]]> Julian "Togar" Abraham]]> Post-Museum]]> Kray Chen]]> Vera Mey]]> Amanda Heng]]> Yan Jun]]> Lee Wen]]> Marc Glöde]]> Jeremy Sharma]]> Heman Chong]]> Shooshie Sulaiman]]> Mona Vătămanu]]> Florin Tudor]]> Hilde Van Gelder]]> UuDam Tran Nguyen]]> James Jack]]> Jegan Vincent de Paul]]> Dennis Tan]]> Erika Tan]]> Regina (Maria) Möller]]> Hamra Abbas]]> Mercedes Vicente]]> Bo Wang]]> Ho Rui An]]> Stefano Harney]]> Arjuna Neuman]]> Bani Haykal]]> Tiffany Chung]]> Amar Kanwar]]> Helena Varkkey]]> Nikos Papastergiadis]]> Saleh Husein]]> Sam Durant]]> June Yap]]> Roslisham "Ise" Ismail]]> Shubigi Rao]]> Guo-Liang Tan]]> Tamara Weber]]> Loo Zihan]]> Zac Langdon-Pole]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Jompet Kuswidananto]]> Otty Widasari]]> Yvonne Spielmann]]> Mark Nash]]> Arin Rungjang]]> Filipa Ramos]]> Yason Banal]]> Kenneth Dean]]> Yee I-Lann]]> Alex Mawimbi]]> anGie seah]]> Alexandra Murray-Leslie]]> Andrew Johnston]]> Zulkifle Mahmod]]> Newell Harry]]> Jason Wee]]> Anocha Suwichakornpong]]> Shirley Surya]]> Sissel Tolaas]]> Tan Pin Pin]]> SHIMURAbros]]> Etienne Turpin]]> Li Ran]]> Gary-Ross Pastrana]]> Yvonne P. Doderer]]> Matthew Mazzotta]]> Art Labor]]> Xu Tan]]> Weixin Chong]]> Pratchaya Phinthong]]> Marc Glode]]> Mona Vatamanu]]> Regina Moller]]> Publication]]> Asia]]>
Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films Exhibition Guide]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films Exhibition Guide]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Guide]]> Southeast Asia]]> Paradise Lost Exhibition Guide]]> Migration]]> Globalisation]]> Paradise Lost Exhibition Guide]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Zarina Bhimji]]> Fiona Tan]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Guide]]> Asia]]> Feminism]]> Technology]]> Diaspora]]> Capitalism]]> Displacement]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Asia]]> North America]]> Africa]]> Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films]]> Race]]> Feminism]]> Technology]]> Diaspora]]> Capitalism]]> Displacement]]> “The making of each film transforms the way I see myself and the world. Once I start engaging in the process of making a film or in any artistic excursion, I am also embarking upon a journey whose point of arrival is unknown to me.”—Trinh T. Minh-ha

Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films. is the first institutional exhibition of filmmaker, music composer, writer, anthropologist, feminist and postcolonial theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha in Asia, presented in an exhibition format. Five of her films—Forgetting Vietnam (2015), Night Passage (2004), The Fourth Dimension (2001), A Tale of Love (1995) and Shoot for the Contents (1991), filmed over a quarter of a century, in different parts of Asia—are simultaneously on view in five small-scale movie theatres in The Exhibition Hall. As the viewer wanders from one theatre to the next, the proximity of the films enables their narratives to interrelate. This spatial configuration took its point of departure from Trinh’s exhibition at the Secession, Vienna, in 2001.

Forgetting Vietnam, framed by two ancient Vietnamese myths, was made in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, touching on the memory of trauma. Night Passage, inspired by Miyazawa Kenji’s novel Milky Way Railroad (1927), narrates the spiritual journey of a young female immigrant and her two companions, into a world of in-between realities. Shot in Japan, The Fourth Dimension is Trinh’s first digital film. Using special video effects to composite images and sound in multiple layers, this film is an exploration of time through rituals of religion and culture, new technology and everyday reality. A Tale of Love is a retelling of 19th-century Vietnamese poem The Tale of Kiều (1820), through a modern-day Vietnamese immigrant in the United States. In this film, Trinh experiments with various cinematic techniques and elements. Shoot for the Contents, an excursion into allegories, explores cultural and political shifts in China, as refracted by the June Fourth incident in Beijing.

Presented in the Centre’s Single Screen from 31 October 2020 is Trinh’s newest cinematic work, What about China? (Part I of II, 2020–21). Initiated by NTU CCA Singapore, and co-commissioned with Rockbund Art Museum (RAM), Shanghai, the film takes the notion of harmony in China as a site of creative manifestation, and draws from footage shot in 1993 and 1994, in Eastern and Southern China, specifically from provinces Anhui, Hubei, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangxi—linked to the remote origins of Chinese civilisation.

Through Trinh T. Minh-ha. Writings., a display of Trinh’s books on reading platforms along the passageway connecting the five theatres in The Exhibition Hall, as well as Why are they so afraid of a lotus?, presented in The Lab by CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (Wattis), San Francisco, that showcases its year-long research season on her multifaceted practice, viewers are able to encounter her extensive writing that is core to her practice.

Trinh’s early films, Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989), Naked Spaces—Living is Round (1985), and Reassemblage (1982), are part of an online film programme, Speaking / Thinking Nearby. Other films selected echo strands of discussions in Trinh’s layered practice, ranging from ethics of representation, to aspects of migration, global socio-politics, and feminism.

Besides the film programme Speaking / Thinking Nearby, other public programmes include Mother Always Has a Mother, an online convening presented by the Centre, Wattis, and RAM, and “There is no such thing as documentary”, a conference that brings together filmmakers, film historians, and curators to question the politics embedded in presentation and representation, perception, context, and the spatial.

This is NTU CCA Singapore’s final presentation in its current exhibition space, its opening coinciding with the Centre’s seventh anniversary. By the end of this exhibition, the Centre would have hosted 55 exhibitions since its inception in 2013, inaugurated by the show Paradise Lost (2014), featuring works by Trinh T. Minh-ha alongside those of Zarina Bhimji and Fiona Tan.

Trinh T. Minh-ha (Vietnam/United States) is Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and an award-winning artist and filmmaker. She grew up in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and pursued her education at the National Conservatory of Music and Theater in Ho Chi Minh City. In 1970, she migrated to the United States where she continued her studies in music composition, ethnomusicology, and French literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She embarked on a career as an educator and has taught in diverse disciplines which brought her to the National Conservatory of Music in Dakar, Senegal, where she shot her first film, Reassemblage. Trinh’s cinematic oeuvre has been featured in numerous exhibitions and film festivals. She has participated in biennales across the globe including Documenta11, Kassel (2002), and most recently at Manifesta 13, Marseille (2020). A prolific writer, she has authored nine books.

Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films. is curated by Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, NTU ADM.

This project focuses on the multi-layered practice of Trinh T. Minh-ha as a filmmaker, writer, music composer and educator, generating a multi-year (2019–2022) research and programme partnership between NTU CCA Singapore, RAM, Wattis, and the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart.]]>
Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Film]]> Asia]]>
Paradise Lost]]> Migration]]> Globalisation]]> Paradise Lost is NTU CCA Singapore’s inaugural exhibition, curated by Ute Meta Bauer (Founding Director) and Anca Rujoiu (Curator for Exhibitions). Conceived as a constellation of three artistic productions that together explore narratives of travel and migration, place and displacement, the personal intertwined with colonial history, Paradise Lost introduces an imaginary Asia — Asia as a space of projections and desires stemming from an experience of dislocation and asynchronicity.

The exhibition juxtaposed trans-generational perspectives, bringing together three major installations of moving image: Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) by Trinh T. Minh-ha, Yellow Patch (2011) by Zarina Bhimji and Disorient (2009) by Fiona Tan.

While all three artists are of Asian descent, their education and artistic practice unfolded in Europe and the U.S., gaining international exposure from there. Paradise Lost marked the first time these works were shown in Asia in an exhibition context.]]>
Trinh T. Minh-ha]]> Zarina Bhimji]]> Fiona Tan]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Film]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Asia]]>