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]]>
Hugging the Shore]]> Archival Practice]]> Materiality]]> Standing Still (2000- 03), Dalam (2001), May 2006 (2006), and a new work, Like Leaves (Syzygium grandis) (2015). Much of Simryn Gill’s work results from a process of sifting through and documenting her immediate surroundings creating quiet and at the same time commanding work marked by history, culture, the passage of time, and the poetry of daily life.

Curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director and Anca Rujoiu, Curator, Exhibitions.]]>
Simryn Gill]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Anca Rujoiu]]> Photography]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Fish Story, to be continued]]> Capitalism]]> Decolonialism]]> Globalisation]]> Geopolitics]]> Technology]]> Oceans & Seas]]> Fish Story, to be continued presents an investigation of the global maritime industry, an extensive research of the late artist, theorist, photography historian and critic, Allan Sekula. Showing for the first time in Southeast Asia, NTU CCA Singapore will juxtapose chapters from Fish Story (1988 – 1993) alongside two film works, Lottery of the Sea (2006) and The Forgotten Space (2010) co-directed with Nöel Burch. With a focus on the core works of his explorations of the maritime world, this exhibition aims to emphasise Allan Sekula’s sustained argument that the sea is the “forgotten space” of the contemporary global economy. Fish Story, to be continued will include works from the collections of Fond Regional d’art contemporain Bretagne, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York and Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA 21), Vienna.

An International Symposium is organised on the occasion of Fish Story, to be continued on Saturday 26 September 2015. Bringing together different researchers and artists who have collaborated or share common interests with Allan Sekula’s work, the symposium will focus on key themes of his practice including questions of critical realism in contemporary art and representation of labour.

This exhibition is part of NTU CCA Singapore’s curatorial programme PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL., a trandisciplinary research addressing the complexities of a world in flux and the network of connections that such underlying elements define at both local and global scale.]]>
Allan Sekula]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Anca Rujoiu]]> Photography]]> Film]]> Asia]]> Europe]]> North America]]>
Charles Lim Yi Yong: SEA STATE]]> Geopolitics]]> Sustainability]]> Ecology]]> Ecosystems]]> Nature]]> Climate Crisis]]> Oceans & Seas]]> SEA STATE by artist Charles Lim Yi Yong, commissioned for the Singapore Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale and curated by Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, will be presented at the NTU CCA Singapore from 30 April to 10 July 2016. For over a decade, Lim’s ongoing project SEA STATE examines the biophysical, political and psychic contours of Singapore through the visible and invisible lenses of the sea. SEA STATE is an in-depth inquiry by an artist that scrutinises both man-made systems, opening new perspectives on our everyday surroundings, from unseen landscapes and disappearing islands to the imaginary boundaries of a future landmass.

First held at the Palazzo Franchetti on the occasion of the Singapore Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, the symposium The Geopolitical and the Biophysical: a structured conversation on Art and Southeast Asia in context will continue and expand upon the debate with a second iteration at NTU CCA Singapore during Lim’s exhibition on 17 and 18 June 2016.

The presentation of SEA STATE and the symposium The Geopolitical and the Biophysical: a structured conversation on Art and Southeast Asia in context, Part II held at NTU CCA Singapore are generously supported by the Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth, National Arts Council Singapore and the Singapore Tourism Board.]]>
Charles Lim Yi Yong]]> Ute Meta Bauer ]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Film]]> Photography]]> 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]]>
Theatrical Fields]]> Embodiment]]> Experiential]]> Theatre]]> Ritual]]> Theatrical Fields introduces theatricality as a critical strategy in performance, film and video. This exhibition presents six video installations shown for the first time in Southeast Asia: Voice off by Judith Barry (USA), Suspiria by Stan Douglas (Canada), Lines in the Sand by Joan Jonas (USA), Vagabondia by Isaac Julien (UK), She Might Belong to You by Eva Meyer & Eran Schaerf (Germany / Israel), X Characters Re(hers)AL by Constanze Ruhm (Austria). Situated in juxtaposition, the works generate temporal spaces for experimental action, creating unfamiliar proximities and encounters.

Theatrical Fields was curated by Ute Meta Bauer (Founding Director) with Anca Rujoiu (Curator for Exhibitions), and was first presented and commissioned by the Bildmuseet, Umea in Sweden (2013).

As a collaboration, Bildmuseet Umea and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore will publish a catalogue including keynotes from the symposium and additional commissioned essays.]]>
Judith Barry]]> Stan Douglas]]> Joan Jonas]]> Isaac Julien]]> Eva Meyer]]> Eran Schaerf]]> Constanze Ruhm]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Anca Rujoiu ]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Object]]> Performance]]> Europe]]>
Yang Fudong: Incidental Scripts]]> Theatre]]> Fiction]]> Incidental Scripts, presented a selection of four works by Yang: An Estranged Paradise (1997-2002), The Fifth Night (II) Rehearsal (2010), On the Double Dragon Hills (2012) and About the Unknown Girl – Ma Sise (2013-2014). These works are emblematic of his multi-faceted approach towards the creation of visual imageries that complicates our understanding of reality / fiction, and our experience of space / time.

The exhibition was curated by Ute Meta Bauer (NTU CCA Singapore Founding Director) with Khim Ong (Independent Curator).]]>
Yang Fudong]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong ]]> Film]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Asia]]>
Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions]]> Posthumanism]]> Sustainability]]> Coexistence]]> Biodiversity]]> Ecology]]> Technology]]>
Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions at NTU CCA Singapore is a new production by Tomás Saraceno commissioned by the centre that brings his long-term research on spider webs into the realm of sound. The artist uses spider webs as musical instruments embodying the incredible structural properties of the spider’s silk, but also the spider’s sophisticated mode of communication through vibrations.

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions is a pioneering investigation by Saraceno and his studio in Berlin that involves a range of collaborators from various universities and disciplines. The exhibition space is turned into an interactive sound and visual installation, a process-driven laboratory for experimentation that pushes the boundaries of interspecies communication.

As an extension of the exhibition, a dedicated website (www.arachnidorchestra.org) will operate as a research platform and playful hypertext of musical tuning.]]>
Tomás Saraceno]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Anca Rujoiu]]> Astonishing Secrets of Spiders - Human Wisdom is Way Behind]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Sound]]> Southeast Asia]]>
They Come to Us Without a Word]]> Supernatural]]> Ecology]]> Ecosystems]]> Biodiversity]]> Coexistence]]> Environmental Crisis]]> They Come to Us without a Word, video and performance pioneer Joan Jonas’ first large-scale exhibition in Singapore and Southeast Asia. They Come to Us without a Word was organised for the U.S. Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and co-curated by Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. With this exhibition Jonas evokes the fragility of nature, using her own poetic language to address the irreversible impact of human interference on the environmental equilibrium of our planet.

Acknowledgements They Come to Us without a Word was organised for the U.S. Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and co-curated by Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. The exhibition was generously supported by U.S. Department of State, Cynthia and John Reed, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Additional major support was provided by the Council for the Arts at MIT, Toby Devan Lewis, VIA Art Fund, Agnes Gund, Lambent Foundation.

The exhibition in Singapore is organised by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Nanyang Technological University with support by the Economic Development Board, Singapore. Additional support has also been provided by the U.S. Embassy Singapore.]]>
Paul C. Ha]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Joan Jonas]]> Film]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Drawing]]> Mixed Media]]> Object]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]> North America]]>
The Sovereign Forest in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik/Samadrusti and Sherna Dastur]]> Archival Practice]]> Indigenous Knowledge]]> Geopolitics]]> Capitalism]]> Ecology]]> Labour]]> Politics]]> The Sovereign Forest initiates a creative response to the understanding of crime, politics, human rights and ecology. The validity of poetry as evidence in a trial, the discourse on seeing, and the determination of self, all come together as a constellation of films, texts, books, photographs, objects, seeds and processes.

The Sovereign Forest is produced with the support of Samadrusti, Odisha, India; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom; Public Press, New Delhi, India; and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany.

The exhibition at NTU CCA Singapore and its public programmes are curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Khim Ong, and Magdalena Magiera, in collaboration with Amar Kanwar, Sudhir Pattnaik and Sherna Dastur.

The Sovereign Forest is produced with the support of Samadrusti, Odisha, India; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom; Public Press, New Delhi, India; and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany.]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> Magdalena Magiera]]> Amar Kanwar]]> Sudhir Pattnaik]]> Sherna Dastur]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Object]]> Sound]]> Asia]]>