It deploys a research team with transdisciplinary methods to build on emerging environmental jurisprudence in the Pacific region and produce narrative visualisations demonstrating the links between cultural loss and climate change. By combining scholarly knowledge with cultural and artistic practices, the project will develop an innovative framework for addressing the impact of accelerated climate change. Using tools from visual studies and forensic architecture, from ethnography and law, to make scientific evidence on climate change socially robust and impactful, it will also create a relay between local perspectives and knowledge generated in different academic fields. Data visualisation and audiovisual presentations of ecological and cultural loss will be instrumental to transform ecological grief and loss into catalysts for climate action. Such narrative visualisations make visible the necessity to re-establish a direct relation between human societies and the environment, especially in the rapidly-changing urban fabric of a metropolis like Singapore.
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss Research Presentation, 23 March–13 October 2024, TBA21-Academy Ocean Space, Venice, Italy
Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss Research Presentation, 12 April–24 May 2024, ADM Gallery, 81 Nanyang Drive, Singapore
Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss (Vol. XXVII, 2024), Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific (CLJP), Victoria University of Wellington
Ahmed, N., Bauer, U. M., & Lallemant-Moe, H. R. (2024, October). Introductions to Cultural loss and climate change. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.
Ahmed, N., Camus, G., Lallemant-Moe, H. R., & Rave, L. (2022, November). Cultural loss and climate change – A new field of research. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, 28.
Soh, K. M. (2024, May). Monsoon equinox. Issue 13: Weather. LASALLE College of the Arts.
Shaleh, A. (2024, October). Linking the commons and climate change to collective actions. Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific, Special Issue: Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.
A project of:
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
Partner institutions:
OCEAN SPACE
Principal Investigator
Ute Meta Bauer
Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore; Professor, NTU ADM
Co-Principal Investigator
Sang-Ho Yun
Director, Remote Sensing Lab; Associate Professor, EEE and ASE, NTU
Collaborators
Nabil Ahmed
Professor, NTNU; Founder, INTERPRT
Hervé Raimana Lallemant-Moe
Director General, Digital Economy, French Polynesia; Public Law Associate, UFP
Kristy H.A. Kang
Associate Professor, ASU
Guigone Camus
Research Engineer, CEA-DRF Saclay
Armin Linke
Filmmaker, Photographer, Professor, AdBK
Lisa Rave
Filmmaker, Photographer
Research Team
Adha Shaleh
Research Fellow, NTU ADM;
Soh Kay Min
Research Associate, NTU ADM
Ng Mei Jia
Research Assistant, NTU ADM
Climate Transformation Gatherings (Nov 2024 - May 2026)
About the Climate Transformation Gatherings
Extended from the Climate Transformation Sustainable Societies Lecture Series, the Climate Transformation Gatherings consolidates critical concepts and ideas around various environmental themes and theories. These gatherings take various formats including open-discussion seminars, reading groups, workshops and guided tours to engage interested members of the public on various environmental issues.
About the Team
The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Baue, research fellow Joshua Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant Angela Ricasio Hoten.
This series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.
]]>16 January 2024, Tue – 28 January 2024, Sun
Block 6 Lock Road, #01-09
Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Friday 12 pm – 7pm
Saturdays, 1 pm – 9pm
Sundays, 1 pm – 7pm
In conversation with the artist
Saturday, 20 January, 11:00am – 12:30pm
A NIGHT WE HELD BETWEEN begins with the notion of the labyrinth, which serves as a metaphorical reference that connects a historical mythology to the socio-political reality in Palestine. Filmed in spring and summer 2023, Abed focused on ancient sites in Palestine – caves, carved holes, underground passages, and wild valleys. The chosen locales became the main protagonist, traversing beyond the first layers of visibility and revealing a hidden world underneath that was not seen but familiar to the places one knew.
Images become signifiers of what is lost, untold, and hence forgotten. These appear in a ghostly texture, as eerie reminders of their uncanny existence. Expanding upon this historical loss through a cinematic space allows the past to recur through a projection of imaginary gaps. The filmic score emphasizes the role of collective rhythmic movements and its potential impact in evoking shared feelings that may contribute to reconnect and sustain a community that is dislocated.
Abed weaves into her narration mythology and Palestinian folklore, creating a fusion of natural and composed sequences of movement, blending documentary and fictional elements. Through a poetic choreography of bodies, sites, narratives, and temporalities, her work prompts contemplation on the manifestations of social action and resistance in everyday life.
The featured video work A NIGHT WE HELD BETWEEN, has been created with the support of the Han Nefkens Foundation—Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2022 with its inaugural screening taking place at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.
"Images become signifiers of what is lost, untold, and hence forgotten. These appear in a ghostly texture, as eerie reminders of their uncanny existence."
The Han Nefkens Foundation—Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant appraises the work of emerging artists aged 50 and under, who live in West or Central Asia and have established a solid trajectory but have not had the opportunity to exhibit extensively: this production grant should serve as an important source of support and boost in their career.
A NIGHT WE HELD BETWEEN will be exhibited by a transcontinental consortium consisting of five institutions: Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (The Philippines); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (Spain); WIELS, Brussels (Belgium); NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (Singapore); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (UAE).
]]>Premier Screening: Tuesday 11 October, 7:00pm-8:30pm
The screening will be followed by a conversation between the artist Tekla Aslanishvili, artistic-scientific collaborator Dr. Evelina Gambino and Assistant Professor Dr. Marc Gloede, School of Art, Design and Media, NTU, Singapore.
The welcome will be given by Ute Meta Bauer, Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, and Founding Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and Dr. Karin Oen, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Art History, NTU School of Humanities.
A State in a State is the result of Aslanishvili winning the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2020, in collaboration with Jameel Art Centre, Dubai; the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila; NTU CCA Singapore and WIELS, Brussels. The Award appraises the work of emerging artists aged 40 and under, who live in West or Central Asia and have established a solid trajectory but not yet received recognition by international art institutions.
Aslanishvili was selected by an international jury, including NTU CCA Singapore’s Founding Director Ute Meta Bauer and former Deputy Director of Curatorial Programmes, Dr Karin Oen, for her body of meticulously researched work and her commitment to exploring a specific geopolitical context, whilst connecting to a wider discourse on the impact of extractivist economies on a planetary scale.
Revolving around the scenes of delay and waiting that constitute cargo mobility, the film reads the optimistic narratives about the New Silk Road against the grain. It observes how the iron foundation of connectivity can be used as a weapon of exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Dotting the same lines, other forms of sabotage are deployed by workers to disrupt the political violence. Looking at historic and current practices of resistance, A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different, infrastructural consciousness, and the lasting transnational kinship among the people who live and work around them
The film is developed in artistic-scientific collaboration with Dr. Evelina Gambino, Margaret Tyler Research Fellow in Geography at Girton College, University of Cambridge.
Research & Script: Tekla Aslanishvili / Evelina Gambino
Music: Ani Zakareishvili / Nika Pasuri
Cinematography: Nikoloz Tabukashvili / Tekla Aslanishvili
Typography: Dato Simonia
Editing: Tekla Aslanishvili
Sound: Viktor Bone / Irakli Shonia
Color: Sally Shamas
A State in a State will be also presented at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona from October 8th till November 27th.
]]>The NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore) presents The Geopolitical and the Biophysical: a structured conversation on Art and Southeast Asia in context, Part II, a symposium addressing the multiple notions of “Southeast Asia” and the various issues surrounding its borders, territories, dilemmas and anxieties. SEA STATE by artist Charles Lim Yi Yong, commissioned for the Singapore Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, explores the biophysical, political and psychic contours of Singapore and served as a point of departure for the symposium. Part I of the symposium took place in Venice, Italy during the opening days of the Biennale, and this second iteration will continue and deepen the discussions on the occasion of SEA STATE’s presentation at NTU CCA Singapore.
Southeast Asia, as a geographical region and conceptual category, is a contested entity shaped by diverse cultures and communities. The possibilities and uncertainties in this region – such as urban development, geopolitical relations, and anxieties surrounding national and regional identities – continue to pose unique social and political challenges.
The Geopolitical and the Biophysical: a structured conversation on Art and Southeast Asia in context, Part II brings together an array of eminent speakers and respondents to address questions of contemporary art and culture through interdisciplinary approaches – considering bodies of water as cultural-territorial spaces in an exploration of rivers, land reclamation, sea ports, and nomadic communities. The conversations arising from this symposium offers insight into the Southeast Asian consciousness and how it informs the region’s evolving relationship with the wider world.
The symposium is organised by NTU CCA Singapore under its Research & Education programme, which aims to connect research based artistic practices with other forms of knowledge production. As a prelude to the symposium, NTU CCA Singapore will screen films by Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul on 1 and 3 June 2016 to set up a “conversation” between two artist-filmmakers, Apichatpong and Charles Lim Yi Yong.
Prelude
Screening of films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Day 1: Wednesday, 1 June 2016, 7.30 – 10.00pm | Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
Day 2: Friday, 3 June 2016, 7.30 – 10.00pm | Tropical Malady (2004)
NTU CCA Singapore, The Single Screen
Block 43 Malan Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109443
Symposium programme
Day 1: National Gallery Singapore, Friday 17 June 2016, 7.00 – 9.00pm
7.30 – 7.45pm
Welcome address
Paul Tan (Singapore), Deputy CEO, National Arts Council
Professor Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Day 2: NTU CCA Singapore, Saturday 18 June 2016, 9.30am – 6.00pm
10.00 – 10.10am
MORNING SESSION
Opening address by chairperson, Professor Ute Meta Bauer
11.20am – 12.30pm
Session 1: The River and its Representations
Speaker: Gridthiya Gaweewong (Thailand), Artistic Director and Curator, Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok
Respondent: Dr David Teh (Australia/Singapore), Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore (NUS)
1.30 – 1.40pm
AFTERNOON SESSION
Opening address by chairperson, Dr David Teh
2.50 – 4.20pm
Session 3: Of Nomads and Sea Ports
Speakers: Dr Donna Brunero (Australia/Singapore), Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, NUS; Dr Wee Beng Geok (Singapore), Consultant, Nanyang Business School, NTU; and Dr Vivienne Wee (Singapore), independent anthropologist and researcher
Respondent: Dr Imran bin Tajudeen (Singapore), Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, NUS
4.40 – 6.00pm
Roundtable Discussion
Participants: Professor Michael M.J. Fischer, Charles Lim Yi Yong, Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, and Professor Aihwa Ong.
Moderators: Professor Ute Meta Bauer and Dr David Teh.
The programme is commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC) and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), with additional support from U.S. Embassy Singapore and National Gallery Singapore.