Environmental Crisis]]> Modernity]]> Politics]]> Lim Sokchanlina]]> Southeast Asia]]> Modernity]]> Performance]]> 18 Dec 2013, Wed 07:30 PM - 09:00 AM

Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism – A talk by Nikos Papastergiadis (Professor at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne) with a focus on contemporary art as a form of the cosmopolitan imaginary, followed by with a free improvisation of music and movement performance by the Bani Haykal trio. 
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Nikos Papastergiadis]]> Bani Haykal]]> Asia]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Session 2 – The Land and its Reclamations]]> Modernity]]> Topography]]> Blk 43 Malan Road, The Single Screen

If the sea has long been a preoccupation of Singapore artist Charles Lim Yi Yong, so has the reclamation of land from the sea. Since Singapore’s independence in 1965, the island-city-state has grown over a quarter of its area through land reclamation on its outer lying islands and coasts. These circumstances may make Singapore unique in Southeast Asia, but in what ways does this demonstration of the technocratic state’s mastery over nature represent or misrepresent a shared aspiration of modernity in the region? In this session, Joshua Comaroff and Seth Denizen offer their perspectives on the larger implications of land reclamation.

Respondent: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa]]>
Joshua Comaroff]]> Seth Denizen ]]> Shabbir Hussain Mustafa]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Materiality]]> Modernity]]> 13 Jul 2016, Wed 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Studio #01-06, Block 38 Malan Road

Duto Hardono’s practice traverses the two-dimensionality of collages and drawings to the dynamic incorporation of readymade materials such as old musical instruments, records and cassette tapes in his installations and performances. This studio session will offer a glimpse into Hardono’s inquiries into the impact that societal changes have had on popular culture, music and literature in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

Often drawing reference from popular culture, conceptual art and anti-art movements, Hardono’s works are peppered with touches of dark humour and irony in its aim to examine the relationship and paradoxes between humans and time through sound. Hardono has participated in numerous international solo and group exhibitions including: Biennale Jogja XII Equator #2: Not A Dead End, Jogja National Museum, Indonesia (2013) and The 9th Shanghai Biennale: Reactivation, Bandung Pavilion for Intercity Pavilion, China (2012).]]>
Duto Hardono]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Modernity]]> 3 Feb 2017, Fri 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
The Single Screen

Márton Orosz’s lecture will address the holistic and concept-oriented approach of György Kepes and his understanding of art’s capacity to foster social transformation as a collaborative effort. A painter, designer, photographer, urban planner, curator, art theorist, editor, and educator, Kepes established the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT, in 1967, as a think-tank for artistic agency. Orosz will discuss his visionary programme and utopian project to reconcile the “two cultures” in the Cybernetic Age, revealing some of the Center’s lesser known visual practices that aspired to reach a higher synthesis of human integrity by exploring the relationship between the media and the senses. He will also map out the trans-regional circulation of Kepes’s ideas on the integration of art, science and technology, positioning Southeast Asia as a significant catalyst of Kepes’s legacy.]]>
Márton Orosz ]]> Marton Orosz]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
The Making of an Institution — Artistic Research. Prelude of short films by Souliya Phoumivong (Laos), Artist-in-Residence and talk by Rodolfo Andaur (Chile), Curator-in-Residence

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Modernity]]> Technology]]> History]]> 5 Apr 2017, Wed 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road

As part of The Making of an Institution, Artist-in-Residence Souliya Phoumivong (Laos) will introduce and show his first claymation short film as a prelude to the talk of Curator-in-Residence Rodolfo Andaur.

Originally trained as a painter, Phoumivong will speak about how he first came across the universe of new media to introduce his first claymation film, Big World (2010), realised on occasion of a residency at Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan. Delving into his own subjective encounters with modernity outside of Laos, the artist will also show snippets of the work he is developing in Singapore.

Rodolfo Andaur’s talk Exposed Territories interweaves narratives collected and accumulated over the last few years about historical and anthropological reflections on the landscape and the borders of the Atacama Desert in South America. Andaur will also discuss how his research aims to reassesses socio-cultural aspects and expose contemporary art experiences into multidisciplinary platforms.

This talk is part of the public programme of The Making of an Institution.]]>
Souliya Phoumivong]]> Rodolfo Andaur ]]> Southeast Asia]]> South America]]>
Symposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History

Session II: Ghosts and Spectres
Lecture: “Contested Modernity and the Image of History in East Asia” by Hyunjin Kim, curator, writer, and researcher]]>
Modernity]]> Identity]]> Tradition]]> History]]> 28 Oct 2017, Sat 02:30 - 03:15 PM
The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road

The lecture addresses Asia as a region in-between becoming and unravelling. Referencing images of resistance and spirituality, Hyunjin Kim will discuss works that observe, and excavate unarticulated modern and contemporary realities that pervade the (East) Asian region today. Part of the lecture proposes ways to rethink the radicality of tradition as an "ungovernable" apparatus, in contrast to the brutal adaptation of Western modernisation and to the rise of nationalism. The following examination looks at the discourse of "Asianism," engaging with Sun Ge's idea of "Homecoming" and Takeuchi Yoshimi's notion of zengzha. Understanding the region as a space of anomalous events, the speaker will demonstrate how the complicated historical relations and hegemonic struggles endemic to the region can accelerate the production of discourse.]]>
Hyunjin Kim]]> Asia]]>
History]]> Cultural Production]]> Modernity]]> 23 May 2018, Wed 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Block 38 Malan Road, Studio #01-07

Researching official and unofficial records, media coverage, oral testimonies, and other relevant materials, Kent Chan is excavating a little-known episode of Singapore’s curatorial history: the first group exhibition of Singaporean artists in Europe. Titled Paintings by Singapore Artists, the exhibition took place in 1955 at the former Imperial Institute in London and was organised by Ho Kok Hoe (1922-2015), then chairman of the Singapore Art Society. The research tackles the relation between the colony and the imperial capital in terms of cultural representation culminating in a film project titled Seni, after the Malay word that most approximates the Western concept of “art”. In the talk, Chan will discuss his interests in the history of colonialism and modernity, the tropics and the arts, sharing the artistic process and working methodology that led to the production of the Seni. Act II, the first chapter of the work conceptualized and filmed during his six-month residency.

The talk will take place in the artist’s studio.]]>
Kent Chan]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Modernity]]> 11 Dec 2018, Tue 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road

NTU CCA Singapore is pleased to present the rough cut of A Certain Illness Difficult to Name (2018), a new film created by experimental filmmaker Taiki Sakpisit during his three-month residency at the Centre. Filmed entirely in Singapore, the work is a poetic meditation on states of transition, a spiritual quest imbued with a mysterious sense of malaise. Slowly panning over the landscape and pausing on enigmatic frames, the camera quietly leads the viewer on a visual and aural journey across different layers of emotional intensity. The preview of A Certain Illness Difficult to Name will be preceded by the screening of Trouble in Paradise, a short film realised in southern Thailand in 2017, shown in Singapore for the first time on this occasion.

A Certain Illness Difficult to Name, Singapore, 2018, 18min Trouble in Paradise, Thailand, 2017, 13min

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the artist.]]>
Taiki Sakpisit]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Cultural Heritage]]> Modernity]]> 21 Feb 2019, Thu 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Studio #01-06, Block 38 Malan Road

How does “the contemporary” manifest itself in the Chinese ink painting practiced today in Singapore? By looking at the historical development of this practice and its teaching methodologies, can we perhaps grasp its contemporary gist more accurately? These and other questions inform John Low’s research during his six-month residency and they are inspiring his ongoing experiments with ink painting in terms of medium, style, format, and spatial configuration. For this Studio Session, Low invited artist and archivist Koh Nguang How to dig deep into his archival collection—Singapore Art Archive Project—and select publications related to the development of Chinese ink painting in Singapore from the 1920s onwards. Ranging from manuals on ink painting and calligraphy used in Chinese-language schools to monographies on master painters, texts on painting collectives, critical essays, and exhibition catalogues, these printed matters will guide Koh Nguang How and John Low’s open-ended conversation on the subject.]]>
John Low]]> Koh Nguang How ]]> Asia]]>