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]]>
Tarek Atoui The Ground: From the Land to the Sea]]> Performance]]> Body]]> Materiality]]> Nature]]> Tarek Atoui, conceived as a composition that unfolds in space with its unique sound library and instruments. It is the first large-scale exhibition that Atoui has created through interweaving objects, instruments, and recordings, some borrowed from pre-existing projects, others newly collected and produced.

The Ground: From the Land to the Sea comprises two layers of auditory experiences that interact with each other as well as with the spatial and sonic qualities of NTU CCA Singapore’s exhibition hall, merging them into a single composition. Enveloping the main exhibition space are a set of speakers that play the sounds of underwater environments as well as human and industrial activities in the harbours of Athens and Abu Dhabi, recorded for the project I/E (2015–ongoing). Building upon the sound collection, Atoui has, as part of this presentation in Singapore, recorded at local harbours and waterfronts, together with composer and sound artist Éric La Casa.

The recording process in Singapore took Atoui and La Casa to a range of waterfront sites and islands including the Jurong Fishery Port, Pulau Sebarok (an oil storage facility and refuelling port off the Southern coastline), on an oil tanker, and along the Singapore shores. During these trips, the duo picked out acoustic features of these environs, both underwater and on land, and captured them in their diverse forms—as vibrations, audible noise, and inaudible audio waves, etc.— using devices such as a recorder, a hydrophone, contact microphones, and selfmade omnidirectional microphones. Drawing reference to the emergence of acoustic ecology, which attempts to understand and analyse characteristics of sonic environments such as geological formations, organisms, and human interactions, Atoui’s auditory library is an artistic interpretation of the ecology of our times. Set within a “white cube,” the audience is transposed into an immersive audio-visual topography, becoming part of the installation.

Most of the instruments shown are part of The Ground project, the result of the artist’s five-year-long investigation of natural cycles in the Pearl River Delta, first presented at Mirrored Gardens, a project space in Guangzhou, China, in 2017. Also presented are instruments created for previous projects, such as The Reverse Collection (2014–16) and WITHIN (2012–13). This ensemble of unusual instruments is enriched with new additions, including a set of porcelain and ceramic discs, on which traditional Arabic rhythms are engraved, and a customised record player that rotates at irregular speeds, never reading a disc the same way twice.

At the core of Atoui’s practice lies an ongoing process of inviting composers, musicians, and artists to collaborate on his pieces in search of new ideas, gestures, and experiences. For the current exhibition, Atoui will engage with local and international musicians who will be invited to appropriate his composition and intervene in the exhibition space. He will work with acclaimed sound artists and musicians Vivian Wang and Yuen Chee Wai, as well as music curator Mark Wong, who in turn will invite other musicians and sound artists to inhabit the installation throughout the course of the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, and Khim Ong, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore. Supported by Institut français, with the additional support of the Embassy of France in Singapore and Institut français Singapour.

Tarek Atoui has invited local and international musicians to engage with his exhibition and appropriate the installation for given periods of time. He worked with acclaimed sound artists and musicians Vivian Wang and Yuen Chee Wai, as well as music curator Mark Wong, who each will host three other musicians and sound artists. The guests will inhabit the exhibition and freely experiment with Atoui’s instruments throughout the course of the exhibition.

Schedule for upcoming Guest Musicians in the Exhibition Hall:

Vivian Wang (Singapore): 26 – 30 March
Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore): 31 March – 3 April
Darren Ng (Singapore): 7 – 10 April
Uriel Barthélémi (France): 13 – 17 April
Tini Aliman (Singapore): 28 April – 1 May
Wu Junhan (Singapore): 2 – 5 May
The Analog Girl (Singapore): 10 – 13 May
Cheryl Ong (Singapore): 19 – 22 May
Zai Tang (Singapore): 31 May – 3 June
Bani Haykal (Singapore): 4 – 7 June
Dharma (Singapore): 13 – 16 June
Sudarshan Chandra Kumar (Malaysia): 19 – 22 June]]>
Tarek Atoui]]> Yuen Chee Wai]]> Mark Wong]]> Vivian Wang]]> Darren Ng]]> Uriel Barthélémi]]> Tini Aliman]]> Wu Junhan]]> The Analog Girl]]> Cheryl Ong]]> Zai Tang]]> Bani Haykal]]> Dharma]]> Sudarshan Chandra Kumar]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Installation]]> Sound]]> Object]]> Asia]]> Southeast Asia]]>
The Institute of Critical Zoologists by Robert Zhao Renhui]]> Ecosystems]]> Biodiversity]]> Geopolitics]]> Mythology]]> Nature]]> Postcolonialism]]>
In the past two years, The Institute of Critical Zoologists has been researching the escalating chain of events brought about by the human presence on Christmas Island gathering a varied collection of research materials that merge factual and fictional elements. By surveying the impact of human beings on an endemic habitat, Final Report of the Christmas Island Expert Working Group maps out lines of invasion and retreat, it investigates dynamics of connectedness and isolation triggering reflections on states of vulnerability and conditions of survival in the age of globalisation.

Curated by Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Residencies]]>
Robert Zhao Renhui]]> Robert Zhao]]> Anna Lovecchio]]> Photography]]> Asia]]>
What is deep sea mining?]]> Environmental Crisis]]> Oceans & Seas]]> Extractivism]]> Nature]]> Postcolonialism]]> inhabitants in collaboration with Margarida Mendes

Deep sea mining is a new frontier of resource extraction located on the ocean seabed. It is set to begin in the next few years, as the technology is currently under development. Mining companies are, at present, leasing areas for exploitation in national and international waters in order to assess the potential to extract minerals and metals such as manganese, cobalt, gold, copper, iron, and other rare earth elements. The main geological sites targeted are areas rich in polymetallic nodules, seamounts, and hydrothermal vents; areas typically found where tectonic plates meet. The areas to be mined could cover parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean in international waters, and national waters off the islands of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Japan, and the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Assessment of the impact on deep sea ecosystems is underway, though their cumulative effects remain difficult to comprehend given the unprecedented variety and expanse of the mining sites targeted. At the same time, local and indigenous communities living in these regions are not being adequately consulted.

The prospects of this form of mining re-actualise a colonial, frontier mentality and are redefining extractivist economies for the twenty-first century. What is Deep Sea Mining? addresses both knowledge of the deep sea and ocean governance, but also efforts to defend a sustained ocean literacy beyond the United Nations’ “blue economy” at a time when the deep ocean, its species, and its resources remain largely unmapped and understudied.

Episode 1, Tools for Ocean Literacy, is historical and geographical introduction to deep sea mining, playing with Charles and Ray Eames’ 1977 film Powers of Ten.

Episode 2, Deep Frontiers, tells a story about knowledge of the seabed and its alien life, written by anthropologist Stefan Helmreich.

Episode 3, The Azore Case, focuses on the Portuguese Azores nine island archipelago, following European Union plans to mine in the region, based on a series of interviews with marine biologists and politicians conducted in the islands.

Episode 4, A Glossary on Mining, offers a brief glossary of terms that can be used to better tackle the issue of mining reserves and monopolies on land, which in turn may lead to the potential threat of deep sea mining.

Episode 5, The Papua New Guinea Case, addresses the plans to mine off the coast of Papua New Guinea as well as the long activist struggle by local communities across the Pacific against deep sea mining. Episode 5 will be premiered at NTU CCA Singapore, simultaneously in the Lab space and online on social media and the websites of NTU CCA Singapore’s website, the funding and partner institution TBA21 – Academy’s website, and inhabitants-tv.]]>
inhabitants]]> Margarida Mendes]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Oceania]]> Asia]]> South America]]>
The Migrant Ecologies Project by Lucy Davis]]> Biodiversity]]> Nature]]> Materiality]]> Railtrack Songmaps, a project exploring competing claims to nature and culture that resound along the former Malaysian railway tracks at Tanglin Halt. For at least five decades, birds, nature lovers, songbird clubs, tree shrines, kampung gardeners and foragers have roosted and seeded themselves along the tracks, nurturing a tangled patch of urban wild that is currently undergoing redevelopment. The particular constellation of elements on display – photographs, Malay pantuns, embroidery on paper, and delicate airborne assemblages of images, cut-outs and coconut sticks – weave in and out of memories of Lim Kim Seng, who together with his brother Lim Kim Chua, joined the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS) as teenager. Both are now senior members of the NSS Bird Group. Kim Seng assisted The Migrant Ecologies Project in the identification of 105 bird species around Tanglin Halt. In an accompanying soundtrack he recalls how an early encounter with a kingfisher first drew him into a bird zone.

The Migrant Ecologies Project was founded in 2010 by artist, art writer, and educator Lucy Davis. Investigating movements and migrations of nature and culture in Southeast Asia and beyond, the project unfolds through collaborations with sound artists, photographers, scientists, and designers.

Lucy Davis has been an Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore from April to June 2017.]]>
Lucy Davis]]> Lim Kim Seng]]> Lim Kim Chua]]> Installation]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Semangat Kejiranan by Izat Arif]]> Nature]]> Urbanism]]> Botany]]> Izat Arif has conducted experiential and erratic fieldwork in various landscapes in Singapore observing plants, soil, insects, and traces of human presence. This investigation is presented in The Vitrine as a form of a provisional “cabinet of essential items,” which contains a selection of the artist’s notes and drawings, research tools, and findings.]]> Izat Arif ]]> Installation]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]> Nature]]> Kazuo Okanoya]]> Asia]]> Nature]]> Coexistence]]> Markus Reymann]]> Asia]]> Oceania]]> Nature]]> Coexistence]]> Barney Broomfield]]> Asia]]> Europe]]> North America]]> Nature]]> Coexistence]]> Biodiversity]]> Climate Crisis]]> Guigone Camus]]> Asia]]> Oceania]]>