Journey of a Yellow Man. Selected Materials from the Independent Archive]]> Performance]]> Activism]]> Politics]]> Identity]]> Artistic Research]]> Archival Practice]]> Lee Wen (Singapore) in 2012. For the past six years, the IA captured the zeitgeist of performance art in Singapore and larger (South-)East Asia through artistic collaborations.

This presentation in The Lab is organised into five chapters —“Condition,” “Body,” “Formation / Gestalt,” “Absence,” and “Memory”—that look at the development of performance art as a new medium as well as its political conditions. Journey of a Yellow Man. takes visitors through the archive with photographs, videos, writings, sketchbooks, while simultaneously, introducing the digital archive. As of today, the Centre has digitalised 20,000 files from the IA.

The practice of Lee Wen is motivated by social investigations that use art to interrogate stereotypical perceptions of culture and society. He became famous for his performance series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992—), where he embodied his Chinese descent and its relationship to oppressive systems.

The presentation provides insight into a continuously expanding resource platform that highlights ephemeral moments in the history of performance art in Singapore. The project addresses the importance of providing historically significant source material for researchers and the wider public. The digitalised files will be integrated into NTU CCA Singapore’s Public Resource Platform and will be accessible at the Centre, the Independent Archive, and the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, a collaborative partner of this project.

With IA, a series of public programmes will take place in both The Lab at the NTU CCA Singapore and in the IA. The programme highlights IA as a “living archive” that not only serves as a reference library and archive focusing on time-based and event-specific art, but is also a gathering space that offers dynamic programmes in a vibrant network of artists, musicians, and the public.

Journey of a Yellow Man is curated by Sophie Goltz, Deputy Director, Research and Academic Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore, in collaboration with Lee Wen, artist and Founder, Independent Archive, Singapore, Bruce Quek, Research, Independent Archive, and Kamiliah Bahdar, Public Programmes, Independent Archive. Project Assistant: Ho See Wah, Young Professional Trainee, NTU CCA Singapore. Assistant to Lee Wen: Liu Wen Chao, Library, Independent Archive.

The NTU CCA Digital Resource Platform was initiated in 2016 by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, NTU ADM Singapore and Lee Wen, in collaboration with Chương-Đài Võ, Researcher, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Assistant to the project: Bruce Quek with the support of Samantha Leong Min Yu, Executive, Conferences, Workshops & Archive, NTU CCA Singapore (till May 2018), Corine Chan Li Ling, Executive Archive, NTU CCA Singapore (May to July 2018), and Pooja Paras Mehta (2017), Ho See Wah (2018), Young Professional Trainees, NTU CCA Singapore.]]>
Sophie Goltz]]> Lee Wen]]> Bruce Quek]]> Kamiliah Bahdar]]> Ho See Wah]]> Liu Wen Chao]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Chương-Đài Võ]]> Samantha Leong Min Yu]]> Corine Chan Li Ling]]> Pooja Paras Mehta]]> Chuong-Dai Vo]]> Chuong Dai Vo]]> Photography]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Print]]> Video]]> Sculpture]]> Southeast Asia]]>
We Are Open!]]> Artistic Research]]> Archival Practice]]> We Are Open! brings the artists’ files of NTU CCA Singapore’s Public Resource Platform into the spotlight by reinterpreting The Lab, the Centre’s space for introducing research in process, as an open studio for activation. Each artist’s file contains materials ranging from books, collaterals, photographs, and videos to grey literature, donated to the Centre by the Artists-in-Residence, as well as Singaporean artists outside our Residency Programme.

Spanning eight weeks, this presentation by NTU CCA Singapore’s Young Professional Trainees takes the form of an ongoing experiment to explore the potential of these files as a tool for research and education, inviting the public to engage with materials for research, creation, and commentary about subjects such as culture, identity, and alternate realities. We Are Open! will also include collaborations with local artists who have been invited to utilise the diverse resource materials in the context of education workshops.

Curated by Young Professional Trainees:

Qamarul Asyraf, Productions
Ho Mun Yee, Research
Sara Ng, Residencies
Joey Sim, Residencies
Priscilla Toh, Communications
Olivia Wong, Exhibitions
Zhang Jing Chao, Outreach and Education

The Public Studio

The Public Studio consists of two workshops in which the public will be able to work first-hand with invited local artists who are also educators in the arts field. Through these workshops, the public and artists will have the opportunity to generate tangible interpretations of the resources in the Public Resource Platform.

These collaborative discussions on contemporary subjects found in the artists’ files, aim to provide a better understanding of how the Public Resource Platform can be utilised beyond the intended context of curatorial research. Insights derived from these workshops will be exhibited on the walls throughout the course of the show as demonstrations of the experimental processes.]]>
Qamarul Asyraf]]> Ho Mun Yee]]> Sara Ng]]> Joey Sim]]> Priscilla Toh]]> Olivia Wong]]> Zhang Jing Chao]]> Ang Song Nian]]> Felicia Low]]> Print]]> 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]]>
The wind that cuts the body by Choy Ka Fai]]> Body]]> Performance]]> Choy Ka Fai focuses his research on choreographic practices in
Asia. The wind that cuts the body presents his current investigation into Butoh, which arose in Japan at the end of the 1950s, encompassing a diverse range of techniques from dance, theatre, and movement. Choy traces the legacy of one of the key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986) who sought a new form of physical expression he referred to as ankoku butō (“dance of darkness”), delving into imageries of the grotesque and sickness of the human form. The research presentation will feature a selection of reference materials from the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive in Tokyo and from the artist’s expeditions, interviews, and documentary sketches. In his pursuit, Choy went to the extent of interviewing the spirit of Hijikata through an itako (Japanese shaman) and to speculate on the technological possibilities of dancing with Hijikata again.

The wind that cuts the body is curated by Khim Ong, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes.]]>
Choy Ka Fai]]> Khim Ong]]> Print]]> Video]]> Photography]]> Asia]]>
Wrong Indexing: Yeoseong Gukgeuk Archive by siren eun young jung]]> Identity]]> Yeoseong Gukgeuk reached the peak of popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, its success being tightly intertwined with the process of modernisation of South Korea. While today it lingers on the verge of extinction, in the post-colonial period Yeoseong Gukgeuk opened up a space for women to embody “other” identities and perform different subjectivities. Reinventing the traditional Korean theatre, they brought the process of gender-shifting to the limelight and subverted socially acceptable norms by blurring conventional gender binaries. Since 2008, siren eun young jung has investigated the public and private lives of Yeoseong Gukgeuk performers who, after the genre fell out of favour, went on to live disparate lives. This configuration of archival materials offers an insight into the artist’s research process and articulates the politics of recollecting, weaving together queer desires and patterns of resistance, affective matters and subversive subjectivities, gender fluidity and the performance of difference.

Wrong Indexing: Yeoseong Gukgeuk Archive is curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Residencies.]]>
siren eun young jung]]> Anna Lovecchio]]> Photography]]> Asia]]>
Speakers' Corner]]> Politics]]> Activism]]> Archival Practice]]> Ready, Steady, Go (2 — 8 August 2017)
Incidental Scripts (10 — 15 August 2017)
Proximities and Encounters (16 — 22 August 2017)
Islanded (23 — 31 August 2017)

Speakers’ Corner is a selection of video documentations of former public events and related research materials from its archives. Here, the term “Speakers’ Corner” stands as a metaphor for public discourses created through the various programmes of NTU CCA Singapore. Outreach not only means to create discussions but also to find different languages, or to question under what premises we create our knowledge. Altogether this is what creates a public discourse or a “speakers’ corner” within an institution, which can be academic, literary, or performative. It opens up the possibility for encounters with the known and unknown, the expected and unexpected, as a form of its lively activities.

NTU CCA Singapore’s public programmes reflect on our present world through culture and art. Unfolding over two months will be four chapters: Islanded, Incidental Scripts, Proximities and Encounters, and Ready, Steady, Go. Each chapter is related to an exhibition held at NTU CCA Singapore such as Incidental Scripts by Yang Fudong (2014) or SEA STATE by Charles Lim Yi Yong (2016), or to invited local and international Artists-in-Residence and their artistic research and practices like Heman Chong (2017) or Zac Langdon-Pole (2014). On a broader scheme, the events offer an expanded reading and understanding of the complexity and diversity of the contemporary art production of today and how it intersects with current developments in culture, society, and politics.]]>
Yang Fudong]]> Charles Lim Yi Yong]]> Heman Chong]]> Zac Langdon-Pole]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
The Haze: An Inquiry, Ongoing Research Project]]> Climate Crisis]]> Coexistence]]> Geopolitics]]> Capitalism]]> Ecology]]> Labour]]> Politics]]> The Sovereign Forest. Referencing Kanwar’s artistic approach, The Haze: An Inquiry brought together people from different disciplines in a focus group that takes the haze situation in Southeast Asia as the main topic for investigation.

How do we bridge the gap from the banal to the sensual, the tactical and visceral? What steps of inquiry leads us from the scientific to the notion of immediacy? How do we define abstract terms such as “crime” – Is the haze a crime? What is a crime against society? Different perspectives are offered in this process by participants from diverse backgrounds, including a research scientist, theatre director, community leader, writer, tech consultant, co-founder of a hackerspace, activist, designer and curator, geographer, architect, and postgraduate student.

A core group of specialists from varied fields of law, natural and social sciences, literature, art and architecture, media and theatre, is brought together in a series of workshops and discussions to explore the haze situation as an environmental, human, and legal challenge, given its transnational impact. The aim is to create a collection of “evidence” and to investigate the potential of the haze to be considered a “crime”. This collecting which include factual information and data, compilation of ancestral knowledge, media clippings, commentaries, unrecorded oral knowledge, as well as writings, photographs, and films will be gathered in the space amidst working notes of the core group. Using these “evidences”, participants will uncover social and environmental impacts beyond the haze, and deliberate on questions of social justice, corporate environmental responsibilities, agronomy cultures in industrial developments, amongst others. Each participant brings to the discussion individual responses that stem from their respective interests and disciplines. This research platform aims to assemble a diversity of viewpoints to provoke alternative ways of looking at and talking with a wider public about contemporary situations of urgency.

In addition to the series of closed and public workshops, discussions, and presentations participants in the core group is engaged in, they are also encouraged to invite guests who will make further inquiries into the “evidences” in The Lab and to look into collaborative working methods of shared agency.]]>
Amar Kanwar]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Magdalena Magiera]]> Print]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Artist Resource Platform Activate!]]> Artistic Research]]> Regionalism]]> Geopolitics]]> Knowledge Production]]> Artist Resource Platform: activate! is an ongoing project that engages with and expands upon the Artist Resource Platform, a growing collection of visual and audio materials from over 90 artists and independent art spaces. The series will negotiate with the limitations of an archive by initiating conversations and experimentations, offering the audience multiple access points to the resource materials and the artists’ practices.

This edition of Artist Resource Platform: activate! will feature three curators based in Singapore, providing a conceptual framework to understand their practices and how they are situated within the local and international contemporary art scene.

Public Programme

Artist Resource Platform: activate! I with Sidd Perez (The Philippines/Singapore), Assistant Curator, NUS Museum Wednesday, 18 May, 7.30 – 9.00pm

Artist Resource Platform: activate! II with Selene Yap (Singapore), Programme Manager (Visual Arts), The Substation Friday, 27 May, 7.30 – 9.00pm

Artist Resource Platform: activate! III with Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore), Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts Friday, 10 June, 7.30 – 9.00pm]]>
Sidd Perez]]> Melanie Pocock]]> Selene Yap]]> Print]]> Photography]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Four Practices: Artist Resource Platform]]> Artistic Research]]> Regionalism]]> Geopolitics]]> Four Practices, a display of resource material of current Artists-in-Residence. Showcasing publications, audio and visual documentation, Four Practices provides an entry point in understanding the artists’ diverse body of works and the complexity of their practices.

Four Practices complements and expands on NTU CCA Singapore’s Artist Resource Platform, a growing collection of resource materials from more than 80 local and international artists, independent art spaces and NTU CCA Singapore’s Artists-in-Residence.]]>
Haegue Yang]]> Zac Langdon-Pole]]> Zul Mahmod]]> Dennis Tan]]> Print]]> Video]]> Photography]]> Sculpture]]> Southeast Asia]]> Oceania]]> Asia]]>
Interrogative Pattern – Text(ile) Weave by Regina (Maria) Möller]]> Materiality]]> Identity]]> Regina (Maria) Möller‘s research focus. Möller’s research in The Lab stems from her interest in the trademark headdress of Samsui women, and will elaborate with time through experimental, collaborative and participatory forms of research practice. During workshops, lectures or formats of story telling, new layers will be added to reflect upon each other and trigger next threads for an ever expanding weave.]]> Regina (Maria) Möller]]> Installation]]> Object]]> Southeast Asia]]>