Decolonialism]]> Postcolonialism]]> Technology]]> Identity]]> Supernatural]]> NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents the second-cycle exhibition of SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR), a programme developed by NTU CCA Singapore and funded by the European Union. Titled Passages, this exhibition features new works by artists Priyageetha Dia (Singapore), Ngoc Nau (Vietnam) and Saroot Supasuthivech (Thailand), inspired by their three-month-long residencies in Europe.  

As part of the SEA AiR programme, Dia had undertaken her residency at Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands), Nau at Rupert (Lithuania) and Supasuthivech at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany) through the summer. Bringing back their experiences from diverse contexts in the EU to Singapore for this exhibition, Passages speaks of the artists’ journeys across geographical and cultural boundaries from one continent to another; the cultural exchanges that take place during this time; and the continuous development of ideas as they return to their home countries to create new works for the exhibition.

Employing new media technologies to aid their storytelling, each artist creates speculative narratives that traverse time and space, shifting between the past and present. While distinct in their artistic research and practices, their works evoke memories and explore meanings in liminal spaces, reverberating in their journey from one passage to the next.

Priyageetha Dia’s research interest lies in the plantations of Southeast Asia and their colonial histories, including those of migrant labour and structures of production and power. She explores gaps in historical records that are not only text-based, but also non-textual ones such as photographs, artefacts and oral interviews. Her four-channel sound installation Sap Sonic is a sonification of images from the photo album of the Sumatra Caoutchouc Company, a rubber planting company, from the archives of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Beyond their visual representations, the images bear witness to the power dynamics between the coloniser and its labourers as well as the hierarchy between nature and machine. Reframing this landscape from a visual to a sonic one, Sap Sonic serves as an aural gateway to the plantations as it delves into the lived yet unspoken lives of those who work on and inhabit the plantations, both human and nonhuman. Accompanying the work, Sap Script is a text installation in white latex paint, referencing rubber sap, on a black, obsidian-like background. Its typeface echoes the slender and linear structure of rubber trees, distorted to resemble the waveform of sound waves. Through the intangible, unseen nature of sound, Sap Sonic probes aspects of the visual world; expanding the agentive possibilities of the uncounted and the underheard.

Upon her arrival in Vilnius, Lithuania, for her residency, Ngoc Nau was drawn to Soviet-era architectural elements in the city, such as the Soviet brutalist architecture of the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports. She also became intrigued with the iconic image of a Lenin statue being removed, with its legs severed, from the city centre square in 1991. This imagery became a point of departure for her exploration into multifaceted aspects of post-Soviet realities in her own country. Portraying contemporary life amidst the remnants of socialist architecture and monuments using 3D animation and visual effects, Nau’s video installation, Virtual Reverie: Echoes of a Forgotten Utopia, demonstrates the transformative power of technology in reshaping our perceptions of reality. Central to the work is a constructed representation of the Vietnam-Soviet Friendship Palace of Culture and Labour in Hanoi, Vietnam, that serves as a stage for five hip-hop dancers embarking on a symbolic journey. As they interact with elements drawn from historical references in Vietnam and Lithuania, the dancers bridge the gap between historical artifacts and contemporary experiences. Echoing the ebb and flow of ideologies, their passage brings about new meanings when past memories evolve in the face of shifting landscapes.

Saroot Supasuthivech’s multimedia installation, Spirit-forward in G Major, charts the transformative journey experienced by Thai expatriates in Germany, told through a metaphoric cycle of life, death and rebirth. The work’s narrative unfolds in four parts. “New Beginnings” uses therapeutic dialogues to depict the initial migrant experience. “A Surreal Interlude”, based on interviews conducted with Thai monks and nuns in Berlin, transports viewers into a realm of magic and mortality inspired by Grimm’s fairy tales. The third segment focuses on a Thai music score Sai Samon, the oldest documented. Finally, “A Glimpse Beyond” dives into a poetic meditation on death and the afterlife, told from the viewpoint of the deceased. This poignant culmination is an exploration into a liminal reality between the familiar and the surreal, encapsulating the interplay of tradition, adaptation and preservation within an evolving cultural landscape.

Passages will be held through Singapore Art Week 2024, with a public programme taking place on 20 January 2024. Details of the public programme can be found here. 

SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union is made possible thanks to a generous grant of the European Union. 

Dates
Opening reception: 

28 November 2023, 5–8pm
Refreshments will be served

Public programme:
20 January 2023, 4-5.30pm

Opening Hours:
1 December 2023 – 14 January 2024: Friday – Sunday, 1–7pm
Closed on 24, 25, 31 December 2023 and 1 January 2024

Singapore Art Week
19 – 28 January 2024: Monday – Sunday, 1–7pm
Late nights on 20 and 27 January 2024: Saturday, 1–9pm

Location:
NTU CCA Singapore Residencies Studios
Block 38 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks
Singapore 109441

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Priyageetha Dia]]> Ngoc Nau]]> Nguyen Hong Ngoc]]> Saroot Supasuthivech]]> Mixed Media]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Video]]> Sound]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Migration]]> Labour]]> Capitalism]]> 17 April - 14 July 2023
Artist-in-Residence at Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht)

“To be given this opportunity to further my research and artistic practice at Jan van Eyck Academie is an incredible one. Being part of the SEA AiR residency in the EU will allow me to explore the potential for a deeper and broader comprehension beyond the Southeast Asian landscape and into the corners and crossings that ties its relation to the Netherlands. To be able to witness, engage in and respond to an interdisciplinary environment with the possibility to gather with other peers and cultural workers, access resources and facilities, and share knowledge is what I am really looking forward to.”

Priyageetha Dia is an arts practitioner who experiments with time-based media, 3D animation and game engine software. Her practice addresses the transnational migration of ethnic communities and the intersections of the colonial production with land, labour and capital in Southeast Asia through speculative methods and counter-narratives. She has been invited to participate in several exhibitions including the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2022); Attention Seeker, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Australia (2022); An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season, National Gallery Singapore (2020); 2219: Futures Imagined, ArtScience Museum Singapore (2019). She was a recipient of the IMPART Art Award in 2019.

The migratory movements of her ancestral lineage from Southern India to Malaysia, and later to Singapore, sparked Priyageetha’s deep-seated engagement in South Asian diasporic histories, the labour relations that underlie plantation agriculture in Malaya and the vast terrain of colonial narratives. Interweaving these research threads in her multimedia practice, her works figure alternative histories that empower subaltern forms of existence. 

During her residency at Jan Van Eyck Academie, the artist is interested in delving deeper into the emergence and expansion of agro-industrial plantation projects, the dispossession and displacement of lands and communities in Southeast Asia, and their relation to The Netherlands through archival research. Moreover, the residency will provide her with a supportive environment to articulate critical viewpoints and counter-narratives through her ongoing and self-led experiments with computer-generated imagery (CGI), animation technologies and game engine software while also allowing her to gain an understanding of issues related to contemporary transnational interactions within Southeast Asia and Europe.

 

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Priyageetha Dia]]> Mixed Media]]> Video]]> Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Urbanism]]> Technology]]> Modernity]]> 12 April - 30 June 2023
Artist-in-Residence at Rupert (Vilnius)

“I feel very grateful and proud to have been selected for the second edition of the SEA AiR programme and I am very excited about my upcoming residency in Vilnius. It will allow me to connect further with European culture and artists and to find new inspirations and materials to feed my research and thinking. I am very curious to see which bridges I will be able to establish between Northern Europe and Southeast Asia to foster my creative process. I look forward to engage in this opportunity and produce an innovative artwork for the exhibition in Singapore later this year.”

The multimedia practice of Ngoc Nau encompasses photography, holograms, and Augmented Reality (AR) and she is currently working with 3D software and other open source technologies to create new possibilities for video installation. In Nau’s work, different materials and techniques attempt to capture the subtle ways in which new media shape and dictate our views of reality. Blending traditional culture and spiritual beliefs with modern technologies and lifestyles, her work often responds to Vietnam’s accelerated urban development. She has participated in several exhibitions across Asia, including the Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021) and the Singapore Biennale (2019) among others. She also participated in documenta 15, Kassel, Germany (2022) with Sa Sa Art Projects.

During the residency, Ngoc Nau intends to research the impact of urbanisation and modernisation on contemporary living conditions, collective memories, traditional practices, and the natural landscape. Situating herself within the creative community of Rupert will allow her to explore Lithuanian cultural landscape and to access a new trove of materials, including oral traditions, historical archives, and ritual ceremonies. Through encounters will the local community, she intends to unearth the traditional values and ancient practices that have been lost to industrial and technological advancements in order to come to a better understanding of how different communities configure their values and identities within the fast-changing landscape of today. Nau is particularly interested in the gaps created by modern development in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and she plans to experiment with new media technologies to imagine modes of being that reconcile the past and the future.

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Ngoc Nau]]> Nguyen Hong Ngoc]]> Mixed Media]]> Video]]> Photography]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Decolonialism]]> History]]> Postcolonialism]]> Anthony Chin]]> Installation]]> Mixed Media]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]> Artistic Research]]> Displacement]]> Identity]]> Irfan Kasban]]> Mixed Media]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Sound]]> Video]]> Performance]]> Southeast Asia]]> Race]]> Identity]]> Decolonialism]]> Zulkhairi Zulkiflee]]> Video]]> Photography]]> Installation]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]> Materiality]]> Cultural Heritage]]>
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Ben Loong]]> Sculpture]]> Mixed Media]]> Painting]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Technology]]> Sustainability]]> Coexistence]]> Citizens of Nowhere painting series. During the residency, the artist will expand this line of inquiry by studying governance protocols and management solutions adopted in land-scarce Singapore to accommodate population gorwth and allow for the coexistence of a diversity of ethnic groups. Based on these observations, he will expand Citizens of Nowhere by creating a new body of work influenced by the specificity of Singapore's distinctly vertical landscape and multicultural population. Nsofor also plans to address the pressures of technological development and climate change testing possibilities for collaboration and public participation around key issues such as waste disposal.]]> Anthony Nsofor]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]> Politics]]> History]]> Taloi Havini]]> Photography]]> Sculpture]]> Mixed Media]]> Oceania]]> Ways of Seeing]]> Trevor Yeung]]> Mixed Media]]> Southeast Asia]]>