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]]>
Ritual]]> Migration]]> Supernatural]]> 17 March - 12 June 2023
Artist-in-Residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin)

“I am honoured to have been chosen for the SEA AiR programme and I am grateful to be part of the residency programme at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. I am excited to explore different cultures and perspectives by researching and interviewing local people. During my stay in Berlin, I hope to learn more about the lives of Thai immigrants, their stories and beliefs, as well as to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural diversity, local histories and storytelling practices in Germany. I hope to contribute something meaningful through my artwork.”

Drawing from oral histories and unwritten memories, the works of Saroot Supasuthivech unearth the multiplicity of narratives embedded in specific locations. His installations often combine moving image and sound to conjure the affective aura of a site and bring forth its intangible socio-historical stratifications. Using photogrammetry techniques, he turns 2D images into 3D models as a way of to blur the lines between the real and the mythical. His latest video installation, River Kwai: This Memorial Service Was Held in the Memory of the Deceased (2022), was featured in the Discoveries Section at Art Basel Hong Kong 2022.

For his residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Saroot Supasuthivech will research the encounters of cultures, faiths and rituals among immigrant communities and local inhabitants. He is especially interested in the spiritual beliefs and ceremonial traditions by which humans ritualise the moment of death. With a focus on the historical impact of immigration on funerary practices across different regional and religious contexts, the artist will survey specific burial sites and rituals in Germany and Thailand looking at how foreign communities enact their funerary traditions abroad.

Major sites of interest for his research are the Protestant Cemetery in Bangkok and the Kurpark (Spa Park) in Bad Homburg, the only town outside of Thailand that features two Sala Thai (open pavilions). The Sala were gifted to the city of Bad Homburg by King Chulalongkorn of Siam (1853 to 1910) as a token of gratitude after the monarch’s illness was healed in the spa town in 1907. From the materials gathered through field trips, interviews and archival research, the artist plans to develop a video installation that will convey the mystical structures of those sites as well as the spiritual intersections engendered by global migrations.

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Saroot Supasuthivech]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Video]]> Sound]]> Southeast Asia]]> Europe]]>
Cultural Heritage]]> Ritual]]> Artistic Research]]> Shahmen Suku]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Performance]]> Southeast Asia]]> 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]]> History]]> Identity]]> Embodiment]]> Yanyun Chen]]> Drawing]]> Installation]]> Multimedia Installation]]> 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]]>
Sustainability]]> Climate Crisis]]> During this residency, Wang Ruobing will expand her ongoing research into sustainability and livability issues brought about by threats to marine ecology, with artistic practice/expression as an avenue to reconfigure our relations to the earth and its inhabitants.

With rising water temperatures and expansion in size of the Tropical Warm Pool (the largest area of ocean on Earth), within which Singapore is situated, the marine coastline ecosystem has become a crucial field of research. Rapid demographic growth and concentrated economic activity, such as sea shipments, within the region has intensified the relationship between humans and marine life. Spurred by the region’s rapidly changing environmental, social, and political conditions, the artist intends to deepen her understanding of the effects of marine pollution on the coastline ecosystem through potential collaboration with scientific research centres. Drawing inspiration from Donna J. Haraway’s theories on the Cthulhuscene and ‘sympoiesis’, or “making-with”, she hopes to develop a body of new research and artworks that investigates and speculates ways of living with the damages caused by humankind, as a way of making sense of the present and discovering the means of building a more sustainable future.

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Wang Ruobing]]> Southeast Asia]]>