Singapore

Performance by Ujikaji

28 Jun 2019, Fri 07:30 PM - 08:00 PM

The beat writer William Burroughs wrote: “Word begets image and image is virus.” The opening performances will comprise of musicians who work heavily with foundations of words and text, transforming them into viral images through sound, voice, instruments, and technology.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ujikaji (Singapore) means “experiment” in Malay, and the independent music label’s interests lie in the curation of experimental music, with a special focus on Southeast Asian artists and sounds. The label supports a partnership with independent artists that allows them to focus on the creative aspects of music-making. Recent releases include albums by FEN, Pupa, The Observatory, and Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ujikaji also co-presents the acclaimed BlackKaji series of experimental sound events, with the last show being a one-night takeover of the Kampong Bugis site of the Asian Film Archive’s contemporary art show, State of Motion.

Image caption: Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, 29 June 2018, The Single Screen. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

The beat writer William Burroughs wrote: “Word begets image and image is virus.” The opening performances will comprise of musicians who work heavily with foundations of words and text, transforming them into viral images through sound, voice, instruments, and technology.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ujikaji (Singapore) means “experiment” in Malay, and the independent music label’s interests lie in the curation of experimental music, with a special focus on Southeast Asian artists and sounds. The label supports a partnership with independent artists that allows them to focus on the creative aspects of music-making. Recent releases include albums by FEN, Pupa, The Observatory, and Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ujikaji also co-presents the acclaimed BlackKaji series of experimental sound events, with the last show being a one-night takeover of the Kampong Bugis site of the Asian Film Archive’s contemporary art show, State of Motion.

Image caption: Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, 29 June 2018, The Single Screen. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Panel: On Publishing

29 Jun 2019, Sat 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

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The conversation will revolve around the role of publishing art writing and cultural histories, with representatives from both established and relatively young imprints questioning the role institutions play in creating a discursive space for writing art histories.

SPEAKERS

Shauba Chang (Taiwan), Founder and Chief Editor, Waterfall

Victoria Hindley (United States), Acquisitions Editor in Design and Visual Culture, The MIT Press

Trasvin Jittidecharak (Thailand) Founder Silkworm Books and Mekong Press

Li Qi (China) Editor-in-Chief of LEAP, and Deputy Editor of The Art Newspaper China

Mathieu Renard (France) Founder and Artistic Director, Lendroit Éditions

Moderated by Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media

BIOGRAPHIES

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore) is the Founding Director of the NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, where she also served as Founding Director of the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (2005–13). For more than three decades, Bauer has worked as curator of exhibitions and presentations, connecting contemporary art, film, video, and sound through transdisciplinary formats including as co-curator of Documenta11 and the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. She also co-curated the US Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale featuring eminent artist Joan Jonas. She publishes regularly on artistic and curatorial practice. Bauer was an expedition leader of TBA21-Academy The Current (2015–18) exploring the Pacific Archipelago and littorals that are most impacted by climate change and human interventions in their environments.

Shauba Chang (Taiwan), Founder and Chief Editor, Waterfall, initially an online project-turned publishing house/design studio, along with a six-issue-only magazine project NOT TODAY. In 2016 Chang started dmp editions, a multitask project involving publishing, curating, art direction, making things, eating, and napping. She has been practising art through exhibitions, pop-up events, and publications.

Victoria Hindley (United States) joined the MIT Press after working in publishing and the arts for two decades in both the USA and Europe. She acquires books on art, visual culture, design, and architecture. Interested in the complex systems through which we produce knowledge, she focuses on global discourses that are politically-engaged, culturally informed, and which illuminate transformative lines of critical inquiry.

Trasvin Jittidecharak (Thailand), Founder, Silkworm Books and Mekong Press. Mekong Press Foundation was initiated in 2008 to establish a network of publishers and support publishing in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Jittidecharak actively supports copyright law in Thailand. She served as advisor to the board of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand from 2010 to 2015 and was on the Executive Committee of the International Publishers Association from 2012 to 2017. She is a member of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee, and, most recently, launched the ASEAN Illustration Award and co-founded the International Children’s Content Rights Fair (ICCRF) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Li Qi (China) is the Editor-in-Chief of LEAP, and Deputy Editor of The Art Newspaper China. He is also former Senior Curator at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai where he organised the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART Award for Emerging Asian Artists, curated Heman Chong: Ifs, Ands, or Buts, and co-curated Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Li Qi previously served institutions such as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing and the British Film Institute (BFI) in London.

Mathieu Renard (France) is an artist and publisher. He founded Lendroit Éditions in 2003, a space dedicated to artist publishing. At the same time publishing house, bookstore and gallery, Lendroit Éditions is today known as a referent place throughout the world.

Image caption: Publishing Artists’ Books – Case Study Presentations, Saturday, 30 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

The conversation will revolve around the role of publishing art writing and cultural histories, with representatives from both established and relatively young imprints questioning the role institutions play in creating a discursive space for writing art histories.

SPEAKERS

Shauba Chang (Taiwan), Founder and Chief Editor, Waterfall

Victoria Hindley (United States), Acquisitions Editor in Design and Visual Culture, The MIT Press

Trasvin Jittidecharak (Thailand) Founder Silkworm Books and Mekong Press

Li Qi (China) Editor-in-Chief of LEAP, and Deputy Editor of The Art Newspaper China

Mathieu Renard (France) Founder and Artistic Director, Lendroit Éditions

Moderated by Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media

BIOGRAPHIES

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore) is the Founding Director of the NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, where she also served as Founding Director of the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (2005–13). For more than three decades, Bauer has worked as curator of exhibitions and presentations, connecting contemporary art, film, video, and sound through transdisciplinary formats including as co-curator of Documenta11 and the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. She also co-curated the US Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale featuring eminent artist Joan Jonas. She publishes regularly on artistic and curatorial practice. Bauer was an expedition leader of TBA21-Academy The Current (2015–18) exploring the Pacific Archipelago and littorals that are most impacted by climate change and human interventions in their environments.

Shauba Chang (Taiwan), Founder and Chief Editor, Waterfall, initially an online project-turned publishing house/design studio, along with a six-issue-only magazine project NOT TODAY. In 2016 Chang started dmp editions, a multitask project involving publishing, curating, art direction, making things, eating, and napping. She has been practising art through exhibitions, pop-up events, and publications.

Victoria Hindley (United States) joined the MIT Press after working in publishing and the arts for two decades in both the USA and Europe. She acquires books on art, visual culture, design, and architecture. Interested in the complex systems through which we produce knowledge, she focuses on global discourses that are politically-engaged, culturally informed, and which illuminate transformative lines of critical inquiry.

Trasvin Jittidecharak (Thailand), Founder, Silkworm Books and Mekong Press. Mekong Press Foundation was initiated in 2008 to establish a network of publishers and support publishing in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Jittidecharak actively supports copyright law in Thailand. She served as advisor to the board of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand from 2010 to 2015 and was on the Executive Committee of the International Publishers Association from 2012 to 2017. She is a member of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee, and, most recently, launched the ASEAN Illustration Award and co-founded the International Children’s Content Rights Fair (ICCRF) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Li Qi (China) is the Editor-in-Chief of LEAP, and Deputy Editor of The Art Newspaper China. He is also former Senior Curator at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai where he organised the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART Award for Emerging Asian Artists, curated Heman Chong: Ifs, Ands, or Buts, and co-curated Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Li Qi previously served institutions such as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing and the British Film Institute (BFI) in London.

Mathieu Renard (France) is an artist and publisher. He founded Lendroit Éditions in 2003, a space dedicated to artist publishing. At the same time publishing house, bookstore and gallery, Lendroit Éditions is today known as a referent place throughout the world.

Image caption: Publishing Artists’ Books – Case Study Presentations, Saturday, 30 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Panel: On Publishing Series

29 Jun 2019, Sat 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM

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Questions around current developments and discourses (or their lack) will be the focus of this session. What affects and steers the critical reader/magazine landscape in the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond?

SPEAKERS

Dr. Ana Bilbao (Mexico/United Kingdom), Editor, Afterall

Verónica Sanchis Bencomo (Venezuela/ Hong Kong), Editor, Writer, and Founder of Foto Feminas

Helen Hughes (Australia), Co-founder and Co-editor,Discipline

Peera Songkünnatham (Thailand), Aan Journal

Moderated by Mark Rappolt (United Kingdom), Editor-in-Chief, Art Review& Art Review Asia

BIOGRAPHIES

Ana Bilbao (Mexico/United Kingdom) is a Research Fellow at the Afterall Research Centre in Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Editor of AfterallJournal. Her research focuses on contemporary art and the history of exhibition-making. She specialises in the emergence and proliferation of SVAOs (Small Visual Arts Organisations) from the 1990s to the present in different parts of the world. Bilbao completed a PhD in Art History and Theory with a specialisation in Curatorial Theory and Practice from the University of Essex in 2017, where she often teaches postgraduate and undergraduate courses. She has worked in various areas of the cultural sector, including arts education and curating.

Helen Hughes (Australia) is a lecturer in Art History, Theory and Curatorial Practice at MADA, Monash University. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Disciplinecontemporary art journal. Her recent publications include the edited volumes Double Displacement: Rex Butler on Queensland Art(with Francis Plagne, 2018); Tom Nicholson: Lines towards Another(with Amelia Barikin. 2018); and Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 1970s(with Janine Burke, 2016). Her recent curated exhibitions include Mutlu Cerkez: 1988–2065(with Charlotte Day and Hannah Mathews) at Monash University Museum of Art, 2018 and TarraWarra Biennial 2016: Endless Circulation(with Victoria Lynn). Hughes engages in art criticism regularly, including for Memo Reviewand frieze. She is the Melbourne critic for Artforum.

Mark Rappolt (United Kingdom) is the Editor-in-Chief of ArtReview. He founded its sister publication, ArtReview Asia, in 2013. Previously he was editor of AA Files, the journal of the Architectural Association in London, where he also taught. His writing has appeared in a number of publications, ranging from The Times and Die Zeitto i-Dand Citizen K, and includes exhibition catalogues on artists such as David Cronenberg, Bharti Kher, Alex Katz, Yuko Mohri and Agustín Cárdenas. Books include monographs on architects Greg Lynn and Frank Gehry. Recent exhibitions include Like a Moth to a Flame(2017, co-curated with Tom Eccles and Liam Gillick), a two-part exhibition at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the OGR, Turin; and Now or Never(2018), which retraced his grandfather’s journey from Singapore to Vienna, at Galerie Crone, Vienna.

Verónica Sanchis Bencomo (Venezuela/ Hong Kong) is a photographer, photo editor, and contributing writer for Photographic Museum of Humanity (U.K); Photo World magazine (China) and Witness – World Press Photoonline publication (The Netherlands). In 2014, she founded Foto Féminas, an online resource for promoting Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. In addition, she organised and produced talks, projections and exhibitions in Argentina, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Peru and the US. Verónica is currently based in Hong Kong where she continues to work on her projects and exhibits Foto Féminas‘ library.

Peera Songkünnatham (Thailand) is a writer, translator, and editor from Sisaket, Northeast Thailand. A newcomer at Read Publishing, Peera is the editor of its nascent online content. Peera’s work includes a translation into the Isan/Lao language of Juan Rulfo’s collection of short stories El Llano en llamas. Peera has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Questions around current developments and discourses (or their lack) will be the focus of this session. What affects and steers the critical reader/magazine landscape in the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond?

SPEAKERS

Dr. Ana Bilbao (Mexico/United Kingdom), Editor, Afterall

Verónica Sanchis Bencomo (Venezuela/ Hong Kong), Editor, Writer, and Founder of Foto Feminas

Helen Hughes (Australia), Co-founder and Co-editor,Discipline

Peera Songkünnatham (Thailand), Aan Journal

Moderated by Mark Rappolt (United Kingdom), Editor-in-Chief, Art Review& Art Review Asia

BIOGRAPHIES

Ana Bilbao (Mexico/United Kingdom) is a Research Fellow at the Afterall Research Centre in Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Editor of AfterallJournal. Her research focuses on contemporary art and the history of exhibition-making. She specialises in the emergence and proliferation of SVAOs (Small Visual Arts Organisations) from the 1990s to the present in different parts of the world. Bilbao completed a PhD in Art History and Theory with a specialisation in Curatorial Theory and Practice from the University of Essex in 2017, where she often teaches postgraduate and undergraduate courses. She has worked in various areas of the cultural sector, including arts education and curating.

Helen Hughes (Australia) is a lecturer in Art History, Theory and Curatorial Practice at MADA, Monash University. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Disciplinecontemporary art journal. Her recent publications include the edited volumes Double Displacement: Rex Butler on Queensland Art(with Francis Plagne, 2018); Tom Nicholson: Lines towards Another(with Amelia Barikin. 2018); and Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 1970s(with Janine Burke, 2016). Her recent curated exhibitions include Mutlu Cerkez: 1988–2065(with Charlotte Day and Hannah Mathews) at Monash University Museum of Art, 2018 and TarraWarra Biennial 2016: Endless Circulation(with Victoria Lynn). Hughes engages in art criticism regularly, including for Memo Reviewand frieze. She is the Melbourne critic for Artforum.

Mark Rappolt (United Kingdom) is the Editor-in-Chief of ArtReview. He founded its sister publication, ArtReview Asia, in 2013. Previously he was editor of AA Files, the journal of the Architectural Association in London, where he also taught. His writing has appeared in a number of publications, ranging from The Times and Die Zeitto i-Dand Citizen K, and includes exhibition catalogues on artists such as David Cronenberg, Bharti Kher, Alex Katz, Yuko Mohri and Agustín Cárdenas. Books include monographs on architects Greg Lynn and Frank Gehry. Recent exhibitions include Like a Moth to a Flame(2017, co-curated with Tom Eccles and Liam Gillick), a two-part exhibition at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the OGR, Turin; and Now or Never(2018), which retraced his grandfather’s journey from Singapore to Vienna, at Galerie Crone, Vienna.

Verónica Sanchis Bencomo (Venezuela/ Hong Kong) is a photographer, photo editor, and contributing writer for Photographic Museum of Humanity (U.K); Photo World magazine (China) and Witness – World Press Photoonline publication (The Netherlands). In 2014, she founded Foto Féminas, an online resource for promoting Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. In addition, she organised and produced talks, projections and exhibitions in Argentina, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Peru and the US. Verónica is currently based in Hong Kong where she continues to work on her projects and exhibits Foto Féminas‘ library.

Peera Songkünnatham (Thailand) is a writer, translator, and editor from Sisaket, Northeast Thailand. A newcomer at Read Publishing, Peera is the editor of its nascent online content. Peera’s work includes a translation into the Isan/Lao language of Juan Rulfo’s collection of short stories El Llano en llamas. Peera has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Improvised Ambient Set by Kin Leonn (Singapore/United Kingdom)

29 Jun 2019, Sat 07:30 PM - 08:00 PM

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Organised by KITCHEN. LABEL

Utilising a palette of reverb-drenched guitar, synthesiser harmonies, and a system of MIDI-driven software triggers, Kin Leonn will construct a temporary world of immersive atmospheres using instinct and emotional response to sonic occurrence.

BIOGRAPHY

Kin Leonn (Singapore/United Kingdom) is a composer and producer, affectionately known by peers as the “ambient boy from Singapore.” Heralding a new era of accomplished young musicians in Singapore, Leonnʼs transportive music projects as founding member of electronic act “midst,” and his genre-melding solo DJ sets, have instituted him as an in-demand music presence in the cityʼs thriving electronic underground. Layering a hybrid of textural synthesis and organic compositions, Leonn’s compositions are often born from the piano, but continue to evolve into a non-linear interplay of synthesisers, guitar drones, and techno excursions.

Image Caption: Kin Leonn, Improvised Ambient Set, 2018. Courtesy Singapore Art Book Fair.

Organised by KITCHEN. LABEL

Utilising a palette of reverb-drenched guitar, synthesiser harmonies, and a system of MIDI-driven software triggers, Kin Leonn will construct a temporary world of immersive atmospheres using instinct and emotional response to sonic occurrence.

BIOGRAPHY

Kin Leonn (Singapore/United Kingdom) is a composer and producer, affectionately known by peers as the “ambient boy from Singapore.” Heralding a new era of accomplished young musicians in Singapore, Leonnʼs transportive music projects as founding member of electronic act “midst,” and his genre-melding solo DJ sets, have instituted him as an in-demand music presence in the cityʼs thriving electronic underground. Layering a hybrid of textural synthesis and organic compositions, Leonn’s compositions are often born from the piano, but continue to evolve into a non-linear interplay of synthesisers, guitar drones, and techno excursions.

Image Caption: Kin Leonn, Improvised Ambient Set, 2018. Courtesy Singapore Art Book Fair.

Residencies OPEN (in conjunction with SGABF2019)

29 Jun 2019, Sat - 30 Jun 2019, Sun 02:00 PM - 07:00 PM

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Residencies OPEN offers a rare insight into the often-introverted sphere of the artist studios. Through showcasing discussions, performances, installations, and works-in-progress, Residencies OPEN profiles the diversity of contemporary art practice from around the globe and the divergent ways artists conceive an artwork with the studio as a constant space for experimentation and research.

Come meet our current Artists-in-Residence in their studios! Featuring Ang Song Nian(Singapore), Tanatchai Bandasak (Thailand), Wei Leng Tay (Singapore), Iris Touliatou (Greece), Munem Wasif (Bangladesh), and Zarina Muhammad (Singapore).

Image caption: Residencies OPEN, Saturday, 26 January 2019, Residencies Studio of John Low. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Residencies OPEN offers a rare insight into the often-introverted sphere of the artist studios. Through showcasing discussions, performances, installations, and works-in-progress, Residencies OPEN profiles the diversity of contemporary art practice from around the globe and the divergent ways artists conceive an artwork with the studio as a constant space for experimentation and research.

Come meet our current Artists-in-Residence in their studios! Featuring Ang Song Nian(Singapore), Tanatchai Bandasak (Thailand), Wei Leng Tay (Singapore), Iris Touliatou (Greece), Munem Wasif (Bangladesh), and Zarina Muhammad (Singapore).

Image caption: Residencies OPEN, Saturday, 26 January 2019, Residencies Studio of John Low. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Panel: On Critical Writing

29 Jun 2019, Sat 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM

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This discussion will focus on the contemporary landscape of critical writing. How do writers, scholars, and artists understand, define, and practise critical writing? It will examine why such writing is needed and what influence and role it plays not only within the art scene, but also within a broader discourse.

SPEAKERS

H. G. Masters (United States/Hong Kong), Deputy Editor and Deputy Publisher, Art Asia Pacific

Carlos Quijon, Jr (Philippines), writer, curator

Ema Tavola (Fiji/New Zealand), artist-curator

Moderated by Qinyi Lim (Singapore), Curator, National Gallery Singapore

BIOGRAPHIES

Qinyi Lim (Singapore) is Curator at the National Gallery Singapore. She completed the De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam in 2012. Lim holds a Masters in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore and Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Art History from the University of Queensland, Australia. She has previously held curatorial positions at Para Site, Hong Kong; National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum, and Singapore Art Museum.

H. G. Masters (United States/Hong Kong) is a writer, and Deputy Editor and Deputy Publisher at ArtAsiaPacificmagazine in Hong Kong. Masters has been an editor at ArtAsiaPacificsince 2007 and is the editor of the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, an annual survey of the year in art in 53 countries across Asia and the Middle East. Additionally, he has written catalogue essays about artists including Ha Chong-Hyun, Haegue Yang, Shinro Ohtake, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Hajra Waheed, Lee Mingwei, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Nuri Kuzucan, Şener Özmen, Tsherin Sherpa, and others. In 2010, he was awarded a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for short-form writing. His essays and reviews have been published in magazines and journals including Frieze, Even, Art Papers, RES Artworld, and Portal 9.

Carlos Quijon, Jr (Philippines) is a writer and curator based in Manila. In 2017, he was a curatorial research resident at MMCA in Seoul, and a fellow of the TransCuratorial Academy in Berlin and Mumbai. His works have been published in Art Monthly (UK), Trans Asia Photography Review, Asia Art Archive’s Ideas, Art+ Magazine, High Chair, and Kritika Kultura. He was shortlisted for the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism in 2016. In 2019, he curated Courses of Action at the Goethe-Institut in Hong Kong, with support from Para Site (Hong Kong) and the Institut. He is a fellow of the research platform Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative.

Ema Tavola (Fiji/New Zealand) is an independent artist-curator based in South Auckland, New Zealand. Having established her practice whilst managing Fresh Gallery Ōtara, a local government-funded community art gallery, Tavola’s curatorial concerns are grounded in the opportunities of contemporary art to engage grassroots audiences, shift representational politics, and archive the Pacific diaspora experience. Tavola is committed to curating as a mechanism for social inclusion, centralising Pacific ways of seeing, and exhibition-making as a mode of decolonisation.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

This discussion will focus on the contemporary landscape of critical writing. How do writers, scholars, and artists understand, define, and practise critical writing? It will examine why such writing is needed and what influence and role it plays not only within the art scene, but also within a broader discourse.

SPEAKERS

H. G. Masters (United States/Hong Kong), Deputy Editor and Deputy Publisher, Art Asia Pacific

Carlos Quijon, Jr (Philippines), writer, curator

Ema Tavola (Fiji/New Zealand), artist-curator

Moderated by Qinyi Lim (Singapore), Curator, National Gallery Singapore

BIOGRAPHIES

Qinyi Lim (Singapore) is Curator at the National Gallery Singapore. She completed the De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam in 2012. Lim holds a Masters in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore and Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Art History from the University of Queensland, Australia. She has previously held curatorial positions at Para Site, Hong Kong; National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum, and Singapore Art Museum.

H. G. Masters (United States/Hong Kong) is a writer, and Deputy Editor and Deputy Publisher at ArtAsiaPacificmagazine in Hong Kong. Masters has been an editor at ArtAsiaPacificsince 2007 and is the editor of the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, an annual survey of the year in art in 53 countries across Asia and the Middle East. Additionally, he has written catalogue essays about artists including Ha Chong-Hyun, Haegue Yang, Shinro Ohtake, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Hajra Waheed, Lee Mingwei, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Nuri Kuzucan, Şener Özmen, Tsherin Sherpa, and others. In 2010, he was awarded a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for short-form writing. His essays and reviews have been published in magazines and journals including Frieze, Even, Art Papers, RES Artworld, and Portal 9.

Carlos Quijon, Jr (Philippines) is a writer and curator based in Manila. In 2017, he was a curatorial research resident at MMCA in Seoul, and a fellow of the TransCuratorial Academy in Berlin and Mumbai. His works have been published in Art Monthly (UK), Trans Asia Photography Review, Asia Art Archive’s Ideas, Art+ Magazine, High Chair, and Kritika Kultura. He was shortlisted for the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism in 2016. In 2019, he curated Courses of Action at the Goethe-Institut in Hong Kong, with support from Para Site (Hong Kong) and the Institut. He is a fellow of the research platform Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative.

Ema Tavola (Fiji/New Zealand) is an independent artist-curator based in South Auckland, New Zealand. Having established her practice whilst managing Fresh Gallery Ōtara, a local government-funded community art gallery, Tavola’s curatorial concerns are grounded in the opportunities of contemporary art to engage grassroots audiences, shift representational politics, and archive the Pacific diaspora experience. Tavola is committed to curating as a mechanism for social inclusion, centralising Pacific ways of seeing, and exhibition-making as a mode of decolonisation.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, during Singapore Art Book Fair 2018, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Facebook Artist in Residence Program: Open Form by The Facebook Art Department

30 Jun 2019, Sun 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

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This panel discussion invites members of the FB Art Department to speak on the collaborative decisions that put together Open Form, a publication which celebrates the Facebook Artist in Residence (AIR) program’s recent five-year anniversary. Open Form traces the development of the AIR program from its roots in the counterculture of San Francisco Bay Area, to its integration within the company’s hacker culture. Featuring over 200 art commissions worldwide, the book serves to replicate immersive artistic experiences through the medium of the analogue book. Local AIR artists will also be present to share their views on creating analogue art in a digital world, and how the AIR experience has influenced their practice.

PANELISTS

Genevieve Chua (Singapore) artist

Jessica Shaefer (United States), Art Programs & Partnerships Lead, Facebook

Speak Cryptic (Singapore), artist

Pey Chuan Tan (Singapore), Art Curator & Producer, Facebook

Moderated by Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore), Writer, Curator, and Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts

BIOGRAPHIES

Genevieve Chua (Singapore) is a painter who works primarily through abstraction. Chua employs a method of working that unfurls and reveals the painter’s process through diagram, palimpsest, syntax, and the glitch. While notions of nature and wilderness persist across several works, the form taken by her exhibitions—image, text, or object—is disrupted through painting. She created a site-specific installation for the Facebook Artist in Residence program at the Singapore office in 2018.

Jessica Shaefer (United States) is an independent curator and the head of public art programs and partnerships at Facebook. She is also the co-founder and former director of Sites Unseen,a public art non-profit organization that produces projects in alleyways in downtown San Francisco, as well as a co-founder of Mixed Use, a curatorial collective that presents nomadic exhibitions and artist-chef collaborations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Previously, she was the director of a contemporary art gallery on New York City’s Lower East Side and was Communications Director at the public art non-profit organisation Creative Time in New York.

Speak Cryptic (Singapore), the professional alias of Farizwan Fajari, is an artist currently living and working in Singapore. Influenced by the visual language prevalent within punk and underground music, as well as his Singaporean Malay (of Baweanese descent) roots, he combines personal iconographies with a cast of characters developed over the years to build visual narratives that are inspired by his observations on current affairs and his immediate environment. Speak Cryptic was a Facebook Artist in Residence in 2018, creating site-specific murals for the Singapore office.

Pey Chuan Tan (Singapore) is a curator and producer for the Facebook Artist in Residence (AIR) program, working within the Asia-Pacific region to create site-specific installations at the company’s offices. She collaborates with a global network of artists, designers, and creatives, empowering them to build community into action by bringing diverse audiences together for creative and empathic connections. Pey Chuan is interested in the intersections between art and design, as well as seeking new avenues for integration and support of the arts in both public and private sectors.

Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore) is a curator and writer. Since 2014, Pocock has been Assistant Curator at LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, where she has curated Dissolving Margins (2018–19), Native Revisions (2017) and Countershadows (tactics in evasion) (2014), a series of group exhibitions exploring paradoxical aesthetics. In Singapore, she has curated solo projects by Genevieve Chua (2019), Jason Lim (2018), Boedi Widjaja (2016–17), Jack Tan (2015) and Michael Lee (2014). Pocock has published essays, articles, and reviews in international publications, and is the editor of Sulaiman (2014), the first monograph on the work of Malaysian artist Shooshie Sulaiman.

Image caption: (L-R) Pey Chuan Tan, Melanie Pocock, Speak Cryptic, Jessica Shaefer, and Genevieve Chua. Courtesy the panelists.

This panel discussion invites members of the FB Art Department to speak on the collaborative decisions that put together Open Form, a publication which celebrates the Facebook Artist in Residence (AIR) program’s recent five-year anniversary. Open Form traces the development of the AIR program from its roots in the counterculture of San Francisco Bay Area, to its integration within the company’s hacker culture. Featuring over 200 art commissions worldwide, the book serves to replicate immersive artistic experiences through the medium of the analogue book. Local AIR artists will also be present to share their views on creating analogue art in a digital world, and how the AIR experience has influenced their practice.

PANELISTS

Genevieve Chua (Singapore) artist

Jessica Shaefer (United States), Art Programs & Partnerships Lead, Facebook

Speak Cryptic (Singapore), artist

Pey Chuan Tan (Singapore), Art Curator & Producer, Facebook

Moderated by Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore), Writer, Curator, and Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts

BIOGRAPHIES

Genevieve Chua (Singapore) is a painter who works primarily through abstraction. Chua employs a method of working that unfurls and reveals the painter’s process through diagram, palimpsest, syntax, and the glitch. While notions of nature and wilderness persist across several works, the form taken by her exhibitions—image, text, or object—is disrupted through painting. She created a site-specific installation for the Facebook Artist in Residence program at the Singapore office in 2018.

Jessica Shaefer (United States) is an independent curator and the head of public art programs and partnerships at Facebook. She is also the co-founder and former director of Sites Unseen,a public art non-profit organization that produces projects in alleyways in downtown San Francisco, as well as a co-founder of Mixed Use, a curatorial collective that presents nomadic exhibitions and artist-chef collaborations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Previously, she was the director of a contemporary art gallery on New York City’s Lower East Side and was Communications Director at the public art non-profit organisation Creative Time in New York.

Speak Cryptic (Singapore), the professional alias of Farizwan Fajari, is an artist currently living and working in Singapore. Influenced by the visual language prevalent within punk and underground music, as well as his Singaporean Malay (of Baweanese descent) roots, he combines personal iconographies with a cast of characters developed over the years to build visual narratives that are inspired by his observations on current affairs and his immediate environment. Speak Cryptic was a Facebook Artist in Residence in 2018, creating site-specific murals for the Singapore office.

Pey Chuan Tan (Singapore) is a curator and producer for the Facebook Artist in Residence (AIR) program, working within the Asia-Pacific region to create site-specific installations at the company’s offices. She collaborates with a global network of artists, designers, and creatives, empowering them to build community into action by bringing diverse audiences together for creative and empathic connections. Pey Chuan is interested in the intersections between art and design, as well as seeking new avenues for integration and support of the arts in both public and private sectors.

Melanie Pocock (United Kingdom/Singapore) is a curator and writer. Since 2014, Pocock has been Assistant Curator at LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, where she has curated Dissolving Margins (2018–19), Native Revisions (2017) and Countershadows (tactics in evasion) (2014), a series of group exhibitions exploring paradoxical aesthetics. In Singapore, she has curated solo projects by Genevieve Chua (2019), Jason Lim (2018), Boedi Widjaja (2016–17), Jack Tan (2015) and Michael Lee (2014). Pocock has published essays, articles, and reviews in international publications, and is the editor of Sulaiman (2014), the first monograph on the work of Malaysian artist Shooshie Sulaiman.

Image caption: (L-R) Pey Chuan Tan, Melanie Pocock, Speak Cryptic, Jessica Shaefer, and Genevieve Chua. Courtesy the panelists.

Panel: The City as…The City for…

30 Jun 2019, Sun 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

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The critical spatial discussions of this panel advances from an understanding of the built environments from regional perspectives and practices, that are situated within global discourse, focusing on regional bottom-up city planning that is informed by postcolonial heritages, tropical modernities, and global architectural approaches. Reflecting also the cultural formats of how we can engage in such questions, the discussion will offer a rich source of artistic/activist interventions and their imaginary of “art on a civic scale.”

SPEAKERS

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media.

Calvin Chua (Singapore), Adjunct Assistant Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore.

Woon Tien Wei (Singapore), artist/ curator.

Sophie Goltz (Germany/Singapore), Deputy Director, Research and Academic Programmes at NTU CCA Singapore, and Assistant Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media

Laura Miotto (Italy/Singapore), Associate Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media, and Design Director of GSM Project in Singapore.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore) is the Founding Director of the NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, where she also served as Founding Director of the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (2005–13). For more than three decades, Bauer has worked as curator of exhibitions and presentations, connecting contemporary art, film, video, and sound through transdisciplinary formats including as co-curator of Documenta11 and the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. She also co-curated the US Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale featuring eminent artist Joan Jonas. She publishes regularly on artistic and curatorial practice. Bauer was an expedition leader of TBA21-Academy The Current (2015–18) exploring the Pacific Archipelago and littorals that are most impacted by climate change and human interventions in their environments.

Calvin Chua is an architect, urbanist and educator. He leads Spatial Anatomy, a firm that designs spaces, objects and strategies for cities. In parallel, he serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, leading seminars and design studios on adaptation and urban regeneration. In parallel, he is recognised as one of the leading voices on Korean peninsula issues. For the past eight years, Chua has piloted capacity-building programmes and urban advisory work in the DPRK. His works and opinions have been featured in various news media, including Monocle, Reuters and CNN. Prior to founding his practice, Chua worked for various architecture and urban planning firms in Europe and Asia. A registered architect in the UK, he graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Woon Tien Wei is an artist/curator based in Singapore. His research interests include cultural policies, collectivity in art, social movements, land contestations and urban legends. Woon works with Post-Museum to curate, research and collaborates with a network of social actors to create events and projects. Post-Museum’s work explores how inhabitants can practice the city in “meaningful” ways to seek the “right to the city”—to claim some shaping power over the processes of urbanisation.

Sophie Goltz (Germany/Singapore) is Deputy Director, Research and Academic Programmes at NTU CCA Singapore, and Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University. Goltz was the Artistic Director of Stadtkuratorin Hamburg (City curator) from 2013 to 2016, and has worked as Senior Curator and Head of Communication and Public Programmes at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein between 2008 and 2013, becoming Associate Curator in 2014. Goltz worked as curator and art editor for various international exhibitions, including Documenta 12 (2007), Project Migration(2004–06), Documenta 11 (2002), 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2003–04). She has taught at the Technical University Berlin, the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Academy of Arts Berlin-Weißensee, amongst others, and writes regularly for publications and art magazines.

Laura Miotto (Italy/Singapore) is Associate Professor at NTU ADM and Design Director of GSM Project in Singapore. With 15 years of experience in the design field, both as a creative director and an architectural designer, Miotto has worked on permanent and temporary exhibitions, focusing on heritage interpretation and sensorial design strategies in the context of museums, thematic galleries, and public spaces. Among her projects are the new Sarawak Museum in Malaysia and the Living Galleries at the National Museum of Singapore that explore local cultures in a phase of transformation. In 2010 she received the President Design Award for the exhibition Quest for Immortality: The World of Ancient Egypt.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, The Single Screen. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

The critical spatial discussions of this panel advances from an understanding of the built environments from regional perspectives and practices, that are situated within global discourse, focusing on regional bottom-up city planning that is informed by postcolonial heritages, tropical modernities, and global architectural approaches. Reflecting also the cultural formats of how we can engage in such questions, the discussion will offer a rich source of artistic/activist interventions and their imaginary of “art on a civic scale.”

SPEAKERS

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media.

Calvin Chua (Singapore), Adjunct Assistant Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore.

Woon Tien Wei (Singapore), artist/ curator.

Sophie Goltz (Germany/Singapore), Deputy Director, Research and Academic Programmes at NTU CCA Singapore, and Assistant Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media

Laura Miotto (Italy/Singapore), Associate Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media, and Design Director of GSM Project in Singapore.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore) is the Founding Director of the NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, where she also served as Founding Director of the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (2005–13). For more than three decades, Bauer has worked as curator of exhibitions and presentations, connecting contemporary art, film, video, and sound through transdisciplinary formats including as co-curator of Documenta11 and the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. She also co-curated the US Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale featuring eminent artist Joan Jonas. She publishes regularly on artistic and curatorial practice. Bauer was an expedition leader of TBA21-Academy The Current (2015–18) exploring the Pacific Archipelago and littorals that are most impacted by climate change and human interventions in their environments.

Calvin Chua is an architect, urbanist and educator. He leads Spatial Anatomy, a firm that designs spaces, objects and strategies for cities. In parallel, he serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, leading seminars and design studios on adaptation and urban regeneration. In parallel, he is recognised as one of the leading voices on Korean peninsula issues. For the past eight years, Chua has piloted capacity-building programmes and urban advisory work in the DPRK. His works and opinions have been featured in various news media, including Monocle, Reuters and CNN. Prior to founding his practice, Chua worked for various architecture and urban planning firms in Europe and Asia. A registered architect in the UK, he graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Woon Tien Wei is an artist/curator based in Singapore. His research interests include cultural policies, collectivity in art, social movements, land contestations and urban legends. Woon works with Post-Museum to curate, research and collaborates with a network of social actors to create events and projects. Post-Museum’s work explores how inhabitants can practice the city in “meaningful” ways to seek the “right to the city”—to claim some shaping power over the processes of urbanisation.

Sophie Goltz (Germany/Singapore) is Deputy Director, Research and Academic Programmes at NTU CCA Singapore, and Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University. Goltz was the Artistic Director of Stadtkuratorin Hamburg (City curator) from 2013 to 2016, and has worked as Senior Curator and Head of Communication and Public Programmes at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein between 2008 and 2013, becoming Associate Curator in 2014. Goltz worked as curator and art editor for various international exhibitions, including Documenta 12 (2007), Project Migration(2004–06), Documenta 11 (2002), 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2003–04). She has taught at the Technical University Berlin, the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Academy of Arts Berlin-Weißensee, amongst others, and writes regularly for publications and art magazines.

Laura Miotto (Italy/Singapore) is Associate Professor at NTU ADM and Design Director of GSM Project in Singapore. With 15 years of experience in the design field, both as a creative director and an architectural designer, Miotto has worked on permanent and temporary exhibitions, focusing on heritage interpretation and sensorial design strategies in the context of museums, thematic galleries, and public spaces. Among her projects are the new Sarawak Museum in Malaysia and the Living Galleries at the National Museum of Singapore that explore local cultures in a phase of transformation. In 2010 she received the President Design Award for the exhibition Quest for Immortality: The World of Ancient Egypt.

Image caption: Panel: Publishing Complexes, Friday, 29 June 2018, The Single Screen. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore.

Cancelled | Workshop: Performing the Voice by Quinn Latimer (United States/ Switzerland), Writer-in-Residence

30 Jun 2019, Sun 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM

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NOTICE: This public programme of Singapore Art Book Fair 2019 is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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Workshop fee: S$35

The centrality of performance in today’s contemporary art landscape suggests the explicit importance of the body and embodied practices in the visual art field. As it has become generally accepted that all culture is performance, as are all relations in the social sphere—inflected by gender, class, racial difference, citizenship, and so on—how do we distinguish, define, and practise the performative work that artists and writers do? How do we understand the production of meaning through the singular and social body—a body that includes an audience?

This workshop will focus on the performance of language—the voice—an everyday enactment that is often cast, inaccurately, as “natural,” inevitable, and unrehearsed. It will examine how the performance of language encourages the development of a radical subjectivity, as well as how a new kind of oral and literary culture—one that circulates through digital technologies via messaging and online practices—has transformed how we conceive of and perform language on a daily basis.

BIOGRAPHY

Quinn Latimer (United States/Switzerland) is a poet, critic, and editor whose work often explores feminist economies of writing, reading, and image production. Her writings and readings have been featured widely, including at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Radio Athènes, Athens; the Venice Architecture Biennale; and Sharjah Biennial 13. She has been guest faculty at ZHdK, Zurich; Institut Kunst, Basel; HEAD, Geneva, and the Banff Centre, in Canada. Latimer was editor-in-chief of publications for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.

She is the author of Like a Woman: Essays, Readings, Poems (2017); Sarah Lucas: Describe this Distance (2013); Film as a Form of Writing: Quinn Latimer Talks to Akram Zaatari (2013); and Rumored Animals (2012).

A public programme of Singapore Art Book Fair 2019.

Image caption: Quinn Latimer at David Robert Arts Foundation, London. Courtesy Josh Redman

NOTICE: This public programme of Singapore Art Book Fair 2019 is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

++

Workshop fee: S$35

The centrality of performance in today’s contemporary art landscape suggests the explicit importance of the body and embodied practices in the visual art field. As it has become generally accepted that all culture is performance, as are all relations in the social sphere—inflected by gender, class, racial difference, citizenship, and so on—how do we distinguish, define, and practise the performative work that artists and writers do? How do we understand the production of meaning through the singular and social body—a body that includes an audience?

This workshop will focus on the performance of language—the voice—an everyday enactment that is often cast, inaccurately, as “natural,” inevitable, and unrehearsed. It will examine how the performance of language encourages the development of a radical subjectivity, as well as how a new kind of oral and literary culture—one that circulates through digital technologies via messaging and online practices—has transformed how we conceive of and perform language on a daily basis.

BIOGRAPHY

Quinn Latimer (United States/Switzerland) is a poet, critic, and editor whose work often explores feminist economies of writing, reading, and image production. Her writings and readings have been featured widely, including at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Radio Athènes, Athens; the Venice Architecture Biennale; and Sharjah Biennial 13. She has been guest faculty at ZHdK, Zurich; Institut Kunst, Basel; HEAD, Geneva, and the Banff Centre, in Canada. Latimer was editor-in-chief of publications for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.

She is the author of Like a Woman: Essays, Readings, Poems (2017); Sarah Lucas: Describe this Distance (2013); Film as a Form of Writing: Quinn Latimer Talks to Akram Zaatari (2013); and Rumored Animals (2012).

A public programme of Singapore Art Book Fair 2019.

Image caption: Quinn Latimer at David Robert Arts Foundation, London. Courtesy Josh Redman

In Conversation: Seenthesis: Visual Literacy through Singapore Photography

30 Jun 2019, Sun 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

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In Conversation: Seenthesis: Visual Literacy through Singapore Photography is an attempt to put together a resource book for school educators on creating engaging classroom art activities. Across 168 pages, with over 100 works by 28 photo artists, the book provides a basic fundamental overview of the medium and the social history of photography in Singapore. The launch presentation will share the concept and process in developing content to complement the school arts curriculum, and how Seenthesis ultimately hopes to enable visual literacy among youths through photography from Singapore.

SPEAKERS

Ang Song Nian(SG) artist, Lecturer NTU School of Art, Design and Media

Guo Yixiu (SG) artist, educator

Moderated by Gwen Lee(SG) co-founder and Director DECK

BIOGRAPHIES

Ang Song Nian (Singapore) works with materials and traces of human behaviours made visible within landscapes through photographic documentations and installation. Intrigued by the narration of thoughts and ideologies through visuals, he has always favoured a microscopic approach to concepts, a style which he employs to open up details in his practice. In 2012, he was awarded the International Graduate Scholarship for his graduate studies at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. He is currently a lecturer of photography at NTU School of Art, Design and Media.

Guo Yixiu (Singapore) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. Born and based in Singapore, Guo is interested in how “play” occurs in both her fine-art and educational projects. In her fine-art practice, she often uses objects in approaches that fuse photography and painting together, to create works that reflect on her sentiments of Singapore. Within her educational projects, Guo is interested in understanding how learning in art may be expanded through play pedagogies. Guo has exhibited in both local and international exhibitions, and has spent six years as a full-time educator with the Ministry of Education. She will be pursuing further studies in art education in the coming year.

Gwen Lee (Singapore) is the co-founder and Director of DECK, an independent container art space built in 2014, which received the 2015 President’s Design Award for its innovative design and impact on the urban community. In 2013, the Singapore International Photography Festival received a National Arts Council seed grant to further develop photography education in Singapore. Lee has curated and organised over 50 photography exhibitions, in Singapore as well as overseas, including Flux Reality: Contemporary Photography from China(2014) at ArtScience Museum, Singapore. She is now fundraising for a permanent building for photography in Singapore.

Image caption: (L-R) Gwen Lee, Ang Song Nian, and Guo Yixiun. Courtesy the panelists.

In Conversation: Seenthesis: Visual Literacy through Singapore Photography is an attempt to put together a resource book for school educators on creating engaging classroom art activities. Across 168 pages, with over 100 works by 28 photo artists, the book provides a basic fundamental overview of the medium and the social history of photography in Singapore. The launch presentation will share the concept and process in developing content to complement the school arts curriculum, and how Seenthesis ultimately hopes to enable visual literacy among youths through photography from Singapore.

SPEAKERS

Ang Song Nian(SG) artist, Lecturer NTU School of Art, Design and Media

Guo Yixiu (SG) artist, educator

Moderated by Gwen Lee(SG) co-founder and Director DECK

BIOGRAPHIES

Ang Song Nian (Singapore) works with materials and traces of human behaviours made visible within landscapes through photographic documentations and installation. Intrigued by the narration of thoughts and ideologies through visuals, he has always favoured a microscopic approach to concepts, a style which he employs to open up details in his practice. In 2012, he was awarded the International Graduate Scholarship for his graduate studies at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. He is currently a lecturer of photography at NTU School of Art, Design and Media.

Guo Yixiu (Singapore) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. Born and based in Singapore, Guo is interested in how “play” occurs in both her fine-art and educational projects. In her fine-art practice, she often uses objects in approaches that fuse photography and painting together, to create works that reflect on her sentiments of Singapore. Within her educational projects, Guo is interested in understanding how learning in art may be expanded through play pedagogies. Guo has exhibited in both local and international exhibitions, and has spent six years as a full-time educator with the Ministry of Education. She will be pursuing further studies in art education in the coming year.

Gwen Lee (Singapore) is the co-founder and Director of DECK, an independent container art space built in 2014, which received the 2015 President’s Design Award for its innovative design and impact on the urban community. In 2013, the Singapore International Photography Festival received a National Arts Council seed grant to further develop photography education in Singapore. Lee has curated and organised over 50 photography exhibitions, in Singapore as well as overseas, including Flux Reality: Contemporary Photography from China(2014) at ArtScience Museum, Singapore. She is now fundraising for a permanent building for photography in Singapore.

Image caption: (L-R) Gwen Lee, Ang Song Nian, and Guo Yixiun. Courtesy the panelists.

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Singapore Art Book Fair 2019

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