Gary Ross Pastrana
Residency period
6 July – 2 October 2015
About
Gary Ross Pastrana’s (b. 1977, Philippines) art has been one of the most persistent in terms of combining concepts with objects. His conceptual pieces,although loaded with poetic intensity, remain unobtrusively subtle, almost quaint in its appearance. Coiled or folded photographs, his woven tales from found pictures in the internet, the sawed off parts of a boat shipped to another gallery, his shirt tied into a pole to commensurate a flag, these are the slightest of turns Pastrana has his objects make to create a new meaning. Pastrana received his Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines (2000) and was recipient of the Dominador Castaneda Award for Best Thesis. In 2006, he received the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He has also been awarded grants by the Asian Cultural Council and the Bangkok University Gallery. Pastrana has participated in numerous exhibitions in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, and most notably in the New Museum Triennale, The Ungovernables, New York, United States (2012). He recently held a solo exhibition at the Vargas Museum in Manila. Pastrana is one of the co-founders of Future Prospects Art Space in Cubao, Philippines and has regularly curated for shows both in Philippines and abroad. Pastrana lives and works in Manila, Philippines.
Focus
Gary Ross Pastrana will collect “Fifty Shared Words” as a response to the overlaps in histories and languages in the various parts of Southeast Asia. With these words he will write short descriptions, musings, meditations or anecdotes about each word, comparable in format with Primo Levi’s Periodic Table. Research will be kept to informal conversations with artists and other everyday people encountered during the residency to keep the whole experience direct, unmediated, and current. The aim is not to come up with an academic linguistic study but to encounter words in actual usage by real people and in the process learn through communication. Short stays in other neighboring countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, (to meet artists and visit artists communities) is also worked into the plan to expose to varying settings and the more subtle differences in context and usage of the words.
Public programmes
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For this special day event at Gillman Barracks, NTU CCA Singapore has put together a line-up of programmes encompassing open studios, film screenings and performances. For full details of Art Day Out, visit www.gillmanbarracks.com.
Residencies: OPEN
NTU CCA Singapore, Studios, Block 37 & 38 Malan Road, 11.00am – 3.00pm
Featuring Artists-in-Residence, Yason Banal (The Philippines), Bani Haykal (Singapore), Amanda Heng (Singapore), Alex Murray-Leslie (Australia), Gary Ross Pastrana (The Philippines), Jeremy Sharma (Singapore), Shooshie Sulaiman (Malaysia) and Erika Tan (Singapore).
Artist Resource Platform
The Seminar Room, Block 43 Malan Road, 11.00am – 9.00pm
Highlights include selected documentation from NTU CCA Singapore’s residencies.
Film Screenings in collaboration with the Asian Film Archive
The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road
Punggok Rindukan Bulan (This Longing) by Azharr Rudin (Malaysia), 12.30pm – 2.30pm
Return to Burma by Midi Z (Myanmar/Taiwan), 7.30pm – 9.00pm
Erika Tan, Halimah-the-Empire-Exhibition-weaver-who-died-whilst-performing-her-craft
The Lab, Block 43 Malan Road, 3.00pm – 4.30pm
Live “broadcast” debate
Special Project: Faculty of Listening, Bani Haykal – Performance #2
Block 38 Malan Road, #01-07, 5.00 – 7.00pm
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Sidd Perez is associate curator at the NUS Museum and the co-founder/editor of the independent collaborative, Planting Rice. She was curatorial associate to The Drawing Room (Manila/Singapore) prior to moving to the NUS.
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Unfolding over two months, Artists-in-Residence Li Ran and Gary Ross Pastrana will develop projects for The Lab, NTU CCA Singapore’s space for experimentation, which are speculations on how an image is created and deconstructed.
Gary Ross Pastrana’s An ASEAN Exhibition 1 creates an artistic gesture around the idea of Southeast Asia as a reference with no visual referent. The artist engaged DSM Solutions, a young Singaporean creative collective, to stage a “Contemporary Southeast Asia Art Exhibition-Themed Event” and prototype props that could stand in for Southeast Asian artworks. In this manner, the artist has effectively outsourced the sometimes-problematic task of representing Southeast Asia, an implied obligation of artists invited to regionally themed group exhibitions within the region.
Li Ran presents a new project Waiting for the Fog to Drift Away, a collaboration with Singapore Management University (SMU), Assistant Professor Rowan Wang, a specialist in overall planning science. Li Ran will conduct interviews to gain planning advice from Wang in an attempt to define the most successful trajectory for the life of an artist as a business enterprise, estimating production levels and peaks and troughs in key life moments.
Li Ran currently lives and works in Beijing, China. He graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Oil Painting Department with a BFA and is both the founder and member of COMPANY. He has exhibited widely including the 1st Pierre Huber Prize Annual Exhibition of Emerging Media Artists, OCAT Shanghai.
Gary-Ross Pastrana lives and works in Manila, The Philippines. He recently held a solo exhibition at the Vargas Museum in Manila and is one of the co-founders of Future Prospects Art Space in Cubao. Pastrana has regularly curated shows both in The Philippines and abroad.
Image credit: Tropical Paradise, 2015. Courtesy DSM Solutions