Artist-in-residence

Residency period

1 October 2019 – 28 April 2020

About

Premised on complex sets of references, the artistic production of Ho Tzu Nyen (b.1976, Singapore) harnesses film, video, performance, and installation. His richly layered and technically challenging works weave together facts and myths to mobilise different understandings of Southeast Asia’s history, politics, and belief systems. Recent solo exhibitions were held at Edith-Russ-Haus For Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany (2019); Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany (2018); Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum, China (2018); Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2017) among others. His works have also been included in major group exhibitions such as: Aichi Triennale, Japan (2019); Sharjah Biennial 14, United Arab Emirates (2019); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2018); Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2018) among many others. He is co-curator of the 7th Asian Art Biennal, Taichung, Taipei (2019). Ho represented Singapore at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Focus

The time and space of the residency are being used by Ho Tzu Nyen to map out his current and forthcoming projects for the next three years as well as their conceptual and aesthetic kinships. Other than further iterations of his growing multi-part work The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2014-ongoing), the artist is currently engaged in a series of works that probe Asia’s political histories and spiritual thought systems. Specifically, he is interested in the histories of revolt and subversion sited at both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ end of the political spectrum, paying attention to figures, moments, and movements that eschew classification under an obsolete scheme of polarized opposition. At the same time, he is also intent on speculating about the relevance these questions will carry in 50 years’ time when our existing epistemological frameworks will be drastically altered by accelerated technological transformations, geopolitical shifts, and ecological crises at a planetary level.

Residencies brochure (October – December 2019)

Residencies brochure (January – March 2020)

Image credit: Ho Tzu Nyen, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia, 2017, algorithmically composed video, infinite loop. Courtesy the artist.