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Artist-in-residence

Committed to supporting artists, curators, and researchers by offering them time and space to pursue their research without the pressure of deadlines and production commitments, the Residencies Programme values the open-ended nature of artistic research and embraces multiform expressions of creative enquiry. Aiming to facilitate the production of knowledge, this studio-based programme is dedicated to established and emerging artists and serves as platform for critical exchange in Southeast Asia. The Residencies Programme offers a wide spectrum of programmes aimed at sharing the process of artistic research with the public - Residencies OPEN / Studio Sessions / Insights, which range from open studios, artists’ talks, conversations, performances, and screenings. The Residencies Programme unfolds through annual cycles and runs by nomination only. Every year, a rotating pool of curators and arts professionals from all over the world is invited to nominate two artists for the residency. The nominated artists are subsequently invited to submit a research proposal along with their portfolio and CV. Ultimately, the Residencies Committee, an international panel of experts, reviews the submitted materials and designates the artists who are awarded the residency.

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Loo Zihan

Residency period

16 June – 9 September 2016

About

Loo Zihan (b. 1983, Singapore) is a performance and moving-image artist and educator. He is interested in the affectual transference and transmutation of shame in his work. His recent body of work strives to expose the tension between the flesh of the body with the ‘bone’ of the archive. He emphasises the labour and malleability of memory through various representational strategies that includes performance re-enactments, essay films and data visualisation.

Loo’s moving-image works have been selected and screened at various international film festivals such as the Pusan International Film Festival, South Korea (2009). His co-directorial debut feature Solos was also selected the Deauville Asian Film Festival, France (2008) and the AFI Festival, Los Angeles (2007). Most notably, Solos was awarded the Nuovo Sguardi award at the 23rd Turin GLBT Film Festival, Italy (2008). Loo’s solo performances have also been presented at various performance events such as the Macau International Performance Art Festival (2011) and Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Chicago (2012). Loo also participates actively as a performer and collaborator in projects by other artists. As a collaborator he has worked with ‘The Necessary Stage’ on various theatrical projects as a multimedia designer and artist, this includes inter-cultural productions with participants from countries such as Australia and Croatia.

Focus

Whilst in residence, Loo Zihan will continue his research into 'The Ray Langenbach Archive of Performance Art' which documents over 20 years of performance art in Southeast Asia from 1988 to the present. Loo’s research is an extension of his reenactments and installations such as Cane (2011, 2012), Archiving Cane (2012) and Artists’ General Assembly: The Langenbach Archive (2013), which have stemmed out of specific documentation from the archive. Loo aims to tap into the mostly unexplored parts of the archive, of abstract and informal, day-to-day recordings of memories and incidents. As a nostalgic and intimate reflection on the arts scene of the early to mid­ 1990's in Singapore, Loo will unpack the archival material and return to the medium of an experimental essay film that aims to challenge the boundaries between documentary, fiction and experimental filmmaking.

Public programmes

Attend + Calendar
Residencies: Studio Sessions | 'I am, we were, who is?' by Loo Zihan (Singapore), Artist-in-Residence
24 Aug 2016, Wed 7:30pm - 9:00pm

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Loo Zihan presents his ongoing research into Dr Ray Langenbach’s personal archive, comprising over 20 years of documents and archival material on performance art in Southeast Asia. Dr Langenbach, Professor of Performance Art and Theory, University of the Arts, Helsinki, has for the past 22 years been documenting Southeast Asian aesthetic performance (theatre and performance art) and social performance (demonstrations, elections, riots, daily life) and the contexts in which they take place. This is articulated in the performance experiment ‘I Am LGB’, commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) and performed over three days, from 18 – 20 August 2016. Developed in collaboration with Dr Langenbach, Lee Mun Wai, Shawn Chua Ming Ren and Bani Haykal, the work questions notions of identity and social as well as existing power structures.

Post-performance, Loo’s studio session will serve as a moment of reflection and discussion on the collaborative development of ‘I Am LGB’ and its reception by the audience.

Loo Zihan is a performance and moving-image artist and educator. He is interested in the affectual transference and transmutation of shame in his work. His recent body of work strives to expose the tension between the ‘flesh’ of the body with the ‘bone’ of the archive. He emphasises the labour and malleability of memory through various representational strategies that include performance re-enactments, essay films and data visualisation.

Image credit: Kelvin Chew.