Traces of Global Singapore: A Cultural Landscape

The recording of this talk has been uploaded online for viewing. 

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This is a conversation about the conditions and dynamics shaping Singapore in the 21st century, as reflected on by artists, curators, and administrators working within and in the region.

Curated by Stephanie Bailey, Conversations Curator for Art Basel Hong Kong

Speakers

Shubigi Rao, Artist, Singapore Pavilion at 59th Venice Biennale, and Curator, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Artist and writer Shubigi Rao’s decade-long project, Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book is about the history of book destruction and the future of knowledge. In 2020 the second book from the project won the Singapore Literature Prize (non-fiction), while the first exhibition of the project, Written in the Margins, won the 2018 APB Signature Prize Juror’s Choice Award.

Rao represented Singapore at the National Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia (Arte) in 2022.

She has also been featured in the 10th Asia-Pacific Triennial, 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 10th Taipei Biennial, 3rd Pune Biennale, 2nd Singapore Biennale, and the Singapore Writers Festival (2013, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022).

She is the Artistic Director for the 2022 Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Ho Tzu Nyen, Artist/Writer

Ho Tzu Nyen makes films, installations and performances that often begin as engagements with historical and theoretical texts. His recent works are populated by metamorphic figures such as the weretiger (One or Several Tigers, 2017) and the triple agent (The Nameless, 2015), under the rubric of The Critical Dictionary of Southeast, an ongoing meta project.

Ho Tzu Nyen was awarded a DAAD Scholarship in Berlin (2014 – 2015) and the Grand Prize of the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize (2015)

Priyageetha Dia, Arts Practitioner

Priyageetha Dia is an arts practitioner based in Singapore, primarily working with time-based media. Her practice is concerned with speculative methods of counter-narratives that correspond to Southeast Asian plantation histories and the transnational migration of ethnic communities that interact with the colonial production of land, labour, and capital.

Her recent exhibitions include a solo show at Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2022), and group exhibitions at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2022-2023), La Trobe Art Institute, Australia (2022), National Gallery Singapore (2020), and Art Science Museum, Singapore (2019). Priyageetha was a resident at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore residencies programme from April to August 2022.

Qinyi Lim, Curator, National Gallery Singapore 

Qinyi Lim is Curator at National Gallery Singapore. Lim completed the de Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam in 2012, and holds a Masters in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore and Honors in Art history from University of Queensland, Australia. Together with Grace Samboh and Sally Texania, Lim co-curated Jakarta Biennale in 2021. She previously held curatorial and teaching positions at National University of Singapore, Para Site, Hong Kong; National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum and Singapore Art Museum.

Moderator

Alfonse Chiu, Independent Curator, Writer, Artist

Alfonse Chiu is a writer, artist, and curator based between Taipei and Singapore. They were the Fall 2021 e-flux journal Fellow and are the Founder / Director of the Centre for Urban Mythologies (CUM).