Biodiversity – NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

Coastal communities and island populations, such as those in Singapore and Bintan, are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, particularly sea level rise. Coral reefs play a critical role as natural breakwaters, aiding to defend against coastal erosion. However, their survival is threatened by the implications of Singapore’s urbanisation on Bintan —through economic and touristic development—, alongside overfishing, rising sea temperatures, and the potential runoff impacts of industrial developments such as petrochemical plants. The lecture opens with a presentation by Professor Ute Meta Bauer (School of Art, Design and Media, NTU) on sea-based livelihoods in the Riau Archipelago and features lectures by coral restoration diver Rudi (Bintan Black Coral Dive) and Associate Professor Peter Todd, (Experimental Marine Ecology Laboratory, NUS; Director, Tropical Marine Science Institute, NUS) , with a response by Dr Karenne Tun (Director, Coastal and Marine Branch, National Biodiversity Centre, NParks) and moderated by Associate Professor Laura Miotto (School of Art, Design and Media, NTU). The session explores current coral restoration projects initiated by Rudi in Bintan, including nature-based solutions, highlighting their significance for coastal communities reliant on reef coastlines for their livelihood. Returning to urban Singapore, Associate Professor Todd will discuss eco-engineered seawalls that function as surrogates for natural habitats, supporting coral growth while simultaneously serving as coastal defense structures against rising tides.

Tuesday Lecture

26 August 2025, 6:30pm – 8:00pm

The Hall, NTU CCA, Blk 6 Lock Road, #01-10 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934

The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Senior Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research fellow Joshua Vince Gebert, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant AngelaRicasio Hoten.

Sustainable Societies
Senior Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)

This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.

Centered around the theme of biocultural worlding, these keynote lectures will explore the processes that shape our understanding of the world through the deep interconnections between cultural and biological life. Dr Lisa Onaga, Senior Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, will reflect on the intersections of biological materiality, cultural practice, and the authorship of knowledge. Curator and researcher Dr Margarida Mendes will explore the concept of worlding from the ocean point of view. This lecture foregrounds ecosystemic, political and ontological relations across aquatic realms. It introduces ongoing research and activism on ecoacoustics, deep sea mining, and remote sensing, proposing how different modes of ocean monitoring may contribute to plural oceanic worldings and alliances in the making. Together, their lectures will illuminate how Biocultural Worlding unfolds across land and sea, and how attending to these entanglements opens new ways of imagining collective futures in times of environmental and epistemic loss.

22 September 2025
6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore

Register here

What is ‘Worlding’ in Biocultural Worlding? is supported by CLASS JOINT NTU-ANU NTU-KCL CONFERENCE, SYMPOSIUM, AND WORKSHOP SCHEME.

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore) presents the two-part research presentation Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss. First unfolding at TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space in Venice, Italy, the research inquiry later materialises in another configuration at ADM Gallery, a university gallery under the School of Art, Design, and Media (NTU ADM) at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

This twofold exhibition marks the conclusion of the eponymous research project led by Principal Investigator Ute Meta Bauer at NTU ADM. The inquiry started by asking: how has the slow erosion of diverse, multicultural, and more-than-human ways of living over time impacted the environments in which we live, and what are the longer-term consequences on habitats? Can we begin again with culture, to induce a necessary paradigm shift in the way we think about and respond to the climate crisis? Extending connections and conversations seeded during the inaugural cycle of TBA21–Academy’s The Current fellowship programme led by Bauer from 2015 to 2018, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss continues to build archipelagic networks across the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, deepening existing collaborations with Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies in Fiji, and developing new ones further in the South Pacific Ocean, through the art and media non-profit organisation Further Arts in Vanuatu.

Bridging conversations from the Pacific to Singapore in the Riau Archipelago, former fellows of TBA21–Academy’s The Currentand current research collaborators artist Nabil Ahmed, social anthropologist Guigone Camus, artist Kristy H.A. Kang, legal scholar Hervé Raimana Lallemant-Moe, and artists Armin Linke and Lisa Rave, join Singapore-based researchers Co-Investigator Sang-Ho Yun and Denny Chee of the Earth Observatory of Singapore – Remote Sensing Lab (EOS–RS) and the Asian School of the Environment, NTU ADM research staff Soh Kay Min and Ng Mei Jia, historian Jonathan Galka, and community organiser Firdaus Sani, as they explore the impacts of extreme weather, rising seas, climate displacement, ocean resource extraction, and the disappearance of material cultural traditions, occurring across what the visionary Pacific thinker Epeli Hau’ofa has termed “our sea of islands.” Featuring interviews, data visualisations, documentation, writings, and artisanal crafts made in collaboration with or generously gifted to the research team by knowledge bearers, community leaders, scientists, scholars, and artists, including writer and curator Frances Vaka’uta, masi artist Igatolo Latu,human rights defender Anne Pakoa and anthropologist Cynthia Chou, the exhibitions present the rich, complex, and multi-layered research findings accumulated over three years, since the Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss project first started in 2021.

At TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space, the Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss research inquiry sits adjacent to the exhibition Restor(y)ing Oceania, comprising two new site-specific commissions by Latai Taumoepeau and Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta. Curated by Bougainville-born artist Taloi Havini, whose curatorial vision is guided by an ancestral call-and-response method, the exhibition materialises as a search for solidarity and kinship in uncertain times, in order to slow down the clock on extraction and counter it with reverence for the life of the Ocean.

At ADM Gallery, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss is presented alongside the companion show Sensing Nature, curated by Gallery Director Michelle Ho. The exhibition showcases artists representing diverse disciplines, each offering their interpretation of the natural world and its intersection with urban life. Through reflection and experimentation, these works invite viewers to reassess our perceptions and behaviors toward the environment and phenomena beyond human influence. They advocate for a renewed understanding of society’s connection to nature and the land.

Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss is supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 grant. The research presentation at Ocean Space coincides with the 60th International Art Biennale in Venice, Italy, with public programmes taking place through the exhibition durations in both Venice and Singapore.

Opening Dates
Ocean Space exhibition preview:
March 22, 6pm
Ocean Space, Venice, Chiesa di San Lorenzo Castello

Opening hours
March 23–October 13, 2024: Wednesday to Sunday, 11am–6pm
Ocean Space
Chiesa di San Lorenzo Castello 5069, Venice

April 12–May 24, 2024: Monday to Friday, 10am–5pm
ADM Gallery
81 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637458

Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss Logo Bar

Registration required via Peatix: medicinalherbs.peatix.com
This programme will be conducted in Mandarin.

Programme will start at NTU CCA Singapore, Block 43 Malan Road and end at NTU Community Herb Garden, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue near Jalan Bahar Gate. One-way transportation from NTU CCA Singapore to NTU is provided.

In conceptualising Quadra Medicinale (2009), Jef Geys asked local collaborators to identify plants that grew on the street, and to research their potential medicinal or beneficial properties. The NTU Community Herb Garden is dedicated to the cultivation of such plants and is home to more than 300 species of tropical plants and herbs with medicinal properties. Ng Kim Chuan founded the Garden in 2009, together with a small group of volunteers consisting of staff, students, and members of the public, to serve as a charitable resource of medicinal herbs for the poor and the needy. Ng will give a tour of the Garden, with the assistance of Lee Jin Long, NTU student, and share his knowledge and work surrounding these medicinal herbs, especially as alternative treatments for cancer and chronic illnesses.

A public programme of Jef Geys Quadra Medicinale Singapore.

Course Details

Date: 10 September 2022, Saturday
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm
Venue: NTU CCA Singapore, Block 6 Lock Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934
Course Fee: $85.60 (incl. GST), per adult/child pair

For enquiries, please email ntuccaeducation@ntu.edu.sg

About The Course

Edible Wild is a 2-hour workshop aimed at bringing parents and their children closer to nature. Despite the greenery that surrounds us in our concrete jungle, it is easy to overlook the plants that flank our sidewalks. As the world moves at an ever-increasing pace, we need the occasional reminder to slow down and reconnect with the earth – and one of the best ways to do so is to learn how to care for it.

This workshop is a gentle introduction to the myriad of herbs – both common and uncommon – that can be found growing around our garden city, as well as a chance to understand their history and uses. Participants will learn simple plant identification techniques, understand the structure of a plant, as well as pick up basic gardening skills that they can use at home. The overall goal is to renew a sense of wonder in our green companions, while providing the skills to identify and care for them.

At The End of the Course, You Will…

● Learn how to identify edible local plants from The Farm at NTU CCA Singapore
● Learn general plant identification techniques (leaf shape, flowers, stem structure etc.)
● Pick up basic gardening techniques to grow and care for your own edible greens (proper watering, checking/enriching the soil, checking for pests, pruning & propagation)
● Create simple infusions with ingredients from the garden

Target Audience

Parent/child groups where the children are 7 years old and above.

Entanglements – Writing The Environment

Course Details

Date: 21, 22, 24 & 25 Feb 2022
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
Location: NTU CCA Singapore, The Seminar Room, Block 37 Malan Road, Singapore 109452
Course Fee: $856 (inc. GST) Skillsfuture credits applicable for Singaporeans.

Registration has closed.

For enquiries please email ntuccaeducation@ntu.edu.sg

About the Course

Entanglements – Writing the Environment is a 4-day course which offers participants the opportunity to develop their writing skills and interests in ways that promote and illustrate environmental awareness, concerns, and sensitivities.

Participants will explore diverse issues of the environment captured in writing through experimenting with a variety of writing forms from the glossary definition, annotations, essay, review, poetry, short fiction and novel.

The course format will include examination of literary texts related to environmental themes, class discussions, as well as writing and editing practice to texts produced throughout the course.

By the end of this course, participants will have a new literary appreciation and increased confidence in writing about the natural world. Join us in the sandbox of literature to explore new ideas, experiment with language, and arrange words in new and exciting ways with like-minded individuals.

What You Will Learn

1. To understand different formats of writing and writing conventions that can be applied to other facets of daily life.

2. To integrate environmental concerns in writing of fiction and non-fiction.

3. To identify and analyse developments in the field of environmental literature through the study of specific works.

4. To develop a personal style of writing by connecting ideas and creating an effective narrative.

Artists, Cultural Producers, Curators, Researchers, Educators, Naturalists, Editors, Art Critics, Budding Writers or someone who simply enjoys writing

JASON WEE AND ANCA RUJOIU, ENTANGLEMENTS – WRITING THE ENVIRONMENT. COURTESY NTU CCA SINGAPORE

Inspired by Cosmorama (2018), one of four sections in the exhibition Design Earth: Speculative Fiction for the Climate, this third Drawing Club invites artists, architects, designers, and students to respond to the geostories of asteroid mining, orbital debris, and climate refuge in the age of the “New Space.”

The workshop zooms in on architectural drawing as practice to examine planetary issues such as satellite debris and airspace conflicts, that may seem distant from us. Participants will trace the macrocosmic consequences of extractive economies and of their politics beyond Singapore, and beyond the Earth itself, launching critical conversations into speculative drawings.

The annotated sketches produced during the workshop will be displayed at the NTU ADM Foyer until 13 August 2025, alongside the works produced at the previous Drawing Club.

Participants are encouraged to bring dry drawing media (markers, found images, etc) and reading references (articles, books, etc) to share, annotate, and get inspiration from during the session. No technical drawing experience needed.

This workshop is facilitated by Eunice Lacaste, Programmes Associate, NTU CCA Singapore.

DATE: Thursday, 7 August 2025. 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

VENUE: ADM Gallery 2, NTU School of Art, Design and Media, 81 Nanyang Dr, Singapore 637458

EXHIBITION DATES: Open by appointment from 14 June to 15 August 2025

GALLERY HOURS: Monday to Friday: 10:00am to 5:00pm. Saturday: By appointment only. Closed on Sunday and Public Holidays

BOOKING EMAIL: ADMgallery@ntu.edu.sg

Through collaboration with EOS for the STAR RESIDENCY, Ng Hui Hsien aims to complement scientific tools and methods of environmental studies with indigenous ecological knowledge shaped by lived experience, oral traditions, and direct observation. On one hand, she will engage with materials such as satellite imagery, seismic monitoring systems, and photomicrographs to understand how Earth scientists observe and evaluate environmental changes and geohazards. On the other hand, drawing on her background in ethnography, she plans to conduct field research and engage with communities and individuals imbued with a deep connection to the environment to understand the rhythms of their lives as they unfold on site, the changes they observe, and their knowledge and cosmologies related to natural processes and phenomena. Ultimately, the artist intends to translate this research across different bodies of knowledge into artistic outcomes that deepen the awareness of ecological interconnectedness and convey a sense of reverence for nature.

Ng Hui Hsien (b. 1982, Singapore) works as an artist, educator, and curator. Through her artworks, she seeks to evoke stillness and wonder, especially towards our inner landscapes and the more-than-human world. Her work is informed by phenomenology, one that sees our bodies as sites of knowledge and one curious about our relations with the living earth. Ng has received solo exhibitions at Objectifs Centre of Photography and Film, Singapore (2023), Grey Projects, Singapore (2020-2021), Comma Space, Singapore (2020), and Reykjavík Museum of Photography, Iceland (2018-2019). Her work has been internationally exhibited at institutions and festivals such as Shanghai Art Book Fair, China (2019), Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, UK (2018), the PhotoBangkok Festival, Thailand (2018), Obscura Festival of Photography, Penang, Malaysia (2018), Dali International Photography Festival, China (2018), and Athens Photo Festival, Greece (2018) among others. She holds a Master of Arts in Photography from University of the West of England and a Master of Social Sciences from National University of Singapore.

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to announce the launch of STAR Residencies (Science, Technology, Art & Research), a new residency programme aimed at fostering the cross-pollination between artistic and scientific research. Through partnerships with select NTU research institutes, STAR Residencies embeds artistic residencies at the core of the University, creating a unique opportunity for exchange between artists and academic researchers. A pioneering programme in the context of Singapore and Southeast Asia, STAR Residencies stems from NTU CCA Singapore’s decade-long expertise in developing innovative platforms for knowledge making, creative experimentation, and transdisciplinary collaborations.

For its inaugural cycle, STAR Residencies unfolds in partnership with NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), a research institute of Nanyang Technological University dedicated to the scientific observation of the forces that shape our changing planet. Regarded as a leader on a broad spectrum of geosciences in the Asia-Pacific region, EOS gathers critical data and develops vital knowledge about geohazards, climate change, and their impact on human societies. This collaboration expands Centre’s long-standing research on Climates.Habitats.Environments. and its continued commitment to critical artistic practices that engage with ecological complexities, climate change, and sustainability to advance the collective awareness of planetary interconnectedness in times of environmental distress.

The artists participating in the first iteration STAR Residencies are: Ng Hui Hsien, The Observatory (Dharma, Cheryl Ong, Yuen Chee Wai), and Zarina Muhammad. They were selected from a pool of 19 candidates (nominated by experts in the field) by a Selection Committee composed of: Dr Karin Oen, Director, NTU CCA Singapore, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Art History, NTU School of Humanities; Lauriane Chardot, Assistant Director, Community Engagement, Earth Observatory of Singapore, NTU; and Haeju Kim, Senior Curator and Head of Residencies, Singapore Art Museum.

The first cycle of STAR Residencies takes place from April 2025 to March 2026. Within the programme’s framework, artists are granted unprecedented access to processes and methodologies of fundamental scientific research, state-of-the-art laboratories, data sets, and extensive international networks, being provided with the exceptional opportunity to immerse themselves in EOS’s dynamic scientific community wherein they can expand their intellectual horizon, explore ideas, forge new means of artistic inquiry, and engage creatively with Earth systems and ecological complexities. The programme will conclude with an exhibition in March 2026 that will showcase the research projects developed during the residency. In the words of Karin Oen, “STAR Residencies mark an important new chapter for NTU CCA Singapore in which the intersections of artistic and scientific research can thrive with the support of the broader academic community at NTU.”

With creative practices that span photography, performance, installation, and sound, the artists will conduct independent research on a variety of Earth systems, interweaving different bodies of knowledge in aesthetic outcomes that foster the awareness of ecological interconnectedness and of the complexity of human relation to nature. Drawing on her background in ethnography, Ng Hui Hsien intends to complement the scientific strategies used to evaluate environmental changes and geohazards with indigenous ecological knowledge shaped by lived experience, oral traditions, and direct observation, creating evocative insights into practices of ecological coexistence. The Observatory will expand their engagement with subterranean phenomena and geological formations. Deepening their understanding of the volcanic arcs that shape Southeast Asia and of the processes of rock formation, they will develop a project that resonates from deep time to contemporary existence. Driven by a process-led and constellatory approach to collaboration, Zarina Muhammad will engage with different scientists to expand epistemic frameworks for ecological witnessing, looking at weather formations, underwater ecologies, polycosmologies and the interdependency of environmental knowledge systems.

STAR Residencies is developed and curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, NTU CCA Singapore.

Rising temperatures induced by climate change as well as land-use development are two of the biggest threats to insect populations globally in what has been referred to as the “insect apocalypse.” Here in Singapore, a decline in insect populations could threaten the ecological diversity of our parks and reserves and diminish critical food sources for the migratory land birds that annually visit Singapore in places such as the Botanic Gardens and Pasir Ris Park. Insects also provide vital ecosystem services such as pollination provided by bees, pest regulation by wasps and nutrient cycling aided by dung beetles, which are indispensable to the ecological balance of our forests such as those in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. In this lecture, moderated by Laura Miotto (Associate Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University), ecologist Eleanor Slade (Associate Professor, Forest Invertebrate Ecology, Asian School of Environment, Nanyang Technological University and Principal Investigator, Tropical Ecology & Entomology Lab) and artist Wendy Zhang (artist and insect conservation educator) will highlight the critical role insects play in the ecosystems that support our natural spaces in Singapore. Drawing on their expertise in ecology, entomology, insect conservation and art, they will discuss current strategies for biodiversity conservation and the actions needed to protect insect populations in the future.

Tuesday, 11 March 2025
6:30pm – 8:30pm
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore

Free admission. Register here.

Isabelle Desjeux is a Umeå (Sweden) and Singapore-based artist and researcher. Using her training in Molecular Biology, she creates new kinds of scientific method-based artworks. Working closely with scientists, she encourages others to cross the divide and take on the role of scientists in her interventions, whether in a class, during a workshop, or as part of an installation. As such her work has often been labelled as participatory, with “experiment” being a strong part of her practice.

She received her MAFA from Lasalle (2011), was the recipient of both the French-Singapore New Generation Artist (2011) and the Lasalle Research Fellowship (2017). Her work has been exhibited in museums across Singapore, in Japan and USA. She teaches regularly across disciplines from pre-school to post-graduate level, inviting students into her practice.

Ceci n’est pas une exposition. This is not an exhibition. Perhaps this sounds like a counter-intuitive way to introduce an exhibition, or a space like this that has a lot in common with exhibitions.

So if this is not an exhibition, what is it? The French word “expérience,” sounds like the English word “experience,” but translates to “experiment.” It is definitely both an experiment and an experience. It is also a project, comprising interactive gallery-based installations and the activation of the ideas explored in those installations through related programmes. We borrow the idea that “Ceci n’est pas…” or “this is not…what it seems to be” from the Belgian artist René Magritte (1898-1967). Hopefully, this invites us to think about what is possible when one looks beyond what seems to be, and instead thinks about what could be.

Ceci n’est pas une exhibition, but it is art, it is science, it is play, it is imagination, it is nature, it is technology, and it is, above all, an invitation, and a space to be activated by your presence and participation.

This project presents the work of Dr Isabelle Desjeux, an artist, scientist, and educator who spent 25 years in Singapore, from 1999 to 2024. The project is simultaneously a reflection on her training as a molecular biologist, her experiences making art and building community, and a proposition for things that are yet to come. Things that she will do, and things that she hopes that you will take in new directions. Now, having recently relocated to Sweden, she is certain that some aspects of her practice in Singapore will adapt to her new environment, and some will not be transplantable.

Desjeux’s interests in following questions down meandering paths, tapping into curiosity about the environment, and in sharing meaningful experiences with others are common threads throughout her work for the past 25 years. This project invites you to be part of these experiences—not by simply viewing or learning from the installation areas within the gallery, but by participating in them, and making them your own. If you are ready to start down some meandering paths, you should stop reading here, and jump right into the experiment!

For those of you who are interested to learn more, here are a few more facts and speculations about this work, and the artist-scientist behind them.

The works in these galleries are just some of the many projects that Isabelle embarked upon while in Singapore. They were selected for this presentation as some of the pieces that best embody her way of working by collaborating with and learning from others; her interest in iterating projects in different spaces and contexts; and her genuine curiosity for the world.

Isabelle enjoys the quote by filmmaker Agnes Varda that, “I don’t want to show things, but give people the desire to see.”

You might see evidence of Isabelle’s own interest in giving people the “desire to see” in her work with lenses and modes of refracting images. In her playful explorations of cameras through low-tech manipulations of light inside the gallery you will find variations on the camera obscura – the term for a “dark chamber” in Latin and an important ancestor of the photographic camera that dates back to antiquity. The simple design of a camera obscura projects an inverted image of the outside world into a darkened space via a small opening.

Isabelle’s series of cameras obscura include both small scale sculptural objects designed to be worn over the viewer’s head (her series of papier-maché cameras include a teapot and several objects that look like aquatic creatures!) and larger-scale chambers that visitors can step inside. Her experiments with pinhole cameras operate on the same principle, using a small light-proof chamber containing light-sensitive paper and the timed uncovering of a small pinhole to expose that paper and make it a photograph – an image “written in light.” To see the image, this paper would have to be developed in a darkroom, which is another one of Isabelle’s objects that you will encounter: a light proof box that is small enough to carry out into the world. This wooden crate has been outfitted with the legs of well-worn jeans to cover the photographer’s arms and a small red viewing window that allows viewers to peer at the evolving photograph inside while filtering out the wavelengths of light that would overexpose the paper inside. Like many of her objects, this one begs multiple questions. Is it a work of engineering? A work of design? A work of art? Is it a tool to create something else, or an object of curiosity in its own right?

In the section dedicated to cameras, you will also find a fuchsia jumpsuit worn by Isabelle on her daily visits to neighbourhood community spaces for the Lengkok Bahru Pinhole Project (2019). Can an article of clothing be a way of making images? Is the invitation for community members to co-create photographs about the images themselves, or the relationships that can be formed by coming together to look at the world differently?

Nearby to the artists’ cameras, we find the Insect Inventorium (2023-2024), presented as a collaboration with the artist Quek See Yee. This project involves looking at and getting to know insects that have already been studied by entomologists, then using materials gathered from the natural world to imagine and visualise insects that might someday be discovered or known to us. Is the artist-scientist’s role to observe, or to speculate? Is it possible to do one without the other? Is science, or art, a fundamentally solitary endeavour, or a group activity?

On the other side of the gallery’s partition wall, an assortment of Isabelle’s “interactive objects” including a scarecrow and a large bird mask, bring up slightly different questions about our modes of engaging with the world around us. Does a functional scarecrow, activated by the weight of birds resting on it, protect us from or bring us in dialogue with our avian neighbours? How can interactivity remind us of how we are animals and sensory beings, part of the ecosystems in which we live?

In another section of the gallery, we encounter the House of Weeds (2020-2024), presented as a collaboration with the artist Debbie Ding. This project explores local weeds as botanical specimens brought together as subjects to be observed and investigated (especially by small observers of the world!), and as components of a sonic machine that integrates these plants into its electrical circuitry. Is it an interactive art installation? An educational experience? An example of citizen science? A carefully engineered series of surprises?

At the entrance to the gallery, we find Heavealogy – a series of works related to the study of the Parà rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. This series is simultaneously an investigation and portrait of the plant itself, including its exploding seeds, and research into why and how this type of tree was planted in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. It also provokes questions of what our understanding of this plant might mean for our future, and the future of the ecosystem in which it grows. In 1000 Rubber Seeds and One Mutant (2014), one of the works in this series, we see some of the threads of Isabelle’s practice woven together—her facility with photographic imaging, her curiosity for the interactions of nature and culture in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and her experience as scientific researcher with extensive knowledge of genetics. All of this is brought together by her humorous sensibility and penchant for finding inspiration and true beauty in the absurd and the counterintuitive. An artist-scientist who has operated in the formal and informal spaces of both art and science, and someone who has been part of the Institute of Unnecessary Research as the Head of Failure and later the Head of Curiosity Awareness, Isabelle Desjeux asks questions, experiments with process, gleefully deviates from plans, and invites others to do the same. In the artists’ book written to accompany the Heavealogy project in 2018 she invites and implores her readers to: “Ask questions with CURIOSITY, seek answers with EXCITEMENT, but leave a place for FAILURE in your interpretations.”

4 October – 7 November 2024

Free Entrance
Gallery, Level 2
Alliance Française de Singapour

Opening hours

Tuesday to Friday: 1.00 pm – 7.30 pm
Saturday: 9.00 am – 5.00 pm

Artist

Dr Isabelle Desjeux, artist-scientist

Collaborators

Quek See Yee, multidisciplinary designer and art practitioner
Debbie Ding, an artist-scholar

Exhibition Curator

Karin G. Oen
Director, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

The Han Nefkens Foundation was established in 2009 with the aim of connecting people through art. In 2016, Han Nefkens decided to focus exclusively on supporting emerging and mid-career international video artists through Awards, Production Grants, and Mentorship Grants. The Foundation is not only involved in producing new works with the artists, but also finding international residencies, producing publications, purchasing working tools, finding technical support, and bringing artists into contact with art institutions and peers. With an extensive network in countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Ecuador, Peru, Spain, and the Netherlands, the Foundation is able to present artists to a diverse and global audience.

Angela Ricasio Hoten is a research assistant at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University supporting the research projects Climate Transformation Programme (2024–Present), Developing and Evaluating Digital Tools for Participatory Climate Change Mitigation (2025–Present) and previously the Environmentally-Engaged Artistic Practices in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (2023–2024). Angela holds a BA (Hons) in Environmental Studies and minor in Anthropology from Yale-NUS College, Singapore. She was also the undergraduate research assistant for ‘Lala Land: Singapore’s Seafood Heritage’ edited by Anthony Medrano, published by Epigram Books.

Ng Mei Jia is currently Research Associate at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, managing the research projects Climate Transformation Programme (2024–2027), Developing and Evaluating Digital Tools for Participatory Climate Change Mitigation (2025–2026) and a research assistant on Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss (2021–2024), Environmentally-Engaged Artistic Practices in South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (2021–2023), and Understanding Southeast Asia as a ‘Geocultural’ Formation (2021–2023). She was previously a Project Officer (Intangible Cultural Heritage) at the National Heritage Board, Singapore. Mei Jia holds an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.

After a very successful first iteration of Climate Futures #1: Cultures, Climate Crisis and Disappearing Ecologies its second convening wants to build on its discussions and expand its understanding of the decline in cultural and ecological diversity in the region. It became very clear that such conversations require space and time to process complex issues, if we do not want to simplify and allow more than one way to process how people feel about their situations and want to be heard. Our futures require us to go beyond the status quo of current modes of operating. To not lose cultural knowledge and biodiversity Climate Futures #2: Belonging & Shared Responsibilities will share various narratives and practices that are already in place. It wants to further provide access to communities outside state and institutional structures to further nurture understanding of change in responsibilities and accountability.

The summit intents to further map how the climate crisis informs our contemporary world, and how diverse cultures can adjust or adapt without losing a sense of purpose. It comprises of discussions into alternative approaches to regional studies focusing on urgencies such as rising sea-levels and temperatures and the impact on natural resources of the region. A particular focus will be on areas such as the Mekong River and Delta (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) and its water street to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines including the Straits that plays an essential role in the regions shared history.

The holistic approach of Climate Futures #1: Cultures, Climate Crisis and Disappearing Ecologies showed already how it can successfully stimulate a debate between artists, designers, and architects, scientists, environmentalists, as well as local voices and policy makers. We seek to reach out to an even wider public including younger scholars and practitioners, as well as community leaders and policy makers from the ASEAN region.

The future of our shared prosperity relies on our collective ability to create an inclusive and sustainable foundation for growth.

Read the programme brochure here.

Thursday, 26 October – Saturday 28 October 2023

Sokhalay Angkor Villa Resort, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Thursday, 26 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 668981.

9:30am Registration & Coffee

10:00am Opening Addresses

Dr Piti Srisangnam, Executive Director, ASEAN Foundation

H.E. Min Chandynavuth, Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia

Prof. Tim White, Vice President (International Engagement); President’s Chair in Materials Science and Engineering; Professor, School of Materials Science & Engineering.

Welcome and Introduction by co-curators Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, and Professor School of Art, Design, and Media, NTU Singapore and Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), Curator Residencies and Programms, NTU Centre of Contemporary Art, Singapore

10:30am The Art of Living Lightly, Keynote Lecture by Rachaporn Choochuey (Thailand), Architect, Co-founder, Design Director, all(zone) ltd

11:40am Between Bots and the Biosphere: Machine Philosophy, Media Ecologies, and Digital Hieroglyphs for Climate Adaptation, Case Study by Nashin Mahtani (Indonesia), Director, PetaBencana.id

12:00pm An Uncommon History of The Common Fence: A Prologue (To the Coast), Case Study by Jason Wee (Singapore), Artist, Writer, Curator

12:20pm Sharing Climate Futures: Developing tools for climate care and action, Case Study by Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, and Professor School of Art, Design, and Media, NTU Singapore

1:00pm Discussion with Rachaporn Choochuey (Thailand), Nashin Mahtani (Indonesia), and Jason Wee (Singapore). Moderated by Prof. Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore)

3:30pm Belonging & Sharing Responsibilities, Closed Workshop by Claudia Lasimbang a.k.a Yoggie, Technical Coordinator Watersheds and Communities, Forever Sabah, Philip Chin a.k.a. Linggit, Technical Coordinator Certified Sustainable Palm Oil, Forever Sabah, and Yee I-Lan (all Malaysia), artist

Friday, 27 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 400242.

8:45am Registration & Coffee

9:00am Welcome & Introduction

9:10am Creative Digital Lab: how artists, cultural and creative professionals and technologists work together to explore the potentials of XR technology in protecting heritage, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and contributing to climate action. Lecture by Kamonrat Mali Chayamarit (Thailand), Culture Programme Officer, Lao PDR alternate Focal Point, UNESCO Culture related Conventions Advocate

9:40am Ecology for Non-Futures, Case Study by Binna Choi (South-Korea), Artists, part of Unmake Lab

10:20am Climate impact on social process and social structure, Case study by Daovone Phonemanichane (Laos), Strengthening Climate Resilience Project Manager, Oxfam Mekong Regional Water Governance Program

10:40am When Nature has Economic Value, Case Study by Som Supaprinya (Thailand), Artist

11:20am Discussion with Kamonrat Mali Chayamarit (Thailand), Binna Choi (South-Korea), Daovone Phonemanichane (Laos), and Som Supaprinya (Thailand). Moderated by Bejamin Hampe (Australia), Project Director, KONNECT ASEAN

1:00pm Glimpse of Life on the Water, Closed Workshop Sessions by Sovann Ke (Cambodia), Project Manager, OSMOSE

Saturday, 28 October
Join the livestream here with the passcode 353177.

8:45am Registration & Coffee

9:00am Introduction & Welcome

9:15am Every (de)Force Evolves into A (de)Form, Lecture by Gahee Park (South-Korea), Curator, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul

10:00am Pedagogy, Community, Art: Bottom-up Urbanism at Phnom Penh’s Wat Chen Dam Daek, Case Study by Lyno Vuth (Cambodia), Artist, and Eva Lloyd (Australia), Lecturer, University of New South Wales (UNSW)

10:20am Luang Prabang: From Cultural Landscape into Practice, Case Study by Phonepaseth Keosomsak (Laos), Architect, Artist

11:00am Snare for Birds: Rebelling Against an Order of Things, Case Study by Kiri Dalena (Philipines), Artist

11:20am Travelling through time, Case Study by Malin Yim (Cambodia), Artist

11:40am The New Word for World is Archipelago, Case Study by Nice Buenaventura (Philippines), Artist

12:00pm Discussion with Nice Buenaventura (Philippines), Kiri Dalena (Philipines), Phonepaseth Keosomsak (Laos), Gahee Park (South-Korea), Lyno Vuth (Cambodia), and Malin Yim (Cambodia). Moderated by Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore)

2:30pm Visit of Blue Art Centre. Welcome by Sareth Svay (Cambodia), Artists, Director, Blue Art Centre

3:00pm Closing workshop by Cynthia Ong (Malaysia), Chief Executive Facilitator Forever Sabah Institute, LEAP

Curated by NTU CCA Singapore

Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director and Magdalena Magiera, Curator, Residencies and Programmes

Supported by

ASEAN Secretariat

ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund

Mission of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN

ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting for Culture and Arts

Programme support by Ministry of Culture and Fine Art, Cambodia

PROJECT PARTNERS

ASEAN FOUNDATION

Since the formation of ASEAN in 1967, ASEAN has embarked on a journey to accelerate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region. After three decades, ASEAN leaders recognised there remained inadequate shared prosperity, ASEAN awareness, and contact amongst the people of ASEAN. As a result, ASEAN leaders established the ASEAN Foundation during the ASEAN 30th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 15 December 1997.

KONNECT ASEAN

As the post-Cold War reality of a new world has taken shape and formed new directions and conversations, ASEAN has re-entered the contemporary art space via collaborative efforts between various ASEAN bodies. The Republic of Korea celebrated 30 years of diplomatic relations with ASEAN in 2019 and in the same year established KONNECT ASEAN, an ASEAN-Korea arts programme. Supported by the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund and administered by the ASEAN Foundation, KONNECT ASEAN signals both an eagerness by ASEAN to revitalise its once integral role in contemporary visual arts and Korea’s sincerity in establishing closer ties with ASEAN.

The programme celebrates Southeast Asian and Korean arts using different platforms (exhibitions, education and conferences, public programmes, residencies, and publications and archives) to explore and discuss social, political, economic, and environmental issues in the region. The artists’ works and activities engages and strengthen the public’s understanding of ASEAN’s role in facilitating cultural diplomacy. Furthermore, the programme intends to connect with the three major stakeholder groups of government, business, and civil society to achieve the vision of an ASEAN Community. Outcomes provide permanent resources recording why ASEAN matters and its ongoing contribution to the region’s growth, prosperity, and stability.

NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Medicine, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes—the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering—and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).

Under the NTU Smart Campus vision, the University harnesses the power of digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources. Ranked amongst the world’s top universities, the University’s main campus is also frequently listed among the world’s most beautiful. Known for its sustainability, over 95% of its building projects are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a medical campus in Novena, Singapore’s healthcare district. For more information, visit ntu.edu.sg.

NTU CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART SINGAPORE

Situated within Singapore’s premier art precinct Gillman Barracks, NTU CCA Singapore is a pioneering institution that has been instrumental in shaping the contemporary art landscape in Singapore and beyond. With a focus on fostering creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, the Centre’s programmes have consistently challenged the status quo, encouraging artists to explore new realms of artistic expression. For more information, visit ntu.ccasingapore.org.

Image: Climate Futures #1, Jakarta (Indonesia), 2022. Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore, Konnect ASEAN & ASEAN Foundation.

Course Details

Date: 10 September 2022, Saturday
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm
Venue: NTU CCA Singapore, Block 6 Lock Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934
Course Fee: $85.60 (incl. GST), per adult/child pair

For enquiries, please email ntuccaeducation@ntu.edu.sg

About The Course

At The End of the Course, You Will…

Target Audience

Parent/child groups where the children are 7 years old and above.

Since 2020, Joy Chee has been the resident bartender/gardener (or bardener, if you will) at Native, a Singaporean restaurant-bar focused on working with local and regional craftsmen and communities. Drawn to them for their ethos of sustainability and commitment to highlighting native produce, she has been working on rewilding the gardens with local kampung herbs and supporting the garden-to-table concept. When she’s not elbow-deep in compost, she can be found shaking up a cocktail or two at 52 Amoy Street.

From its first iteration in 2013, Free Jazz has pushed boundaries and expanded upon pressing concerns of our times. Free Jazz IV. Geomancers continues this approach, featuring artworks ranging from virtual reality to video, performance, and sound as an exercise in planetary awareness. The exhibition presents significant artistic practices from across the globe that are deeply invested in creating an environmental consciousness and that share an understanding of the world as a vulnerable, yet resilient, mesh of coexistences, correlations, and co-creations. As with geomancy, these artworks can help us to read the signs that our planet is trying to send us and that they can inspire a stronger commitment to create a sustainable future for life on Earth.

Alongside scientists, environmental activists, enlightened policy makers and civil society members, contemporary artists are increasingly concerned with future prospects of ecological collapse and planetary survival. They address these issues through the language of art, creating images, sounds, narratives, and experiences that allow us to establish affective and cognitive connections with the environment and partake in the planetary intelligence of the Earth. Stemming from NTU CCA Singapore’s ongoing engagement with the overarching subject of Climates.Habitats. Environments., Free Jazz IV. Geomancers brings together a selection of creative practitioners who are distinctly alert to these urgencies.

Conceived for Singapore Art Week 2022, this programme consists of a film screening series, a virtual reality installation, a performance and a sound installation. Some of the featured artworks zero in on signs of earthly demise, others indicate pathways of resilience and strategies for regeneration. All the works result from long-term research and extensive fieldwork and, when presented together, they engender a kaleidoscopic overview of the multitudinous forms of ecological entanglements.

Free Jazz IV. Geomancers is supported by National Arts Council Singapore and Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo De Li Galli. NTU CCA Singapore also wishes to thank our collaborators IHME Helsinki, and PUB Singapore’s National Water Agency at Marina Barrage.

Artists: Martha Atienza (Philippines), Ursula Biemann (Switzerland), Carolina Caycedo & David de Rozas (United Kingdom; Spain/United States), Chu Hao Pei (Singapore), Liu Chuang (China), Pedro Neves Marques (Portugal), Katie Paterson (Scotland), Rice Brewing Sisters Club (South Korea), Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (Spain/Brazil), Jana Winderen (Norway), Zarina Muhammad & Zachary Chan (Singapore), and Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore).

Free Jazz IV. Geomancers is supported by National Arts Council Singapore and Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo De Li Galli. NTU CCA Singapore also wishes to thank our collaborators Appetite, IHME Helsinki, and PUB Singapore’s National Water Agency at Marina Barrage.

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Against the developmental emphasis on order, cleanliness, and control, weeds are often singled out as plants that grow in the wrong place where they can flourish in spite of being unwanted. In their resistance against human impulses to control and manicure nature, weeds are regarded by the artist as a manifestation of the beauty and resilience of wilderness and chaos. By observing both the physiology and formal qualities of weeds, Chua plans to experiment with a variety of light-sensitive and other photographic techniques to capture their intricate beauty and frame their value for nature and society.

Artist-in-Residence Chua Chye Teck speaks to Dr Anna Lovecchio, Assistant Director, Programmes, in our fourth episode of AiRCAST. Follow Chye Teck’s stream of consciousness as he tells us about his journey with the medium of photography and his enduring fascination for fleeting forms and makeshift compositions. In recent years, Chye Teck is developing a more experimental attitude towards the image-making process creating works that respond to the specificity of a site, rather than to a subject matter, and reverberate with emotional vibrations. He has also become involved in several collaborations with other artists and he is cultivating a new fascination for cellphone images and the creative potential of readily available, off-the-shelf digital technologies.

The evocative and subtly layered works of Chua Chye Teck (b. 1974, Singapore) result from prolonged visual and experiential quests. His body of work draws attention to the discarded and the overlooked articulating a reflection on the multiple processes of disappearing that result from the impact of progress and development on the natural environment. His works have been exhibited in venues such as at Singapore Art Museum (2021), Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2020), Jendela Esplanade, Singapore (2018, 2015), Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore (2017), Chiang Mai University Art Centre, Thailand (2015), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2010).

Contributor: Chua Chye Teck
Conducted by: Anna Lovecchio
Programme Manager: Kristine Tan
Sound Engineer: Ashwin Menon (The Music Parlour)
Intro & Outro Music: Tini Aliman
Cover Image & Design: Arabelle Zhuang, Kristine Tan

[See Full Transcript]

With an investment in creative research that combines art, science, and technology, Irene Agrivina’s research project, A Perfect Marriage, investigates the symbiotic relationship between Azolla, an aquatic water fern, and Anabaena, a microscopic blue-green cyanobacterium. The two organisms have never been apart for 70 million years, co-evolving in complementary ways that allow them to be increasingly efficient. Besides ensuring their survival, other outcomes of this remarkably sustainable and mutually beneficial relationship involve the production of biofuel and textile dyes, the purification of water, and the reduction of global warming. During her residency, Agrivina aims to expand on her research and conduct experiments inspired by this unique symbiotic process using eco-friendly materials. A Perfect Marriage intends to emphasise the global importance of patterns of co-dependency and the potential of the photosynthesis process in connection with environmental issues.

Since the establishment of the first human settlements in the late 19th century, the ecosystem of Christmas Island—a small volcanic outcrop in the Indian Ocean which was transferred from Singapore to Australia in 1958—underwent dramatic changes. Along with human settlers, several non-indigenous species alighted on the island disrupting the endemic biodiversity that had thrived undisturbed thanks to geographical remoteness and almost nil human interference. The accidental introduction of invasive species severely impacted a fragile ecosystem, imperilling the island’s wildlife and causing the extinction of a number of native species. As a result, extreme biocontrol strategies are currently being undertaken in an attempt to restore the island’s biodiversity.

In the past two years, The Institute of Critical Zoologists has been researching the escalating chain of events brought about by the human presence on Christmas Island gathering a varied collection of research materials that merge factual and fictional elements. By surveying the impact of human beings on an endemic habitat, Final Report of the Christmas Island Expert Working Group maps out lines of invasion and retreat, it investigates dynamics of connectedness and isolation triggering reflections on states of vulnerability and conditions of survival in the age of globalisation.

Curated by Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Residencies

Currently, more than half of the world’s human population lives in urban areas. Urban growth poses challenges to the various city dwellers, and creates material demands that cause lasting damage to the wider environment. The climate crisis is already announcing threatening scenarios particularly for coastal regions and megacities located at coastlines. Global urbanisation and the exploitation of resources happen on the expense of human and other species alike. The Posthuman City features artists who propose a shift in perspective.

Taking NTU CCA Singapore’s overarching research topic Climates.Habitats.Environments. as point of departure, the exhibition The Posthuman City considers the possibilities of a conscious sharing of resources, and a respectful and mindful coexistence between humans and other species. Through imaginative propositions at the intersection of art, design, and architecture, the selected artists engage questions addressing issues of sustainability, water scarcity, invisible communities, nature as a form of culture, and suggest the implementation of lived indigenous knowledges. Examining the urban fabric in its condition as a habitat for a diversity of life forms, the featured works range from installations to time-based media.

Lucy + Jorge Orta, OrtaWater – Portable Water Fountain, 2005. Courtesy the artists.

Stressing the vital importance of clean water and the challenges of its scarcity around the world, the artist and design duo Lucy + Jorge Orta have developed a long-term project on water collection, purification, and distribution. OrtaWater focuses on the general issues surrounding clean water and the privatisation and corporate control effecting access to it. Starting from a rigorous analysis of this crucial resource through visual and textual research and collaborative workshops with engineers, Lucy + Jorge Orta create sculptures, large-scale installations, and public artworks, that are both artefacts and functional design. One angle of their research—low-cost water purification devices enabling filthy water to be pumped and filtered directly from local sources—is translated into Portable Water Fountain (2005) and Mobile Intervention Unit (2007). These devices have been used to purify and distribute water from the Venice’s Canal Grande (2005) and the Huang Pu River in Shanghai (2012), among others, and now from the creek that runs through Gillman Barracks.

Similarly combating water pollution, Irene Agrivina’s Soya C(o)u(l)ture is a mixed media installation that demonstrates how to transform wastewater from tofu and tempeh production into usable biomaterials, such as fuel, fertiliser, and leather-like fabrics. Soya C(o)u(l)ture was developed in collaboration with XXLab, an all-female transdisciplinary collective that Agrivina co-founded. Usually, large amounts of wastewater pollute the water in the rivers surrounding the plants, which in turn causes cholera and skin and bowel diseases in humans. Soya C(o)u(l)ture intends to divert this wastewater from tofu factories and put it in a homegrown starter culture medium to create useful products. A biological process using various bacteria and cell cultures, for instance Acetobacter xylinum, generates alternative energy sources, foodstuffs, and biological material. This process creates cellulose sheets that can either be used for consumption—nata de coco, a variant made of coconut water, is a popular snack food—or further processed (pressed, dried, enhanced with colouring and coating) to make clothing and craft materials. This biological procedure can be reproduced in any household using normal kitchen utensils in combination with open-source software and simple hardware. In this way, the project could provide women in poverty-stricken regions with opportunities to increase their income.

Pierre Huyghe, Untitled (Human Mask) (film still), 2014. Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Hauser & Wirth, London; Esther Schipper, Berlin; and Anna Lena Films, Paris.

Indigenous peoples of various territories around the world, with deep historical and cultural ties to their land, have preserved sustainable ways of living that respect the limits of the planet’s resources. The artist and architect Marjetica Potrč’s Earth Drawings refer to these unique indigenous cosmogonies and their essential knowledges, based on research done over the past 15 years, centred on indigenous communities, such as the Asháninkas (in the Brazilian state of Acre in Amazonia), the Aboriginal (in Australian), and the Sami (in northern Norway), The Earth Drawings, a series on paper, point to the growing alliances between indigenous groups and bottom-up initiatives in the effort to ensure a more resilient future, beyond the social and economic agreement of the neoliberal order. Potrč stresses that the world’s diverse societies, taken together, form an intelligent organism: when necessary, they self-generate new models of existence and coexistence—a precondition for human resilience on Earth. Sharing life experiences is, after all, a basic human condition. Coexistence on Earth requires new foundations that foreground collective ownership of the land and a socially-conscious individualism.

Animali Domestici, Bangkok Opportunistic Ecologies (detail), 2019. Courtesy the artists.

Planetary coexistence of species acknowledges the presence and agency of diverse forms of intelligence. The artist Nicholas Mangan is inspired by termites and their capacity to build sophisticated and dynamic architectures that provide a model for decentralised social and economic organisation. The starting point of Termite Economies (Phase 1) was the anecdote that Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) researched termite behaviour in the hope that the insects might one day lead humans to gold deposits; a proposal to exploit the natural activity of termite colonies for economic gain. Mangan, on the contrary, proposes that the termites’ way of living in colonies might suggest other complex and global-scale systems for people to live and work together, better regulating and metabolising human consumption, production, and digestion. Termite Economies combines footage Mangan filmed on locations in Western Australia, alongside archival video and table-mounted sculptures, to speculate on the use of termites as miners and ruminating on how capitalism puts nature to work. The 3D-printed models reference existing infrastructures, for instance an underground tunnelling system for Tindals Mining Centre, a gold mine in Western Australia. The idea was to produce a 1:100 scale model to train termites.

In Bangkok Opportunistic Ecologies, the design practice Animali Domestici studied the urbanity of Bangkok from a non-anthropocentric perspective, focusing on the presence of pythons. Mapping the city through a snake’s experience, the resulting tapestry puts multiple beings of different species at the centre, displacing the human from its exceptionalism. The graphic realisation is freely inspired by the representation techniques, colour palettes, and composition of Thai traditional mural paintings. Their work process translates research and statistics on the Thai capital into multiple encapsulated narratives, including such elements as sewerage, canals, water swamps, and rain water “cracked” pipes—typical spots used by snakes, according to fire department experts—, as well as folkloric cultural practices like the numerology and superstitions connected to the shape and location of the animals.

In Untitled (Human Mask), the artist Pierre Huyghe films a monkey, Fuku-chan, who in real life has a work permit as a “waitress” in a traditional sake house in Tokyo. In the film, the animal is wearing a dress and a wig, as well as a white, human-like mask created by Huyghe. Made of resin, the mask is inspired by traditional Japanese Noh theatre masks, where only the main actor wears a mask, meant to show the essential traits of the character. The film’s first images are drone shots of a devastated landscape, that of Fukushima in 2011, after the earthquake-triggered tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear plant reactors. It then shifts to an empty restaurant and house, where we follow Fuku-chan moving around in the dark. Fuku-chan is seen acting, and seems to be waiting, shaking her leg, looking at her nails, playing with her hair. A cat appears, and we see close-ups of insects and cockroaches. Raising questions about the essence of human nature and of non-human forms of intelligence and communication, the work points at the prevailing relationship of domination between humans and other species.

Ines Doujak, Ghostpopulations, 2016–19. Courtesy the artist.

Ghostpopulations, a series of collages by the artist Ines Doujak, combines ill human bodies with flora and fauna, transforming drawings from 19th-century medical textbooks into provocative assemblages that investigate desperation as an economic force. Doujak points out that entire populations uproot and flee in the direction of the faintest glimmer of hope, only to find themselves in the worst of predicaments: abandoned and deported, sold, abused or stigmatised forever, circulating as extremely cheap and disposable commodities. While she is giving visibility to such marginalised, abused, and displaced populations, these collages draw a dystopian mirage, reminding us of the pending threat of pandemic illnesses.

Death, from a post-humanist perspective, is not only inevitable and part of life, but is an event that is already in our past. The artist and entrepreneur Jae Rhim Lee developed a burial suit as an environmentally-conscious alternative to conventional funerary processes, shifting the negative narratives around death. The presented Infinity Burial Suit, a handcrafted garment that is worn by the deceased, is completely biodegradable, and co-created with zero waste fashion designer Daniel Silverstein. In addition, the Forever Spot Pet Shroud is featured, also consisting of a built in biomix of mushrooms and other microorganisms that together do three things: aid in decomposition, work to neutralise toxins found in dead bodies, and transfer nutrients to plant life, enriching the earth and fostering new life. Highlighting the importance of decompiculture—the cultivation of waste-decomposing organisms—, this project also suggests a strong link between human resistance to mortality and climate change denial. She advocates for a post-mortem responsibility towards the natural world and a direct engagement with our own mortality, making funerals new beginnings instead of endpoints, becoming more emotionally and socially accessible.

A parable on economic crashes, financial trading, mixed martial arts, and general contemporary culture, artist and writer Hito Steyerl’s large-scale architectural environment features Liquidity Inc., a single-screen projection that uses water and liquidity as guiding tropes. Opening with the quote “be water, my friend” by martial arts legend and actor Bruce Lee, the film comments on the circulation of digital images, big data, information, financial assets, labour, and weather systems. The installation consists of a double-sided projection screen in front of a blue, wave-like ramp, where the viewers find themselves in “troubled water.” Steyerl merges CGI and green screen scenes with an assortment of embedded videos, swipes, clips, scrolls, and pop-up windows, that include the story of Jacob Wood, a former financial analyst who lost his job during the 2008 economic recession and decided to turn his mixed martial arts hobby into a new career. The intricate mesh of late capitalism structures needs to be hijacked in order to allow space for new ecological and sustainable policies that value people and life over profit.

The Posthuman City, through artistic propositions, intends to open a discussion about the imbalanced relationship between an anthropocentric thinking that puts the human at the centre, and the fact that the urban environment is a habitat for many life forms. In her book The Posthuman (2013), Rosi Braidotti calls for resilience, stating that “sustainability does assume faith in a future, and also a sense of responsibility for ‘passing on’ to future generations a world that is liveable and worth living in. A present that endures is a sustainable model of the future.”

Curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Professor, NTU ADM, and Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Laura Miotto, Associate Professor, NTU ADM

The accompanying public programmes include seminars addressing techno-optimism and eco-hacktivism on 23 November 2019, and biodiver-city and urban futurism on 18 January 2020, deepening the discussion around posthumanism and the urban condition.

The mixed-media selection presented in The Vitrine stems from Railtrack Songmaps, a project exploring competing claims to nature and culture that resound along the former Malaysian railway tracks at Tanglin Halt. For at least five decades, birds, nature lovers, songbird clubs, tree shrines, kampung gardeners and foragers have roosted and seeded themselves along the tracks, nurturing a tangled patch of urban wild that is currently undergoing redevelopment. The particular constellation of elements on display – photographs, Malay pantuns, embroidery on paper, and delicate airborne assemblages of images, cut-outs and coconut sticks – weave in and out of memories of Lim Kim Seng, who together with his brother Lim Kim Chua, joined the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS) as teenager. Both are now senior members of the NSS Bird Group. Kim Seng assisted The Migrant Ecologies Project in the identification of 105 bird species around Tanglin Halt. In an accompanying soundtrack he recalls how an early encounter with a kingfisher first drew him into a bird zone.

The Migrant Ecologies Project was founded in 2010 by artist, art writer, and educator Lucy Davis. Investigating movements and migrations of nature and culture in Southeast Asia and beyond, the project unfolds through collaborations with sound artists, photographers, scientists, and designers.

Lucy Davis has been an Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore from April to June 2017.

Hito Steyerl is interested in the proliferation and circulation of images in our globalized world. She often works with the format of the video essay, combining a heterogeneous range of material, including interviews, found footage, fictional dramatizations, pop-music sound tracks, and first-person voiceovers. Her work focuses on the intersection of media technology, political violence, and desire by using humor, charm, and reduced gravity as political means of expression. Her sources range from appropriated low-fi clips and sounds to mostly misquoted philosophical fittings. These elements are condensed in rambling essayistic speculation in both text and imagery. Through her oversensitivity to analogies, Steyerl both collects and creates stories describing realities that are stranger than fiction and reflected upon in galloping thought experiments. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including documenta 12, Taipei Biennial 2010, and 7th Shanghai Biennial. Her written essays have proliferated more on- than offline in journals such as e-flux and eipcp. She has published filmic and written essays centred around questions of globalization, urbanism, racism and nationalism. She is also involved in the movement of feminist migrants and women of colour in Germany.

Steyerl teaches New Media Art at University of the Arts in Berlin. As well as being a visiting professor for Cultural and Gender Studies, at University of Arts, Berlin, she has lectured at Goldsmith’s College, London and at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, among other institutions. A collection of her essays was published in The Wretched of the Screen (2012).

Nicholas Mangan is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Melbourne. He is senior lecturer at Monash University. Through a practice bridging drawing, sculpture, film, and installation, Mangan creates politically astute and disconcerting assemblages that address some of the most galvanising issues of our time; the ongoing impacts of colonialism, humanity’s fraught relationship with the natural environment, and the complex and evolving dynamics of the global political economy. His recent solo exhibitions include Limits to Growth, Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne, the Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane, Kunst-Werke Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, Dowse Art Museum, Wellington (2016); Ancient Lights, Chisenhale Gallery, London, (2015); Some Kinds of Duration, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, (2012). His work has been included in major international exhibitions including Biennale of Sydney (2018); Let’s Talk About the Weather: Art and Ecology in A Time of Crisis, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou (2018); 74 million million million tons, Sculpture Center, New York (2018); The National 2017: new Australian art, AGNSW, Sydney (2017); 4.543 BILLION. The Matter of matter, CAPC, Bordeaux, (2017); New Museum Triennial: Surround Audience, New York (2015); 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre (2013); and the 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013).

Lucy + Jorge Orta are a French husband-wife art duo made up of Lucy Orta (b. United Kingdom, 1966) and Jorge Orta (b. Argentina, 1953). Their collaborative visual arts practice employs a diversity of media including drawing, sculpture and performance to realize major bodies of work that address key social and ecological challenges of our time. Amongst their most emblematic bodies of work are: Refuge Wear and Body Architecture, portable minimum habitats bridging architecture and dress; Nexus Architecture investigates alternative models of the social link; The Gift, the biomedical ethics of organ donation and the heart as a metaphor for life; HortiRecycling and 70 x 7 The Meal question the local and global food chain and rituals of community feasting; OrtaWater and Clouds reflect on water scarcity and the problems arising from its pollution and corporate control; Antarctica considers the effects of climate change on migration; and Amazonia explores interwoven ecosystems and their value to our natural environment.

Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artwork has been the focus of important survey exhibitions, including: the Argentine representation at the 46th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition, Italy (1995); The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice Biennale, Italy (2005); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland (2006); Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia and the Antarctic Peninsula (2007); Hangar Bicocca spazio d’arte, Milan, Italy (2008); Natural History Museum, London, UK (2010); MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome, Italy and Shanghai Biennale, China (2012); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2013); Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, USA and Parc de la Villette, Paris, France (2014); London Museum Ontario, Canada (2015); Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester and City Gallery and Museum, Peterborough, UK (2016); Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK (2017); Ikon Gallery Birmingham, UK (2018).

Jae Rhim Lee is a visual artist, designer, researcher as well as the founder and director of the Infinity Burial Project. From developing city-wide soil remediation plans for the City of New Orleans to teaching art and design at MIT and building recycling systems, furniture and wearables, Jae Rhim’s work spans multiple disciplines, including art and design, city planning, psychology, and science. JR has lectured about and exhibited her work internationally and is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the Creative Capital Foundation, MIT, the MAK Center for Art +Architecture, and the Universitate der Kunste Berlin. She is a TED Fellow and Lecturer and Fellow at the ‘d.School’ (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) at Stanford University.

Pierre Huyghe attended the École Supérieure d’Arts Graphiques (1981–82) and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (1982–85). Based in New York, he is the Artistic Director of Okayama Art Summit 2019. In the 1990s, Huyghe emerged as part of a wave of second generation Conceptualists known for their relational aesthetics approach towards art. Throughout his career, he has been involved in multimedia collaborations with other artists. His works, which seek a high degree of control over the viewer’s experience, often present themselves as complex systems characterised by a wide range of life forms, inanimate things, and technologies. His constructed organisms combine not only biological, technological, and fictional elements, they also produce an immersive, constantly changing environment, in which humans, animals, and nonbeings learn, evolve, and grow. In 2001, he received a Special Award from the Jury of the Venice Biennale and in 2002, he was awarded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Prize. His recent projects/exhibitions include UUmwelt at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2018); Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017); The Roof Garden Commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015); a touring solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and other museums (2013–14); and Documenta 13 (2012).

Ines Doujak is an artist, researcher, and writer, who teaches in the areas of visual culture and material aesthetics with a queer-feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial focus. Doujak received two research grants from the Austrian Science Fund: Loomshuttles, Warpaths (2010–18), a study of textiles to investigate their global history characterised by cultural, class, and gender conflict; and Utopian Pulse: Flares in the Darkroom (2013–15). She studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (1988–93). Selected exhibitions include Actually, the Dead are not Dead, Bergen Assembly (2019); Possibilities for an Non-Alienated Life, Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2018); A Beast, a God, and a Line, Dhaka Art Summit, Para Site, Hong Kong, TS1 Yangon, and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); Arte para pensar la nueva razón del mundo, Muntref, Buenos Aires (2017); The Conundrum of Imagination, Leopold Museum, Vienna (2017); Not Dressed for Conquering, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2016); The Beast and the Sovereign, MACBA, Barcelona (2015); Ape Culture, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2015); The School of Kyiv, Kyiv Biennial (2015); Universes in Universe, São Paulo Biennial (2014); Garden of Learning, Busan Biennale (2012); The Potosi Principle, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010); and Documenta 12, Kassel (2007).

Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect. Her work includes drawing, architectural case studies, and public art projects. Since 2011, she leads a class of participatory practice, Design for the Living World, at the University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg, Germany. In Potrč’s view, the sustainable solutions that are implemented and disseminated by communities serve to empower these communities and help create a democracy built from below. Potrč has received numerous awards, including the Hugo Boss Prize (2000) and the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics Fellowship (2007) at The New School in New York, United States.

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is embarking on an inquiry into natural materials, exploring the knowledge they embody as biological forms as well as within social, geopolitical, and historical contexts.Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material is part of the Centre’s long-term research cluster Climates.Habitats.Environments.

This exhibition focuses on materials from four plants deeply rooted in Asia: indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), lacquer (Rhus succedanea and Melanorrhoea usitata), rattan (Calamoideae), and mulberry (Morus). The works trace the ongoing involvement with these plants in the artistic practices of Manish Nai (India) with indigo, Phi Phi Oanh (United States/Vietnam) with lacquer, Sopheap Pich (Cambodia) with rattan, and Liang Shaoji (China) and Vivian Xu (China) with mulberry silk. While the featured installations serve as a starting point to uncover the materiality of the chosen plants, the study of their natural and cultural DNA allows further exploration into their biological processes and diverse usages at their locale.

The artworks intertwine with selected research documents that address the complex histories and circulation, as well as the effects of human intervention on these natural resources. Starting from the properties and characteristics of the materials themselves, the project expands into their cultural representation and significance for communities and their crafts.

The longstanding social and cultural practices associated with indigo, lacquer, rattan, and mulberry silk have accumulated a vast repository of knowledge, whether formal or tacit. Beyond the format of the exhibition, topical seminars will be dedicated to each of the four materials, further investigating their social applications over centuries in terms of their materiality, cultural references, or expanded ecology, and as arising from technological advancements. The lectures, panels, talks, and workshops feature the participating artists, as well as craftsmen, scientists, ethnobotanists, anthropologists, scholars, and designers who are working with these materials and researching innovative applications. From the diverse perspectives offered by the contributors, the public programme excavates layers of meanings and reiterates the deeper role art and craft traditions have in supporting local communities and their ecosystems.

Topical seminars take place between 21 July and 8 September 2018.

On Lacquer: 21, 22 July

On Rattan: 25, 26 August

On Indigo: 4, 19 August, and 1 September

On Mulberry: 8 September

The project Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material is led by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media (ADM); Laura Miotto, Associate Professor and Co-director, MA Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, NTU ADM; and Khim Ong, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore.

Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material public programmes

The NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is honoured to present They Come to Us without a Word, video and performance pioneer Joan Jonas’ first large-scale exhibition in Singapore and Southeast Asia. They Come to Us without a Word was organised for the U.S. Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and co-curated by Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. With this exhibition Jonas evokes the fragility of nature, using her own poetic language to address the irreversible impact of human interference on the environmental equilibrium of our planet.

Acknowledgements They Come to Us without a Word was organised for the U.S. Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and co-curated by Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. The exhibition was generously supported by U.S. Department of State, Cynthia and John Reed, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Additional major support was provided by the Council for the Arts at MIT, Toby Devan Lewis, VIA Art Fund, Agnes Gund, Lambent Foundation.

The exhibition in Singapore is organised by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Nanyang Technological University with support by the Economic Development Board, Singapore. Additional support has also been provided by the U.S. Embassy Singapore.

Joan Jonas: They Come to Us Without a Word public programmes

NTU CCA Singapore is pleased to present the pioneering and visionary work of artist Tomás Saraceno for the first time in Southeast Asia. Situated at the intersection between art, architecture and science, Saraceno’s artistic practice is an articulation of a utopian vision for new forms of sustainable living and cohabitation.

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions at NTU CCA Singapore is a new production by Tomás Saraceno commissioned by the centre that brings his long-term research on spider webs into the realm of sound. The artist uses spider webs as musical instruments embodying the incredible structural properties of the spider’s silk, but also the spider’s sophisticated mode of communication through vibrations.

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions is a pioneering investigation by Saraceno and his studio in Berlin that involves a range of collaborators from various universities and disciplines. The exhibition space is turned into an interactive sound and visual installation, a process-driven laboratory for experimentation that pushes the boundaries of interspecies communication.

As an extension of the exhibition, a dedicated website (www.arachnidorchestra.org) will operate as a research platform and playful hypertext of musical tuning.

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions public programmes

Animali Domestici (Antonio Bernacchi and Alicia Lazzaroni) is a duo and design practice based in Bangkok. They focus on the development of experimental and speculative projects, products and processes, beyond the dichotomies of culture and nature, ‘infra-ordinary’ and ‘ab-normal’, human and non-human.
With admittedly fragmented and heterogeneous sources of inspiration, they are interested in post-anthropocentric spaces, subjects and materialities, in human and animal behavior, vernacular crafts and traditions, popular tastes and everyday life references, rendered ‘lifestyles’ and marketing strategies. Animali Domestici is also intensively involved in teaching and research and have been coordinating the International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA) at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Hồng-Ân Trương (United States) is an artist and Associate Professor of Art, and Director of Graduate Studies in the MFA Programme at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hito Steyerl is a German filmmaker, artist and writer whose work explores the complexities of the digital world, art, capitalism, and the implications of Artificial Intelligence for society. Steyerl studied cinematography and documentary filmmaking at the Academy of Visual Arts in Tokyo, the University of Television and Film in Munich, and holds a Ph.D in philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. The most formative parts of her education, however, include working as a stunt-girl and bouncer.
Hito Steyerl is interested in the proliferation and circulation of images in our globalized world. She often works with the format of the video essay, combining a heterogeneous range of material, including interviews, found footage, fictional dramatizations, pop-music sound tracks, and first-person voiceovers. Her work focuses on the intersection of media technology, political violence, and desire by using humor, charm, and reduced gravity as political means of expression. Her sources range from appropriated low-fi clips and sounds to mostly misquoted philosophical fittings. These elements are condensed in rambling essayistic speculation in both text and imagery. Through her oversensitivity to analogies, Steyerl both collects and creates stories describing realities that are stranger than fiction and reflected upon in galloping thought experiments. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including documenta 12, Taipei Biennial 2010, and 7th Shanghai Biennial. Her written essays have proliferated more on- than offline in journals such as e-flux and eipcp. She has published filmic and written essays centred around questions of globalization, urbanism, racism and nationalism. She is also involved in the movement of feminist migrants and women of colour in Germany.
Steyerl teaches New Media Art at University of the Arts in Berlin. As well as being a visiting professor for Cultural and Gender Studies, at University of Arts, Berlin, she has lectured at Goldsmith’s College, London and at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, among other institutions. A collection of her essays was published in The Wretched of the Screen (2012).

Jason Farago (United States) is an art critic for the New York Times. He reviews exhibitions in New York and abroad, with a focus on global approaches to art history. From 2015 to 2018 he edited Even, an art magazine he co-founded, whose ten issues are collected in the anthology Out of Practice. He has also been a regular contributor to the Guardian, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Artforum, and Frieze. Farago studied art history at Yale University and at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In 2017 he was awarded the inaugural Rabkin Prize for art criticism.

Michelle Lai (Singapore) is an urban farmer and forager, who spends her time tinkering with food experiments at Native, a cocktail bar in Singapore. Interested in issues related to the local agricultural and food system, she explores community-driven innovation and community engagement practices, forming symbiotic relationships through everyday participation, research, and dialogue. Lai is also part of TANAH, an interdisciplinary collective that playfully questions urban living via site-specific interventions within and around the city.

Philippe Pirotte is Rector of Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, and Director of Portikus, Frankfurt, and Visiting Professor (2018/19) of MA Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, School of Art, Design and Media, NTU.

Sarah Ichioka (United States/United Kingdom/Singapore) is an urbanist, curator and writer, currently leading Desire Lines, a strategic consultancy for environmental, cultural, and social-impact organisations and initiatives. In previous roles, she has explored the intersections of cities, society, and ecology within leading international institutions of culture, policy, and research. Ichioka’s outlook is glocal, interdisciplinary, and future-facing. She has been recognised as a World Cities Summit Young Leader, one of the Global Public Interest Design 100, a British Council/ Clore Duffield Cultural Leadership International Fellow, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Ursula Biemann is an artist, writer, and video essayist who investigates global relations under the impact of the accelerated mobility of people, resources, and information. Her works explore space and mobility, and more recently ecology, oil, and water. Her video installations have been exhibited in museums and international art biennials worldwide. She received a doctor honoris causa in Humanities by the Umeå University, Sweden, and the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the national art award of Switzerland. She has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York (1988). Biemann’s research is currently based at the Zurich University for the Arts.

Yun Hye Hwang (South Korea/Singapore) is an accredited landscape architect in Singapore, and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the School of Design and Environment, NUS, currently serving as Programme Director of the Bachelor’s programme. She holds two Master’s degrees in landscape architecture, one from Seoul National University in Korea and another from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Her research, teaching, and professional activities speculate on emerging demands in fast-growing Asian cities by exploring ecological design and management versus manicured greenery and the multifunctional role of everyday landscapes. She focuses on transferring knowledge of urban ecology from academia to practice through active interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations.

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