CITIES FOR PEOPLE NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/7

Ute Meta Bauer is a Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU). She is currently the Acting Director and Principal Research Fellow at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore); and is the Chair of the Masters in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices (MA MSCP) programme. Having served as the Founding Director of NTU CCA Singapore for over a decade, her work as educator and curator over the past years has focused on Climates. Habitats. Environments. At the Centre, she curated and co-curated The Oceanic (2017/2018), Trees of Life. Knowledge in Material (2018), and The Posthuman City (2020). In 2022, she served as curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, featuring artist Shubigi Rao. Her recent large scale projects include the 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022), co-curated alongside David Teh and Amar Kanwar, and the artistic direction of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024. She is a Trustee of the Art Foundation TBA21 and a member of the Governing Council of n.b.k. Berlin. Bauer was recently conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Art and Design by Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland.

Laura Anderson Barbata, born in Mexico City, is a transdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992, she has worked primarily in the social realm, and has initiated projects in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Barbata is also known for her project Transcommunality (2001–ongoing), working with stilt walkers, artists, and artisans from Mexico, New York, and the Caribbean. This project has been presented at various museums, schools, and other venues in the US, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Singapore. Her work is in various private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; El Museo de Arte Moderno, México D.F.; Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California; Museo Jaureguía, Navarra, Spain, and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Austria. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Sculpture Today, Kunstforum Germany, ARTnews, Art in America, ArtNexus, and 160 Años de Fotografía en México (INBA).

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).

Lulu Lutfi Labibi studied textile craft in Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta (ISI Yogyakarta). In 2012, LULU LUTFI LABIBI was launched: a ready-to-wear fashion label that promotes the use of Indonesian traditional textiles such as lurik, tenun, and batik in a more up-to-date look. The technique of drapery became its own identity by forming the fabric directly onto the mannequin or living model, without creating many patterns. Apart from presenting his works at various local and international festivals, Lulu Lutfi Labibi collaborated with artists indieguerillas to present Petruk Jadi Supermodel at Artjog 2015, and with art collective Piramida Gerilya to present Warung Murakabi at Artjog 2019.

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.

indieguerillas, founded in 1999, is a duet of artists from Yogyakarta, Indonesia. They are the couple Santi Ariestyowanti (b. 1977, Semarang) and Dyatmiko “Miko” Bawono (b. 1975, Kudus). The former has a background in visual communication design and the latter in interior design. Both are alumni of the Faculty of Art of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta (ISI Yogyakarta). In addition to their being known for their interest in folklore, indieguerillas are also recognised for their proficiency in visual effects and inter-media experimentation in their works.

Ari Wulu is a solo electronic music performer also known as midiJUNKIE or WVLV. He has been actively creating arrangements and performing since 1998, and his works have been presented at various events and festivals in Indonesia. Apart from his audio works, he is also the Program Director of SoundBoutique (2005–present), and Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival (2009–present), and was a member of the board of directors of Yogyakarta Art Festival (2013–18). Together with his collective, Jogjakarta Video Mapping Project (also known as JVMP, 2013–present), Ari Wulu organises SUMONAR, an annual video projection and interactive art festival in Yogyakarta (since 2018).

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.

Edible Garden City (Singapore) is dedicated to the “Grow Your Own Food” movement in land-scarce and import-dependent Singapore, advocating the use of under-utilised urban spaces such as rooftops and sidewalks for growing food. With more than 15 years of farming and construction experience, Edible Garden City designs, builds, and maintains food gardens in tropical urban Singapore, using sustainable growing methods, resource recycling, and waste minimisation.

Foodscape Collective (Singapore) is a community centred on growing food well, cooking well, eating well and living well. Some are growing food, some choose to cook and eat better meals, others bring food to where it is needed, tackle surplus food or food waste issues, or simply want to tell the stories of our foodscape better. The community at Foodscape Collective envisions to grow and foster compassionate and resilient networks integral to our local food ecosystem, and explore better approaches to food and sustainability. They believe that the future needs better agro-ecological systems; better use, selection, and dissemination of information; and a more inquisitive, adventurous spirit in everyone to ask better questions on our foodscape(s).

Dan Susman is a writer, director and editor. Dan Susman with producer Jess Gormley at the Lovie Awards.

Misso Russell Keith (Singapore) is Head Chef of Open Farm Community, where he works closely with urban farmers and talented chefs to create locally sourced, seasonal, and innovative dishes. He has more than a decade of experience working in Singapore’s top luxury hotels and most celebrated restaurants, including three Michelin-starred Joël Robuchon Restaurant, Pollen, and Tippling Club.

Dan Susman is a writer, director and editor. Dan Susman with producer Jess Gormley at the Lovie Awards.

Victoria Marshall is the founder of Till Design (tilldesign.com). She is currently a President’s Fellow at the National University of Singapore, where she is pursuing a PhD in Geography. Marshall is also an Urban-Rural Systems researcher at the ETH Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore.

Brooklyn Jumbies Inc. (United States), founded by Ali Sylvester and Najja Codrington, is an organisation with the purpose of heightening cultural awareness of African and African-Caribbean culture. Performing stilt dancing, one of the numerous cultural elements of the African and Caribbean diaspora, their goal is to help revive knowledge, respect, and pride in these traditions. Since 2007, the Brooklyn Jumbies have worked closely with Laura Anderson Barbata, presenting outreach projects in Mexico and the United States, also collaborating with los Zancudos de Zaachila, traditional stilt dancers from Oaxaca. With Barbata they have performed in various museums. Among their most significant performances are Intervention: Wall Street, in the Financial District of New York (2011); and Intervention: Indigo, Brooklyn, New York, and The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (2015). Publications include Transcommunality. Interventions And Collaborations With Stilt Dancing Communities (2013).