Speakers’ Corner

Zac Langdon-Pole’s work is underpinned by questions of belonging, translation, and identification. He has worked in a variety of media, including sculpture, performance, photography, film, textiles, poetry, installation, and using the work of other artists, to explore processes of montage, transposition, travelling, reinterpretation, collaboration, and appropriation. He is the latest recipient of the BMW Art Journey Prize (2018), was awarded the Ars Viva Prize for Visual Arts in Germany (2017), and received the Charlotte Prinz Stipendium in Darmstadt (2016). Langdon-Pole completed a BFA (Hons) at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland (2010) and at the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt (2016). Recent exhibitions include scions, Kunsthalle Darmstadt (2018); Ars Viva, S.M.A.K., Ghent (2018), and Kunstverein Munich (2017–18); Discoveries, Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 (presented by Michael Lett Gallery); emic etic, Between Bridges, Berlin (2018); Trappings, Station Gallery, Melbourne (2017); La Biennale de Montréal (2016–17); and Oratory Index, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland (2016). Between March and April 2016, Langdon-Pole was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he developed further his work My body … (Brendan Pole) (2015), a text based upon the memory of a poem that was only ever conveyed orally to the artist’s mother by her brother shortly before he died of AIDS complications.

Heman Chong is an artist, curator, and writer. His work interrogates the many functions of the production of narratives in our everyday lives. Between September 2016 and February 2017, Chong was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where, together with Renée Staal, he launched the long-term project The Library of Unread Books—a reference library made up of donated books that are unread by their previous owners. For the duration of his residency, The Library was open to public every Friday, from 12.00 pm to 12.00 am, in the artist’s studio space.

Charles Lim (b. 1973, Singapore) sees Singapore like no other artist. As a former professional sailor, his senses are keenly attuned to environments we rarely see and to forces most of us do not even notice. His early collaborative project, tsunamii.net, which participated in dOCUMENTA 11 (2002) traced the hidden submarine infrastructure that underpins our global computer networks. After sailing for Singapore in the 1996 Olympics, Lim studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, London, graduating in 2001. His SEA STATE series is an ongoing body of work that has been exhibited at the Dojima River Biennale, Osaka, Japan (2013); Lyon Biennial Rendez-Vous 13 at the Institut d’art contemporain Villeurbanne, France (2013); the Singapore Biennale (2011); Manifesta 7, Trentino-South Tyrol, Italy (2008); Shanghai Biennale (2008). Lim’s moving image works have been screened in international film festivals at Rotterdam, Tribeca and Edinburgh. His multi-award-winning short film, All The Lines Flow Out, premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival, winning a Special Mention, the first award ever won there by a Singaporean production.

Yang Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing and now lives and works in Shanghai. Working primarily in photography and film, Yang’s works are filled with psychological and existential questions. Yang’s work has been shown at many international exhibitions including: Documenta XI, Germany, 2002; the Shanghai Biennale, China, 2002; the Carnegie International, United States, 2005; the Asia Pacific Triennial, Australia, 2006; and the Venice Biennale, 2007.