The Making Of An Institution

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.

Dr Anna Lovecchio (Italy/Singapore) is a curator committed to foster the processes of artistic research and create platforms for the production and circulation of knowledge, critical discourse, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Since 2016, she works at the NTU CCA Singapore where she has developed a broad range of programmes, including residencies, exhibitions, publications, and a podcast. Previously, she was Junior Curator at Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa, Italy where she has worked on exhibitions by Tomás Saraceno, Tony Conrad, Susan Philipsz, Pino Pascali, Julieta Aranda, and Zhang Enli, amongst others. She was Executive Editor of the art journal Around Photography International from 2007 to 2008. She holds a PhD in the history of contemporary art from the University of Bologna, Italy, and an MA in Contemporary Art and Museum Studies from Tufts University, Boston, United States.

Anca Rujoiu is a curator and editor based in Singapore. As curator for exhibitions and later head of publications (2013–2018), she was part of the founding team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. In 2019, she was the co-curator of the third edition of the Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara, approached as a one-year institutional programme. Whether working in a contemporary art centre, an independent space, an art school, or in the context of a biennial, she has been passionate about stretching art’s publicness, working across formats. First-Person Institutions, her PhD research at Monash University in Melbourne is focused on institution building, artists’ archives, and transnational imaginaries.

As artist and musician, bani haykal (Singapore, b. 1985) experiments with language, sound, and fiction. His work revolves around human-machine relationships/intimacies, and cultural identity formations reflecting critically on how language, tools and technologies have shaped and continue to shape our life experiences. From interfaces to interactions, from fictions to frictions, from commuting to communicating, the creative output of his research often involves the creation of DIY tools and it encompasses site-responsive installations, poetry, and performance as well as publications and music releases. 

Koh Nguang How is an artist and independent researcher on Singaporean contemporary art. Between July 2014 and January 2015, Koh was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore. As part of his residency, he presented to the public his long-term artistic endeavour, Singapore Art Archive Project (SAAP). For more than 30 years, Koh has been documenting the local art scene, gathering an impressive collection of printed matters ranging from exhibition flyers, catalogues, newspapers, as well as photographs and audio recordings produced by the artist himself.

Kray Chen is an artist. His practice brings attention to the peculiar characteristics of forms, gestures, and behaviours in society to discuss the value of progress. Between April and August 2016, Chen was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where he developed a Feng Shui survey of his residency studio and the larger Gillman Barracks precinct, with the aim to enliven and invigorate a site of art that is aiming to establish itself as a vibrant cultural hub.

Ho Rui An (b. 1990, Singapore) is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. His work investigates the emergence, transmission and disappearance of images within contexts of globalism and governance. Working primarily across the mediums of lecture, essay and film, his recent research considers questions surrounding liberal hospitality, participatory democracy and speculative futures.He has presented projects both locally and internationally, gaining attention for his discursively compelling performances that sift through historical archives and contemporary visual culture to probe into the shifting relations between image and power. Ho has presented work at Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Australia (2016); Hessel Museum of Art and CCS Bard Galleries, United States (2015); LUMA/Westbau, Switzerland (2015); Para Site, Hong Kong (2015); Witte de With, The Netherlands (2014); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2014); and Serpentine Galleries, United Kingdom (2013), among others.

Ho was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, between September 2016 and January 2017, where he continued his research into the aesthetics of “futurecraft” and “horizon scanning” programmes run by state and private entities in Singapore and beyond. He also contributed to NTU CCA Singapore’s public programming in January 2015 when he conducted an Exhibition (de)Tour as part of Yang Fudong’s exhibition, Incidental Scripts.

Zulkifle Mahmod is a sound-media artist. Formally trained in sculpture, Zulkifle has expanded his practice to include sculpted sound and live sound performances. Zulkifle’s practice investigates the audible attributes of physical space to explore the emotional responses of its inhabitants. Zul is one of the participants for the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy for the Singapore Pavillion in 2007 along with three other artists. Zul‚ practice signals an encompassing and expanded visual arts sensory experience.

Between February and June 2016, Zulkifle was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he explored the aural relationship between ready-made sound sculptures, and the architecture of space, and examined the sonic characteristics, forms, and textures of everyday objects.

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.

Jason Wee lives and works in Singapore and New York. His practice is concerned with hollowing out singular authority in favour of polyphony. He transforms singular histories and spaces into various visual and written materials, with particular attention to architecture, idealism, and unexplored futures. Wee is the founder and director of Grey Projects, an artists’ space, library, and residency programme that focuses on emerging artists, experimental curatorial practices, new forms of writing, and design propositions. He is editor of the poetry journal Softblow.

His work has been included in group shows at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York, United States; Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore. He has been Artist-in-Residence at Artspace, Sydney, Australia; Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo, Japan; Gyeonggi Creation Center, Ansan-si, South Korea. He received the 2008 Young Artist Award for visual arts in Singapore and has been Studio Fellow in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Between October 2016 and January 2017, Wee was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where he continued his research interest in the cycle of redevelopment that is endemic to the life of Asian global cities.

Mona Vătămanu (b. 1968, Romania) and Florin Tudor (b. 1974, Swtizerland) have worked together since 2000. Their artistic practice spans diverse media including film, photography, painting, performance, and site-specific projects. Vatamanu and Tudor’s broad-reaching practice has positioned them among the most compelling and literate interpreters of our contemporary post-communist condition, which extends far beyond their native Romania. Widely shown in Europe, Vatamanu and Tudor’s artistic practice involves bringing history into the present tense, whether in the form of performative re-enactment or symbolic recuperation. A deep interest in architecture as a repository of both personal and collective memory and as a mark of communist power underlies many of their projects.

Bo Wang is an artist, filmmaker, and faculty member at Visual and Critical Studies, School of Visual Arts, New York. Wang’s work depicts provocative portraits of China, presenting contradictions in its cultural identity, changing urban spaces, and power structures. Wang was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, between August and September 2016, where he studied the role of sand in Singapore, tracing its physical circulation as a fundamental element for the state’s development but also its symbolic role in the cultural sphere.

Anocha Suwichakornpong is an independent film director, screenwriter, and producer. Suwichakornpong’s filmic research is on Thai history within Southeast Asia, in particular the Thai politics and student movements of the 1970s. Between September and November 2014, Suwichakornpong was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where she worked on Nightfall (2016), a short video essay exploring the relationship between Thailand and Singapore, harking back to 1871 when King Rama V—the first monarch in Thai history to visit a foreign country, Singapore, donated as a token of appreciation a bronze statue of an elephant; and a multiplatform project on the Golden Mile Complex, the most popular gathering place of the Thai community in Singapore.

Jegan Vincent de Paul is an artistic researcher with an interest in large-scale technopolitical phenomenon with a focus on physical infrastructures. He received his Ph.D in Art, Design and Media from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2021. His doctoral thesis Infrastructure, Narrative, Impact: A Counter-Reading of Belt and Road uses art as a research methodology to show how “the Belt and Road” is a rhizomatic global narrative constructed in the process of interpretation and analysis. He has worked internationally as a researcher and designer and was a visiting scholar and lecturer at the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (2010–12). He has exhibited at the 4th ZERO1 Biennial in San Jose, California, Space in Kingston, Jamaica and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore. Vincent de Paul holds a Master of Architecture from University of Toronto and a Master of Science in Visual Studies from MIT. 

Dinu Bodiciu is a fashion and accessories designer currently teaching Fashion Design in Singapore at LASALLE College of the Arts. His designs are conceptualised as extensions of the human body, tackling aspects situated at the border between dress and skin. His projects include collaborations with Lady Gaga, Hunger Games ep3&4, KCPK, while his designs have been featured in various fashion and design magazines and specialist books published around the world.

Tamara Weber is an artist. She explores formal questions (light, space, figuration, portraiture, temporality) and the possibilities of multidisciplinary collaboration. Between October and December 2016, Weber was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore. As part of her residency, she produced the unbound book Close Readings that features a series of photographic reinterpretations of the iconic hotel PARKROYAL on Pickering in Singapore, designed by WOHA, an impressive building that merges the rigorousness of abstraction and unruliness of tropical greenery.

The artistic practice of Arin Rungjang (b. 1974, Thailand) is deeply intertwined with Southeast Asian histories, symbols, memories and addresses the ways in which social and economic transformations affect individuals‚ lives. Exploring power relations embedded in traditional practices and daily objects, he creates works that stand on the threshold between the public and the private and recast collective histories through personal narratives. Regarded as a pioneer of installation art in Thailand, his work spans across different media and often engage collaborative practice. Arin Rungjang has recently received a solo exhibition at the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok, Thailand (2015). He has participated to the 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2012), the Bandung Pavilion at the Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China (2012) and the Asia Triennial, Manchester, United Kingdom (2011). He represented Thailand at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2015).

Between October and November 2016, Rungjang was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he focused on unofficial stories that circulate by word of mouth while connecting them to the politics of governance and notions of historical truth. During his residency, Rungjang conducted an interview with Johnston, who offered a poignant account of the difficulties of growing up as an albino man in Singapore. Based on an agreement with him, the artist decided to limit the work to a fully washed-out still from the recording, a symbolic indication of how such narratives circulate at the margins of visibility.

Otty Widasari is an artist and co-founder of Forum Lenteng, a community-development project that uses video, photography, and texts as tools to unveil sociocultural problems. Since 2002, she has produced documentary films for non-profit organisations. Widasari was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, between October and November 2015, where she continued to work on the video work Fiksi (Fiction) that includes footage of the diorama section at the National Monument, Jakarta, drawing attention to state-driven efforts to establish historical truths in the collective memory of a nation.

Loo Zihan is an artist. His work emphasises the malleability of memory through various representational strategies, from performance re-enactments to essay films. Between June and September 2016, Loo was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where he continued his research into The Ray Langenbach Archive of Performance Art (which documents over 20 years of performance art in Southeast Asia), and developed I am LGB (a participatory performance commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts) that highlights the fragile relation between education and control.

Jeremy Sharma is a visual artist and Lecturer for Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. His practice addresses our present relationship to modernity and interconnectivity in an increasingly fragmented and artificial reality. Sharma was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore between May and July 2015. During his residency, Sharma focused on the idea of “vertical progression,” observing the logic of production, from the act of making to the moment of display. This research consolidated into the video work Vertical Progression (2016) that spans across two years, revealing the network of collaborators, scientists, fabricators, movers, and collectors involved in the process.

anGie seah’s multidisciplinary practice traverses the mediums of drawing, sculpture, performance art, installation, sound and video. Seah allows spontaneity and intuition to navigate a range of shifting emotional resonances and psychological states. Experimenting with articulations of spoken language, she searches for authentic expression and primal beauty. For more than a decade, she has been working with diverse communities on participatory projects. Since 1997 anGie has exhibited widely including at ZKM Centre for New Media, Germany; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and the Palais de Tokyo, France; as well as at NTU CCA Singapore and the Singapore Biennale.

SHIMURAbros are a brother/sister artist duo composed of Yuka (b. 1976, Japan) and Kentaro Shimura (b. 1979, Japan). Since 2014, they have been working as researchers at the Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, Germany. Film is a catalyst for their works wherein the equilibrium between light and matter and the material representation of film become a focal point. Between November and December 2016, SHIMURAbros were Artists-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore. During the residency, the duo continued their investigations on the archaeology of film and its structural components, focusing on light as the power source in the cinematic process and the essential condition for seeing.

Weixin Chong‚ (b. 1988, Singapore) work is drawn from fascination with the stylisation of natural elements, digital and organic memory systems and the relationship between surface and perceived superficiality. She sees these concerns as material metaphors for human social relationships and the psychology behind the structures and projections of power, value and desire.

Through printed surfaces and objects, she looks at the constant construction of imposed and composed realities,and reproductions that replace and represent. Interactions of the digital and the organic, and the effects and methods of reproducing and manipulating images across materials, are core to her practice.

Joan Jonas is one of the most significant video and performance artists and important female artists active in the 1960s and 1970s. She pioneered the use of the two genres in visual art and was influential also in other art forms. Incorporating different media, she presents multiple viewpoints and layers of material, texture, and meanings in her work to address current issues. In 1972, she began producing video works that were ground-breaking in emphasising the experience of the medium as a conceptual device and is known for merging various genres in her fragmented video narratives.

Renée Staal is the chief librarian of The Library of Unread Books, a project managed in collaboration with artist Heman Chong.

Ato Malinda (b. 1981, Kenya) lives and works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

She has a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) from Transart Institute, New York. Her diverse practice consists of performance, drawing, painting, installation, video, and ceramic object-making, through which she investigates the hybrid nature of African identity, contesting notions of authenticity and issues of colonialism, trade, race, gender and sexuality.

Malinda was recently the winner of the first Annual African Art Award from the Smithsonian Institution (2016) and was one of the awardees of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2015). She has exhibited extensively participating in exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Denmark (2015) and the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2014) among others.

James Jack is an artist and Assistant Professor of Visual Art, Yale-NUS College, Singapore. His practice is concerned with rejuvenating fragile connections that exist in the world, making artworks in direct relationship to a place and the people that live there. Between February and April 2015, Jack was Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore, where he expanded his artistic research on the project Stories of Khayalan Island (2013–ongoing).