Reflection of urban environment in murky water.

Panos Aprahamian, More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water, 2025, film still. Courtesy the artist.

Screening
 

Panos Aprahamian
Recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024

More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water
single channel, colour, sound, approx. 20min, 2025

Panos Aprahamian
More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water

Thursday, 11 September 2025 - Saturday, 27 September 2025 · 1:00 - 7:00 PM

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore is pleased to premiere the latest work of Panos Aprahamian, recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024 which enabled the creation of this work. 

The final instalment of Aprahamian’s unplanned “Karantina Trilogy”, More Spilled Blood Than Drinkable Water (2025), takes place, like two previous works, in Karantina, a former quarantine district in northeastern Beirut bordered by the Beirut River. One of the most polluted parts of the city due to its proximity to the port, a waste sorting facility, and an infamous, now-closed slaughterhouse, the area has witnessed environmental crises and uncounted deaths. In the film, the disembodied voice of a paranormal investigator recounts her contemplative journey along the river’s course as a descent into the underworld, addressing the chemical compounds, spectral echoes, foul odour, and invisible presences that dwell in a dystopian landscape made of flows and stagnations. As the camera follows the emergences and submergences of the riverine water, it captures glimpses of deteriorating ecologies and the wavering reflections of industrial infrastructures while the narration—part investigative report, part diary entry, part speculative fiction—entangles historical chronologies in a non-linear sequence. Blending documentary realism, abstract sequences, and fictional genres, the work slowly excavates deep sediments of sorrows within a wounded landscape haunted by the spirits of uncountable entities, both human and non-human, who lost their lives there. Turning the water body into a portal onto intangible worlds and an uneasy mirror of the present, Aprahamian’s work ponders over and bears witness to the aftermath of violence, historical trauma, and environmental degradation. 

An instrument for supporting contemporary artistic production in the field of video art, the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant is awarded annually to an emerging visual artist from Central or West Asia. In addition to financial support, the grant connects the awardee to an international network of institutions committed to showing the newly produced work.  In this way, the awardees are given the opportunity to dialogue with art professionals at each institution and present their work in different social, cultural, and political contexts.  

The partners for the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2024 are: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; WIELS (Brussels, Belgium); Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Manila, Philippines); Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai, UAE) and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (Naples, Italy). NTU CCA Singapore is a partner of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Tàpies Video Art Production Grant since 2019.  

Dates
11 – 27 September 2025

Opening Hours
Thursday to Saturday, 1:00 – 7:00pm

Venue
The Hall, NTU CCA Singapore
6 Lock Road, #01-09
Gillman Barracks  108934

Free Admission

About Panos Aprahamian
Panos Aprahamian (b. 1986, Lebanon) is a writer, filmmaker, and media artist from Beirut who currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. His practice explores the spectral presence of the past and the future in human and nonhuman bodies, sacrificial landscapes, cultural practices, and social relations. He was a Home Workspace Program fellow at Ashkal Alwan (Beirut, Lebanon) in 2017-18 and an instructor in the Media Studies Program at the Fine Arts & Art History Department, American University of Beirut between 2019 and 2021. His film essays Odorless Blue Flowers Awake Prematurely  and This Haunting Memory That Is Not My Own (both  2021) earned the Ecumenical Prize at the 68th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany, 2022) and the Jury Award at the 7th Festival Internacional Signos da Noite (Lisbon, Portugal 2021), respectively. He received the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree in Media Arts from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, University of Balamand (2008), and an MA with distinction in Documentary Film from the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, where he studied as a Caspian Arts Scholar.


About Han Nefkens Foundation
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.