PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL.

PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL. is NTU CCA Singapore’s overarching framework between 2013–2017 that intertwined our platforms: exhibitions, residencies, research & education. This open-ended research and curatorial project addressed the complexities of a world in flux and the dynamic relations between local and global. The notion of place as a locale often fades into the background, how does labour, routes of migration, and flows of global capital impact upon smaller scale? Singapore—the world’s second-largest trading port and an economic epicentre of Southeast Asia serves as point of departure to examine place, labour, and capital.

The PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL. curatorial framework was translated spatially by a new configuration of the exhibition area designed by Fareed Armaly. From within The Exhibition Hall, a new space emerges, set in orientation to research and education. The architecture suggested interplay of dialogues, shaping the contemporary institutional framework. Its twin entrances, set alongside the main entrance express two programmes operating in parallel. NTU CCA Singapore’s overarching framework for the year that will intertwine our platforms: exhibitions, residencies, research & education express two programmes operating in parallel. The Lab introduced various stages of research from the NTU CCA Singapore’s programmes, while The Single Screen, was dedicated to the moving image. This new spatial configuration will allow NTU CCA Singapore’s three platforms – exhibitions, residencies, research & education to unfold in different juxtaposed formats.

Fareed Armaly is an artist, curator and author who lives and works in the United States and Germany. Since the late 1980s, his artistic practice expresses a research-driven methodology that combines guidelines from various institutional roles and fields of enquiry. Through different formats, his projects spatially manifest an interplay between politics of identity, representation and culture.