Kent Chan

Over the course of the residency, Chan will delve into his longstanding interest for the rainforest seen as a site of contemporary art. Regarding the opulent wilderness of tropical nature as the physical and conceptual obverse of the white cube space, the artist will research an episode of Singapore’s curatorial history: the first group exhibition of Singaporean artists in the West. Titled Paintings by Singapore Artists, the exhibition took place at the former Imperial Institute in London in 1955 and was organised by the chairman of the Singapore Art Society, Ho Kok Hoe (1922-2015). It is rumoured that the artworks were brought to London without prior arrangements about the venue, leaving the materialisation of the show a matter of conjecture. Focusing on the 1955 exhibition, Chan will explore the epistemological connections between the colony and the imperial capital while also excavating the anxieties that lurk in the global peripheries of the art world.