IN PROGRESS | phase 2. Internship

Two weeks ago, the second phase of the programme began as Curating Lab participants began month-long industry immersions at one of three participating institutions. Apart from gaining an overview of the activities and practice of an contemporary art institution, participants have also been involved heavily in upcoming institutional projects as well as working on their own final exhibition projects under the guidance of institutional mentors.

At NUS Museum, Luca Lum, Chua Ying Qing and Raksha Mahtani have been working on forthcoming exhibitions in 2015 including the conception of publications and public programmes. In particular, they have undertaken research into possible 'passwords' that would guide as well as gather the year's exhibitions through more collective frames.

The National Arts Council team of Selene Yap, Euginia Tan, Cheng Jia Yun and Wong Yeang Cherng divide their time between interning with the Venice Biennale Secretariat and intense research for SEABOOK that sees them working closely with artist Charles Lim, curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa and librarian Janice Loo.

Over at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore, interns Kenneth Loe, Melvin Tan, Bernice Ong and Samantha Yap have been intensively involved in Theatrical Fields, an exhibition opening August 22, More than [show] business, the collaboration between CCA and Post-Museum, as well as the institution's new artist residency programme. Their responsibilities range from exhibition design and installation, to public programming and publications, to research as well as day-to-day operations.

With another two weeks to go, track these projects and the interns' progress via Storify:

phase 1b. Overseas Field Trip

Immediately after a rigorous introduction to the programme the week before, Curating Lab participants were whisked off to Hong Kong on 16 June 2014 for a 5-day Overseas Field Trip.

Aiming to provide exposure to international curatorial practices, the trip involved visits to independent art spaces such as Spring Workshop, Para Site, Pekin Fine Arts and William Lim's collection at openUU as well as talks by curators and industry practitioners of wide-ranging practice such as Mimi Brown, founder of Spring Workshop, Para Site curators Cosmin Costinas and Lim Qinyi, and Pauline Yao and Aric Chen, both curators at M+.

Extending on their efforts during the Curatorial-Intensive, they also had the opportunity to conduct an afternoon of exhibition research at Asia Art Archive, following introductions and discussions with Claire Hsu, Chantal Wong and Hammad Nasar.

Programme facilitators Heman Chong, Max Andrews and Mariana Canepa Luna as well as programme mentor and NUS Museum assistant curator Kenneth Tay were also on hand to constantly engage participants in intense discussions and critical reflection.

"I am most appreciative that the programme highlighted the curatorial strategies and trends local to Hong Kong...it has offered me substantial insight into the problems, challenges, and most definitely, the tailored solutions to curating spaces within a land scarce country, much like Singapore."
Wong Yeang Cherng, participant

 "It was very valuable to have heard from a range of voices and seen different typologies of institutions, how they are programmed, funded and run on a daily basis and also in the long-term."
Max Andrews and Mariana Canepa Luna, programme facilitators

Overseas Field Trip | in photos
 

Throughout the trip, participants and facilitators reflected on their experiences and continued their reflections and discussions on-the-go through social media; follow their conversations here:

post.scripting | An Interview with Vera Mey of the CCA

About post.scripting
post.scripting is a blog series that transposes the question from Curating Lab’s Public Symposium “Where Does an Exhibition Begin and End?” to an online platform. It asks, “Where Does a Conversation Begin and End?”. It seeks to expand upon questions around curation and art brought up during the Public Symposium, examining the ideas behind words and the philosophies beyond thoughts.

About "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?"
Part of the Curatorial-Intensive, the public symposium "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" presented Curating Lab 2014 participants with an opportunity to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. Building on lectures and workshops with facilitators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes as well as artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, participants engaged with the symposium by live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising approaches such as blogging to document and report the day for those not physically present.

In response, participants Luca Lum, Chua Ying Qing and Raksha Mahtani conceived the blog series,  post.scripting, featuring in-depth interviews with the artists and curators involved in the symposium.

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Source: Vera Mey

Vera Mey is the Curator (Artists in Residence) at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) and a mentor for Curating Lab 2014. During the Public Symposium, she, together with Anca Rujoiu, talked about the two-day curatorial intervention The Disappearance. The discussion was accompanied by a re-staging of Shubigi Rao's lecture-performance Visual Snow.

In this interview, Vera talks more about The Disappearance, her curatorial praxes, where she sees the CCA in local, regional, and global art contexts, as well as the CCA’s recent collaboration with Post-Museum at Gillman Barracks. She also highlights the importance for institutions to constantly respond to their environments, explore new territories, and expand their boundaries.

public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" | Concept-mapping by participants

Part of the Curatorial-Intensive, the public symposium "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" presented Curating Lab 2014 participants with an opportunity to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. Building on lectures and workshops with facilitators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes as well as artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, participants engaged with the symposium by live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising approaches such as blogging to document and report the day for those not physically present.

During the symposium, Selene Yap, Wong Yeang Cherng, Euginia Tan and Cheng Jia Yun created concept maps of discussions as they happened. 

Photos: Luca Lum

These served as live reportage of conversations as well as effective summaries and recaps of the proceedings of the symposium for those present. 

 Concept Map of Session 1: In Search of Raffles' Light

  Concept Map of Session 2: The Disappearance

Their mapping efforts were also extended beyond the duration of the seminar through sharing on social media platforms.

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Other posts on the Public Symposium:

Recap | Photos | Videos
Live-tweeting by participants
post.scripting | An Interview with Vera Mey

public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" | Live-tweeting by participants

Part of the Curatorial-Intensive, the public symposium "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" presented Curating Lab 2014 participants with an opportunity to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. Building on lectures and workshops with facilitators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes as well as artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, participants engaged with the symposium by live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising approaches such as blogging to document and report the day for those not physically present.

Bernice Ong @ongxbern, Melvin Tan @melvntan, Samantha Yap @daisyfay and Kenneth Loe @lactasered engaged with other participants of the symposium, including members of the public, by live-tweeting and building conversations on Twitter with the hashtag #curatinglab2014.

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Other posts on the Public Symposium:

Recap | Photos | Videos
Concept-mapping by participants 
post.scripting | An Interview with Vera Mey

phase 1a. Curatorial-Intensive | Public Symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?"

On 14th June, as part of Curating Lab 2014’s curatorial-intensive, the public symposium When Does an Exhibition Begin and End? brought together curators and artists working in Singapore to discuss their recent and ongoing projects. Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the symposium consisted of two complimentary sessions that reflected on the exhibition's capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium further pondered on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations and will considered how exhibitions produce knowledge through the format of conversations between curators and artists.

In the first session Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore) and artist Charles Lim, recently announced as Singapore’s Venice Biennale 2015 representatives, talked about their ongoing professional collaboration including Lim's long-term SEA STATE project and the related solo exhibition In Search of Raffles’ Light (NUS Museum, 24 October 2013–27 April 2014). Mustafa and Lim addressed these projects' engagement with the maritime history of Singapore in its intersection with the present while speculating about their approach to future exhibitions.

In the second session Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) discussed their recent project The Disappearance (CCA, 5–6 April 2013), which took place during the dismantling of a previous exhibition "as a durational event unfolding over two days including a continuous series of manifestations". Rujoiu and Mey were joined by participating artist Shubigi Rao who discussed her project Visual Snow (2014), presented during The Disappearance as an ongoing part of her biographical study of "the reclusive S. Raoul".

The Symposium was moderated by artist, curator and writer Heman Chong and Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna). 

Within the context of Curating Lab 2014, When Does An Exhibition Begin and End? was treated as an occasion to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. Curating Lab participants live-tweeted proceedings, live-mapped concepts of the discussions and conducted follow-up interviews of the symposium's speakers, of which the results will be published on this blog in the forthcoming weeks.

Public Symposium | photos 

Public Symposium | video

Curating Lab 2014 | Public Symposium: In Search of Raffles' Light (Session 1) from nusmuseum on Vimeo.

Curating Lab 2014 | Public Symposium: The Disappearance (Session 2) from nusmuseum on Vimeo.

 

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 Other posts on the Public Symposium:

Live-tweeting by participants 
Concept-mapping by participants 
post.scripting | An Interview with Vera Mey

phase 1a. Curatorial-Intensive

Phase 1a. Curatorial-Intensive was held from 11 - 14 June 2014. Lectures and workshops were conducted by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based independent curatorial office Latitudes and artist, curator and writer Heman Chong on 11 and 13 June respectively, with a full-day local fieldtrip to various art spaces on 12 June and a public symposium on 14 June. 

The curatorial-intensive focused on practices that engage with the production of knowledge; multifarious, relational and participatory. While providing scopes for intents and slippages, the production of knowledge is often opened to interpretative articulations and re-articulations, subjected to varying contexts of exhibition making and the very audiences that perform and shapes it production. Lectures and workshops therefore explored concepts of knowledge production in the realms of art, fiction, journalism, theory and other possibilities as well as introduced the participants to various modes of curatorial practice. Each facilitator lectured on a particular aspect of curatorial practice, sharing from each of their own experiences and particular modes of practice. The workshop sessions were an extension of lecture sessions. 

Local field trips to the Singapore Art Museum, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore and the NUS Museum provided participants with exposure to curatorial practices in relation to the spaces of specific local institutions. Finally, a public symposium titled When Does an Exhibition Begin and End? was treated as an occasion for participants to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. 

Lead Facilitators

Latitudes is an independent curatorial office initiated in April 2005 by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, that works in an international context from and in Barcelona, Spain. They initiate and develop contemporary art projects in association with institutions and collaborate with artists in productions encompassing a range of organisational forms and scales: genres of display and presentation; editorial practice and publication; forms of assembly, hosting and programming; as well as theoretical and interpretative contexts. Their starting point is to advocate the work of artists we believe to be critically relevant to our times. Ongoing research includes micro-historical practices; context-specific, narrative- or process-based art; expectations of public participation; the function of the duo; and how art and artefacts relate with obsolescence and cultural worth.

Heman Chong is an artist, curator and writer. His art practice involves an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. Charged with a conceptual drive, this research is then adapted into objects, images, installations, situations or texts. He participated in the 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008), Busan Biennale (2004) and represented Singapore at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). He is currently working on a yearlong curatorial collaboration between Witte de With and Spring Workshop entitled Moderation(s). He previously co-facilitated Curating Lab 2012: Curatorial Intensive and Internship Programme, Curating Labs 2009 and co-curated the accompanying Curating Labs: 100 Objects (Remixed) exhibition.

Curatorial-Intensive | in photos

 

Follow the Curating Lab 2014 participants' Intensive journeys through Day 1 to 3 here: