journal | 0018A / 5724C

By Cheng Jia Yun, Euginia Tan, Selene Yap & Wong Yeang Cherng
National Arts Council 

0018A / 5724C from nusmuseum on Vimeo.

How do we map an experience? Across the grids that mark our seas, how do memories, ideas, and existence become decontextualised?  The absurdity of mapping or dividing the fluid composition of the sea into pixels of definable space parallels the tensions of confines imposed on the shifting location of human consciousness. In our work with SEABOOK, mapping is materialised through a formal treatment of trajectories of the sea –narratives are accumulated, compartmentalised and located in neat boxes, dissecting real life experiences into identifiable pixels for easy storage and retrieval.

In 0018A / 5724C, we attempt to grapple with the boundlessness of the sea, reconciling our encounters on Pulau Ubin, an island off the eastern shore of Singapore with the intransigent coordinates binding the island. Conversation snippets with islanders are met with Charles’ banal recitation of coordinates –a confluence that underpin state desires to effectively plot (and exert jurisdiction) over the sea and its activity.

journal | Thoughts around the Institutional Prerogative: Part 2 PostPop-Up

by Melvin Tan

Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore

As I write this post, the CCA attachment is still ongoing. I am mainly tasked to create the user manual for Block 38’s art space. The booklet is designed to elaborate on the use of Block 38's #01-07 space and also, to document Post-PopUp, the first programme in their newly established space.

The project was enjoyable, involving a bit of editorial design and an opportunity to get first hand experience to see through the running of More than [show] business: Post-PopUp between Post-Museum and CCA. This is a unique convergence of two different organizations working together: a research-based institution for contemporary art and an independent cultural and social enterprise for the current span of three months to collaboratively program the space.

Take aways I've had from this attachment so far, is how collaboration here is observably not limited to the two organizations but also, it extends to the negotiation with the art and civic community. PostPop-Up shuffles the professional, experimental, non-art and the amateur. This is done by the device of an open-call for shows and going by a lightly-curated and lightly-managed model of programming and showing. I remembered remarking about how exhibitions and programmes allows a shift in focus onto the subject matter or work people make, rather than on the spectacle and standing of the artist or event.

The operational currency leans towards outreach and inclusivity, playing down on stringent selection processes and distinction. This offers an effervescence of programmes that makes the institutional platform unprecedentedly accessible, experimental and tangential to more professional practices in the vicinity—something new to the otherwise commercial and frigid environment of the enclave.

The strategy seem to leverage on the white-cube as anchor to open-ended operations between the two organizations towards its use. The affiliations and followings of both, mixes crowds of different camps to the contents hosted. This framework is designed to imbue creative mixing and eventually a better understanding between the different modes.

The programming is nothing new to Post-Museum, whom by model of independence and activist sensibility, can operate as a platform for expression and civil extensions in Rowell Road and nomadically. Their efforts for the past seven years, together with some other self-run initiatives, had served as a foundational and formative role towards inculcating an ideally inclusive & diverse environment in an otherwise controlled environment. Their work can be seen as a catalyst for criticality and arguably, a more habitable civil society at large. The Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore comes from another place in the art ecology, a young top-down investment, established by multiple governing and academic bodies in Singapore. The Centre is designed to be important in that it serves as a central programming institution and only non-commercial space of Gillman Barracks. It also is a key player in bringing in some of the biggest names in international contemporary art through exhibitions, residencies and a research centre— a facet that Singapore now adds to its infrastructure as a burgeoning regional destination for art.

The collaboration offers a meeting point for appreciation between these different communities of the local art scene that by virtue of practices, may not meet, let alone work or show together.

It is therefore really interesting for myself, when in the previous blogpost, I had problematized the institutional state-of-mind. What I have learnt from this PostPop-up was not to have a polarizing reading of independent and institutional frameworks. Independence, often discussed as an ‘alternative' or 'oppositional’ operation, can also be seen as existing outside of such singularity and measurement. In place of that, the essence of being free also allows for a multi-dimensional and inclusive reading that should focus on collaboration, that which better counters narrow and isomorphic purview to practices.

PostPop-Up ideally sets to be that layered and encompassing mode that presents itself as something more than just another event, or as the project puts, "more that (just) show business”.

This is reaffirmed from first hand experience and also from separately hearing experiences shared in the first Curatorial Roundtable. There was already talk about the subjectivities of independence in the dialogue: (1) from the point of view of an individual person, or (2) projected on an institutional level. E.g, Charles Merewether, someone who worked in large institutions internationally as creative director or curator, still considers himself as independent in the way that he has full agency to continue or leave the institution he is in, when he feels the need to.

There is still much more to do till completion and I might have a more concise point of view after. But this is what I am thinking for now.

journal | in four movements

by Chua Ying Qing

On composition

It is rather peculiar that we have begun composing in space, without really knowing the language of space. What are the syntactic rules, the physical forces, the natural laws that govern the space? Do they operate differently from the world outside, the space beyond? Is there a need for an order, a system, a logic in the space? Just as how sounds are drawn to silence, would objects gravitate toward voids? How much of these physical inevitabilities are in play when we think about composing in space? 

National Museum of Singapore // Safe Sea

On arrangement

Fidelity to artworks is a tricky situation. We are told to let the works speak, allow them to breathe, listen to their individual voices. But fidelity has to be silenced (or at least tucked away) before the exhibition begins. If we overly commit to every work, we sin by omission because all the voices get through. By refraining from editing, we lose voices because they drown out in the space. So then, how do we play off the voices, how do we pit them in counterpoint? 

Asian Film Archive // Invisible City

On performance

Authenticity serves a single point in time. To be deemed authentic, we justify the work in the present, in relation to the past. As Dr. Eva Meyer said “To understand something, is giving it a past”, but which past do we want? And who is entitled to it? Is the question then the authenticity of the interpretation (rather than of the work)? Perhaps then, we can view exhibitions as moments of re-enactment, by the artist and the viewer, entering the works.

Singapore International Festival of the Arts // Give Me Your Blood and I Will Give You Freedom

 On reception

How do you plant an idea? How can we articulate the subconscious? When the audience experiences an exhibition, they perceive it through a series of reflections. They never get to see the original source – the womb of curatorial intention. The trick then is not to leave traces of the illusion/intrusion. For we are now double agents, and this is the perfect crime.

NUS Museum // Crime Scene

RECAP: Curatorial Roundtable 02 | Dis-positions: Between Artistic Practice and Curatorial Practice

Moderated by Anca Rujoiu, curator at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (CCA), the second session of the Curatorial Roundtable convened last Thursday evening with Singaporean artist, curator and publisher Michael Lee and Romanian artist Florin Tudor, currently on residency with the CCA.

Topic: Dis-positions: Between Artistic Practice and Curatorial Practice 
While the debate on the intersections between the artist and the curator continues, much of such discussions and theorisations continue to move at the expense of discerning the local contexts within which they are articulated. This session is an attempt to add to this ongoing debate concerning artistic practice and curatorial practice; but at the same time it insists also on a plurality within this discussion by examining the different contexts where artistic practice and curatorial practice may meet.
 
About the moderator
Anca Rujoiu is a Romanian curator currently based in Singapore. She is curator at CCA - Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore and co-director of FormContent, a curatorial initiative in London. Previously, she coordinated the public programme of the School of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art (UK). With FormContent she explored various exhibition models and challenged the relationship between artist/curator often overlapping their roles in the process. Her recent project with FormContent, It’s Moving from I to It unfolded as a performative script within a nomadic structure testing formats of production and distribution. She has been a visiting lecturer at various universities including Goldsmiths College, Central Saint Martins University and Newcastle University (UK). As a researcher and writer, she worked for several film and television productions, artists’ publications. She graduated from the MFA Curating Programme at Goldsmiths College (UK) and was one of the curators selected for the 3rd International Curator Course at the Gwangju Bienniale (KR) in 2011. 

About the speakers
Michael Lee is an artist, curator and publisher based in Berlin and Singapore. He researches urban memory and fiction, transforming his observations into objects, diagrams, situations, curations or texts. He has staged solo exhibitions in Berlin, Hong Kong and Singapore. His biennale participations include Shenzhen Sculpture (2014); Kuandu (Taipei, 2012); Singapore (2011); Shanghai (2010), and Guangzhou Triennial (2011, 2008). His curatorial projects include Between, Beside, Beyond: Daniel Libeskind's Reflections and Key Works 1989-2014 (Singapore Art Museum, 2007), and his editorial projects include Who Cares: 16 Essays on Curating in Asia (published by Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong, 2010).

Florin Tudor, together with Mona Vatamanu, is an artist in residency at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore. Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor¹s artistic practice span diverse media including film, photography, painting, performance, and site-specific projects. Through their works, they confront the traumatic legacy of Communism in their native Romania and Eastern Europe, while wrestling with the ongoing challenge of how to process history. As part of their residency at CCA so far they have taken a look at the surrounding environment of both the natural jungle-like environment and various constructions happening in Gillman Barracks to explore various social dynamics. Their work has been included in numerous international exhibitions including (selection): Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), Istanbul, 2012; Blind Spots, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna, 2009; 5th Berlin Biennial, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2008; among others. Vatamanu and Tudor live and work in Bucharest. 

Curatorial Roundtable 01 | in photos

 

Curatorial Roundtable 01 |  video

Curatorial Roundtable 02 | Dis-positions: Between Artistic Practice and Curatorial Practice from nusmuseum on Vimeo.

*Due to a technical fault, parts of Anca's and Michael's presentations have unfortunately not been captured on video.

journal | Pulau Gillman

by Bernice Ong 
Centre for Contemporary Art, Gillman Barracks 

Pilgrimage

       On some days, the journey to the Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA) feels a little like a pilgrimage from the far-eastern end of Singapore where I live. It is more than just a physical traversing of space. To step out of a technical role in theatre production, and into a primarily desk-bound job is a change surely. Thrown into the thick of things, as we consider and ponder the quotations from different companies bidding to be appointed our Theatrical Fields show-build contractor, it does feel pretty great to be privy to such decision-making processes. Given access to the exhibition planning process from the beginning of our internship, one of my first jobs was to draw up a timeline indicating work that was to be done by the contractors. I pondered the necessity of laying out such a clear sequence of tasks for the show-build contractor, but also quietly, really enjoyed drawing up a table and organising the necessary information. I love running about and working with my hands, but man, can I get pretty obsessive once I dive into administrative mode!

Proximity

       Interestingly, working in the Barracks does not actually accord me with more time to hang around the art galleries there in spite of my close proximity. However, the Post-PopUp program with Post-Museum (13 June - 30 October 2014) has introduced a constancy of talks at their premises, and does provide some benefit to being in the area as they are scheduled in the evenings after work hours.

Lunch

       Oh, what can I say. My favourite option is Sum Kee Food in Telok Blangah, introduced by Samantha Yap - SilverLens assistant and other curating lab extraordinaire. Otherwise, it’s a trip across Alexandra Road, through a space-age tunnel, into some office tower, before descending into a car park, which gives access to a food court full of office workers. A bit of a trek to be honest.

Space

       Unfortunately, our time at the CCA is a short-lived one. The office space of 7 Lock Road is also but a temporary one. The studio residencies are by their nature programmed in periods. And so does the name of Post-Museum’s ‘Post-PopUp’ inclusion point to its impermanence. But, being confronted by the transience of such arrangements is not all that undesirable. In my own practice as an artist, I am hugely attracted to construction sites not because I love them, but because I get really annoyed at them. Onsite research processes affords me understanding, as any prolonged discovery has got to be beneficial; I am therefore able to flip this annoyance on its head the more I engulf myself within these transitioning spaces. Changing spaces also hint at a constant renewal. In the arts, although the affordability of time offers stability with long-term benefits, I think working within limitations can also spur us on towards more creative synergy as we consciously expound on what we have.

Summary

       I have a dream of setting up an arts centre to support and connect emerging and established artists. Being at the CCA offered a good insight into the running of an organization in terms of exhibition management. Each one of us in our group had been assigned to a specific area to immerse ourselves in, and although I would have loved to have jumped more into research, it was equally wonderful to have been able to assist and observe the process of planning for Theatrical Fields’ exhibition space.

Theatrical Fields is on from 23 August - 31 October 2014

Exhibition Centre: 34 Malan Road, Singapore 109443

Opening Hours: Tue to Sun 12-7pm, Fri 12-9pm

journal | Museum [noun]

by Raksha Mahtani 
NUS Museum

Museum [noun]:

1. Lawrence Chin explicating preservation to a series of classes of baby curators who aren't art history experts and hence may be unemployable;

2. Charles Merewether talking about the index being the crucial difference between the archive and the collection, and describing his illustrious career without ever mentioning the word fame;

3. Rubbing shoulders with two artists you're currently following on Twitter, one of whom sat 3 seats away from you at a roundtable - with absolutely no pretense of false grandeur about them;

4. Encountering art at its truest, most pristine, most democratic state at concurrent arts festival, with two figures on a phosphorus-lit stage reminding you that loss is always felt before it is learnt;

5. Realising that in art of collaboration, the phrase, 'Yes, and?' must be scattered generously in the spirit of inquiry and support;

6. Spending time with close friend and fellow dreamer who has been in your life for close to a decade (@lactasered) on the long eastbound ride home(#faghag4lyfe);

7. Acquaintances turn groupmates turn warm friends in the cold wintry conditions of the prep room;

8. Anxieties of come-what-mays, erudition and wall text mastery;

9. A thousand blank walls of potentiality - the space to research, interrogate, dream;

10. Above all else, poetry.

journal | I'll be your mirror

by Samantha Yap
Centre for Contemporary Art, Gillman Barracks

 

~

Having worked in Gillman Barracks for close to seven months, at both CCA and Silverlens, it has become the landscape of my quotidian traffic. The silence of a bustling arts enclave, the people who inhabit this microcosm and the many women who actively try to make this place work – these are all part of my collective understanding and definition of the enclave.

One prominent characteristic across the complex is its decidedly strong female presence, an observation further reinforced through my internship at CCA. It led to my eventual rumination over the topic of female representation in the art world and more specifically, within Gillman Barracks itself.

Looking at representation in Gillman Barracks through a gendered perspective was something prompted by my one-month immersion with CCA. As an integral part of Gillman Barracks, it is interesting to note that CCA’s team possesses a very strong female representation. Curiously, this representation also extends (be it consciously or subconsciously) itself to exhibitions like Theatrical Fields and Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost, which dwelled on themes of displacement, travel and personal narratives and histories, featured three female artists – Trinh T. Minh-ha, Fiona Tan and Zarina Bhimji.  The curatorial approach made no pointed emphasis towards the fact that the artists were all female. Neither were there attempts to pursue feminist tangents. Both of which are not usually common with group shows featuring female artists. Personally, I saw Paradise Lost as a beautiful subversion of androcentric approaches to culture and history.

It makes for interesting case study material, particularly in the reading and consideration of curatorial processes and exhibition-making through a gendered lens. Echoing the sentiments of “by women for women”, I wonder, does the gender of the curator and/or director have any effect in the representation of female artists in their exhibitions or artist rosters? Such a parallel may seem arbitrarily made and lacking in cogent arguments, but I want to consider it, even just for a little while. If the answer is yes, then is it sympathy? Or is it visibility? We choose who we want to see, and as females, we readily see other females too.

The fact that there are more females than males here in Gillman Barracks is not difficult to see. It could even appear as though female representation in the microcosm of Gillman Barracks is not something to worry about, far from being in dire straits. But, I would like to also cogitate on representation in an expanded sense, as something dynamic that stretches beyond mere presence.

When I speak of representation, I am thinking of presence and action, I am thinking, is our art world diverse and inclusive enough? Is it amplifying voices and strengthening the presence of those who have already been consistently in the fore? I realize I am trying (or aspiring) to deconstruct a paradigm in order to see what are the walls of barrier and powers at play. Perhaps, very simply, what I am doing is to understand what it means to be a woman (working with)in Gillman Barracks. And as a woman in Gillman Barracks, you are likely a gallery assistant or manager.

There is some talk about representation in the art world and its imbalances and inequity. The Gallery Tally, a project by Mico Hibron that looks at female representation in artist rosters, is one great precedent. The results are disappointing, the excuses even more so. The discourse about (under)representation on the Internet have mostly originated from the perspective of artists. But we should also consider gender representation amongst gallerists, gallery managers and curators, all of whom also hold an inevitable stake in the art world and the career of artists. How is the gender representation there reflective of the art world and how does it bleed into the prospects and careers of artists?

Even if the galleries within Gillman Barracks seem to balance themselves quite nicely on the scales of gender representation, there is still much more that can be read into and considered. There are still many more insidious factors at play. For instance, a certain pattern that pops up quite frequently – the dichotomy and/or relationship between male directors and gallerists and female gallery managers and assistants.  A dichotomy that reinstates the hierarchal structure of galleries, where decision making is its strongest and most absolute at the top of the pyramid.

There is female representation. There is presence, but how much does presence mean? There are not much resources that I could reference apart than the raw unattested data that lies before me.

The editors of London Review of Books declare, “Counting is a feminist weapon.”

I look at the Guerrilla Girls and The Gallery Tally and I think, I have been counting for years. Furiously tabulating. It is an instinct I have developed to counter blindness. I will always choose to see. The furious counting is my furious looking, it is me realizing and remembering those who have been conveniently forgotten and conveniently overlooked. 

What is the point of this reflection? I bared no results, no percentages, just a thought piece. I ranted, rambled. Maybe, the point is to point. To make you see. Look to the direction of what has been easily obfuscated.

Talking about this little project of mine with people has so far been both aggravating and rewarding. I will embark on this (eventually). And I will keep counting.  

Any souls angry and concerned enough to go down the deep gendered end with me?

~

References

Women and book reviews / Viv Groskop. (n.d.). Retrieved September 1, 2014, from http://vivgroskop.com/women-and-book-reviews/