Singapore Biennale 2016

This book is the first overall study of research-based art practices in Southeast Asia. Its objective is to examine the creative and mutual entanglement of academic and artistic research; in short, the Why, When, What and How of research-based art practices in the region. In Southeast Asia, artists are increasingly engaged in research-based art practices involving academic research processes. They work as historians, archivists, archaeologists or sociologists in order to produce knowledge and/or to challenge the current established systems of knowledge production. As artists, they can freely draw on academic research methodologies and, at the same time, question or divert them for their own artistic purpose. The outcome of their research findings is exhibited as an artwork and is not published or presented in an academic format. This book seeks to demonstrate the emancipatory dimension of these practices, which contribute to opening up our conceptions of knowledge and of art, bestowing a new and promising role to the artists within the society.

This book examines spirituality in Singapore, showing how important the city state is for understanding contemporary global configurations of urban space, religion, and spirituality. Joanne Punzo Waghorne highlights how the formal religious spaces-temples, churches, and mosques-have been confined to allotted sites on the map of Singapore, whereas various “spiritual” organizations, particularly of Hindu origins and headed by a guru, still continue to operate as “societies” classified by the government with other “clubs.” These unconventional religiosities are not confined but ironically make their own places, meeting in ostensive secular venues: high-rise flats, malls, businesses, and community centers, thus existing in the overall space of religion, commerce, and the state. The book argues that State of Singapore also operates between the secular and the religious, constructing an overarching spatial regime that both accommodates and yet rivals the alternate spheres that spiritual movements construct under its umbrella. Both spatial configurations challenge the presumed relationships between myth and reality, religion and commerce, the ethereal and the concrete, the sacred and the secular, on the levels of self, community, and polity. Singapore, now deemed a model for urban development in Asia, also offers an understanding of a new post-secularity and perhaps reveals where the urbanized world is headed.

The definitive reference text on curation both inside and outside the museum A Companion to Curation is the first collection of its kind, assembling the knowledge and experience of prominent curators, artists, art historians, scholars, and theorists in one comprehensive volume. Part of the Blackwell Companion series, this much-needed book provides up-to-date information and valuable insights on the field of curatorial studies and curation in the visual arts. Accessible and engaging chapters cover diverse, contemporary methods of curation, its origin and history, current and emerging approaches within the profession, and more. This timely publication fills a significant gap in literature on the role of the curator, the art and science of curating, and the historical arc of the field from the 17th century to the present. The Companion explores topics such as global developments in contemporary indigenous art, Asian and Chinese art since the 1980s, feminist and queer feminist curatorial practices, and new curatorial strategies beyond the museum. This unique volume: Offers readers a wide range of perspectives on curating in both theory and practice Includes coverage of curation outside of the Eurocentric and Anglosphere art worlds Presents clear and comprehensible information valuable for specialists and novices alike Discusses the movements, models, people and politics of curating Provides guidance on curating in a globalized world Broad in scope and detailed in content, A Companion to Curation is an essential text for professionals engaged in varied forms of curation, teachers and students of museum studies, and readers interested in the workings of the art world, museums, benefactors, and curators.

On the 8th of August 2017, ASEAN will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. ASEAN is of great importance to Singapore, the region and the world. In 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN in short, was founded by five countries in Southeast Asia which had just gained independence from their former colonial masters, united by a determination for the region to live in peace and stability. Singapore was one of the five founding members of ASEAN, together with Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. The grouping was joined later by Brunei (1984), Vietnam (1995), Laos and Myanmar (1997), and finally, Cambodia (1999). ASEAN is today a very successful inter-governmental organization which promotes peace, stability, economic development and regional integration. This volume brings together 46 essays written by Singaporeans who have played a part in the partnership between ASEAN and Singapore. The reader will be able to glean an insight into the workings of ASEAN and Singapore's contributions to ASEAN through the lens of diplomats, academics, civil society leaders and officials. Contents: Foundational Documents of ASEANASEAN's ChallengesASEAN's Landmark AchievementsASEAN's External RelationsMaking of the ASEAN CharterASEAN and Civil SocietySingaporeans in ASEANPost-Charter ASEANASEAN's Future Readership: Academics, scholars, diplomats & civil society interested in ASEAN and Singapore. Keywords: ASEAN;Singapore;Regional GroupsReview:0

Artists and writers go beyond disciplinary boundaries and linear histories to address the fight for environmental justice, uniting the Asia-Pacific vantage point with international discourse. Modeling the curatorial as a method for uniting cultural production and science, Climates. Habitats. Environments. weaves together image and text to address the global climate crisis. Through exhibitions, artworks, and essays, artists and writers transcend disciplinary boundaries and linear histories to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on the fight for environmental justice. In doing so, they draw on the rich cultural heritage of the Asia-Pacific, in conversation with international discourse, to demonstrate transdisciplinary solution-seeking. Experimental in form as well as in method, Climates. Habitats. Environments. features an inventive book design by mono.studio that puts word and image on equal footing, offering a multiplicity of media, interpretations, and manifestations of interdisciplinary research. For example, botanist Matthew Hall draws on Ovid’s Metamorphoses to discuss human-plant interpenetration; curator and writer Venus Lau considers how spectrality consumes—and is consumed—in animation and film, literature, music, and cuisine; and critical theorist and filmmaker Elizabeth Povinelli proposes “Water Sense” as a geontological approach to “the question of our connected and differentiated existence,” informed by the “ancestral catastrophe of colonialism.” Artists excavate the natural and cultural DNA of indigo, lacquer, rattan, and mulberry; works at the intersection of art, design, and architecture explore “The Posthuman City”; an ongoing research project investigates the ecological urgencies of Pacific archipelagos. The works of art, the projects, and the majority of the texts featured in the book were commissioned by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Copublished with NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

This book approaches the subject of contemporary art by exploring the social embeddedness and identities of Singaporean artists. Linking artistic processes and production to both personal worlds and wider issues, the book examines how artists negotiate their relationships between self and society and between artistic freedom and social responsibility. It is based on original research into the discourses and artistic practices of local artists, with a special focus on emerging artists and artists whose work and perspectives engage with questions of identity. Reimagining contemporary Singapore and their place within it, artists are asserting their multiple and heterogeneous self-identities and contesting hegemonic norms and notions, as they negotiate and adapt to the world around them. This book is relevant to students and researchers in the fields of cultural studies, media studies, art, sociology of art, arts education, and race and ethnicity studies.