February 11–April 12, 2017
Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore
LASALLE College of the Arts
1 McNally Street
Singapore 187940
www.lasalle.edu.sg
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Native Revisions
Chua Chye Teck, Noh Suntag, Anup Mathew Thomas and Tomoko Yoneda
Native Revisions presents photography and moving image by artists who have returned to particular locations over a number of years. It explores the artists’ intimate understanding of these places: their changing nature, ineffable phenomena and forgotten histories.
The locations in the artists’ works include forests in Singapore, a village in South Korea neighboured by a United States military base, communities in Kerala, India, and significant sites of World War II in Japan. The locations are all connected to the artists’ native regions: Chua Chye Teck, Noh Suntag and Anup Mathew Thomas were born in Singapore, South Korea and Kerala respectively, and Tomoko Yoneda’s parents were evacuated to the Japanese countryside during WWII. The works provide various viewpoints of these locations—from afar, up close, during the day and at night. Visual “clues,” titles and accompanying texts also reference the cultural and political contexts that have shaped these places. Together the images and texts show the nuances of places where beauty, humour and tragedy often converge.
The design of the exhibition reflects the works’ sense of mystery. A curtain by Anup Mathew Thomas referring to a photograph divides the gallery. A three-channel video installation by Tomoko Yoneda unfolds within a darkened space. Several works enact revision through photographic techniques and evolving presentations, highlighting the contingent nature of photography and perception. In re-presenting these places, do the artists create new memories of them or preserve them? And how do multiple views, return visits and revision blur our sense of time and the “original” character of places?
Curated by Melanie Pocock
Native Revisions is supported by the Arts Fund, Singapore, and the Japan Foundation Asia Center.
Suppose, There is A
Stephanie Burt, Mike HJ Chang, Alexander Storey Gordon, Kari Robertson and Tan Guo-Liang
This exhibition brings together video, sculpture and drawing by five artists based in Singapore, Scotland and the Netherlands. It takes as its starting point Last Year at Marienbad (1961), an enigmatic French avant-garde film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet that explores the unusual, sometimes random, nature of experience. Suppose, There is A examines abstract readings of the film, including a non-linear narrative that is fractured, slippery and often ambiguous, notions of memory and romance, and an austere visual beauty.
Artist-curator Stephanie Burt returned to live and work in Singapore in 2015, after completing a Master of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. She met Alexander Storey Gordon and Kari Robertson during her years living in Scotland. Tan Guo-Liang completed his MFA at Glasgow School of Art the year following Stephanie. Mike HJ Chang was one of three artists who organised The Beach That Never Was, presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore in 2014; it included the work of Stephanie Burt.
Curated by Stephanie Burt
The production of new work for Suppose, There is A was supported by the National Arts Council, Singapore.
About the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore is the curatorial division of LASALLE College of the Arts, dedicated to supporting innovative and emerging creative practices. Through an annual programme of interdisciplinary artistic and curatorial practices, it provides a dynamic site for contemporary culture in Southeast Asia.
