Singapore Art Museum (SAM) announces the return of the Singapore Biennale (SB2022) for its seventh edition from October 18, 2022 to March 19, 2023. Helmed by four Co-Artistic Directors from around the world, the team comprises Binna Choi from South Korea/the Netherlands, Nida Ghouse from India, living in Germany, June Yap from Singapore and Ala Younis from Jordan. These individuals have a strong profile of engaging multi-disciplinary, participatory practices, activating different sites and archives, and drawing relations between the historical and contemporary.
In drawing out perspectives from the region as situated within the world, the Co-Artistic Directors will reflect upon and revisit curatorial approaches and collaborative forms of cultural production, generating renewed perspectives and engaging emerging vocabularies that are of interest to the region.
Binna Choi is the director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht. She employs art and art institutional practice as a way to imagine another world in tandem with social movement, having conceived and developed several long-term, interdisciplinary and collaborative artistic research projects.
Nida Ghouse is a writer and curator whose projects span mediums and disciplines, experimenting with ways of engaging artistic practices, in relation to activating materials and sites. Her collaborative approach brought about projects that take shape in a variety of forms, building upon one another and developed over a long period of time.
June Yap is Director of Curatorial & Collections at SAM. With a deep knowledge of Southeast Asian contemporary art practices and discourse, Yap has been involved in major projects in the regional and international art circuit, presenting perspectives of the region in relation to global discourses.
Ala Younis works deeply with archives, different materials and forms to address contemporary situations through the lens of historical phenomena. As an artist and curator, her work explores the impact and influence of representations on society and individuals across times and geographies.
Committed to the functions and potentials of contemporary art in and after pandemic time, the Co-Artistic Directors posit the Biennale as a presence through which art, as well as that which is considered other to art, may be deeply connected to life. Coming together from distinctive practices and cultures, the team will endeavour to engender forms of curatorial and artistic collectivity.
The Co-Artistic Directors share, “While the region of Southeast Asia remains the Singapore Biennale’s immediate context, this edition will journey through unfamiliar terrains and beyond geography itself. In an attempt to apprehend and grapple with questions pressing for humanity, the Biennale will conceive ways in which to relate to a public without relying on spectacle. Turning away from the conventional preoccupation with the visual, it will dwell instead on interiority, gather around other senses and sensibilities. Artists, curators, researchers and publics will be invited to imagine the possibilities of a biennale, of art and life, and of being.”
The Singapore Biennale is a platform for international contemporary art organised by SAM and commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), Singapore. Further details on SB2022 will be revealed in 2022.
