Ming Wong: Wayang Spaceship

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is delighted to announce the new, site-specific commissioned work by Singaporean artist Ming Wong. The work, titled Wayang Spaceship, will be on display at SAM’s recently launched post-industrial premises at Tanjong Pagar Distripark from July 15, 2022. The project marks the launch of The Everyday Museum, SAM’s flagship public art initiative, which will bring artistic interventions into everyday spaces and transform them into meaningful encounters for and with communities. 

Dedicated to supporting artistic practice in public spaces, The Everyday Museum is a platform for creative experimentation, whereby its diverse programming seeks to create physical and virtual nodes for engagement and interaction. Eugene Tan, Director of SAM observes, “Wayang Spaceship, and its associated programme, The Everyday Museum embody SAM’s commitment to supporting artistic development and creating cultural spaces for and with communities. We will work with artists to reimagine lived experiences and engage publics where they reside through site-specific works, which offer new perspectives on the conditions of our time.” 

Emerging from Ming Wong’s research on the transnational circulation of Cantonese opera cinema, Wayang Spaceship seeks to reflect upon the intersections between the island’s cultural forms borne from migration, and contemporary technology. The primary structure is made up of marine timbers sourced from Southeast Asia, combined with solar-reflective canvases commonly used in the agriculture industry. Its construction is a collaboration with master stage builder Lee Beng Seng and architect Randy Chan, an advocate for sustainable building techniques. Wong also worked with the artist Liam Morgan to create the scenography of lightboxes containing dichroic film layers.  

By day, the seemingly dormant Wayang Spaceship mirrors the surroundings and movements of the container seaport. At dusk, it is activated through an array of light, sound and moving images, evoking a futurist Chinese opera from another dimension. 

The world of cinema is Wong’s gateway to imagination. In many of his works, he subverts the role of the actor to reveal how gender, race, nationality, language, body type and other categories are a form of performance. Wong has maintained a particular interest in Cantonese opera, having grown up with it in Singapore. Since 2012, he has investigated the modernisation of the genre, its cinematic transformations and unlikely relationship with the development of science fiction.  

Wayang Spaceship will feature a range of performances and access programmes. The project will also be hosted on a dedicated website featuring the artist’s writings, archives alongside curatorial texts. This commission is made possible with the generous support of Sun Venture. 

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