Tenth-anniversary celebration

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore celebrates a decade of innovation and creativity at a thought-leading institution committed to nurturing and fostering cross-cultural dialogues.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is delighted to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore), a national research centre with a threefold mandate: exhibitions, residencies, research and academic education. The Centre would like to thank all its contributors and supporters, from artists to staff, advisory boards to audiences, who have shaped it into an institution that stands for creativity and critical thinking in the contemporary art landscape of Singapore and beyond.

To commemorate these ten years of nurturing artistic innovation, interdisciplinary experimentation, and meaningful connections, NTU CCA Singapore is proud to showcase a series of newly commissioned collaborative performances by Artist-in-Residence alumni and previous contributors working in the realms of sound, performance, and new technologies, curated by Dr. Anna Lovecchio (Italy/Singapore), Assistant Director (Programmes) and Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), Curator (Residencies and Public Programmes). On Friday, September 29, the celebrations will be inaugurated by Guest-of-Honour Low Eng Teong, Chief Executive Officer of the National Arts Council Singapore, and welcome remarks by the Centre’s Founding Director Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Professor, NTU School of Art, Design, and Media (NTU ADM).

Saturday, September 16, 2023, 3:30pm
Time is still and we are in revolution, Yan Jun (China) and Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore)
NTU CCA Singapore Seminar Room

Friday, September 29, 2023, 6–10pm
Ace of Cups, Zachary Chan and Zarina Muhammad (both Singapore)
QUEER-TAI, Intervention (Singapore)
NTU CCA Singapore Residencies Studios

Saturday, September 30, 2023, 3:30–5:30pm
dakodako, Tini Aliman and Fyerool Darma (both Singapore)
NTU CCA Singapore Screening Room
Between a Rock and a Cloud, ila and anGie Seah (both Singapore)
NTU CCA Singapore Seminar Room

The selected artists and collectives consistently push boundaries, challenge norms, and create thought-provoking experiences in their respective practices, in synergy with NTU CCA Singapore’s decade-long commitment to supporting experimental forms of artistic expression.

Established in 2013 by NTU Singapore, over the past decade NTU CCA Singapore has shaped itself as a hub for curatorial experimentation and artistic research. The centre’s inaugural exhibition Paradise Lost (2014) featured Zarina Bhimji (India/UK), Trinh T. Minh-ha (Vietnam/US) and Fiona Tan (Indonesia/Netherlands). Its various programmes were guided and unified by the overarching research clusters PLACE.LABOUR.CAPITAL. (2013–2016) and CLIMATES.HABITATS.ENVIRONMENTS. (2017–ongoing). Under this unique institutional framework, NTU CCA Singapore has presented over 50 exhibitions and research presentations in its public exhibition spaces (2014–2021) designed by artist Fareed Armaly (US/Germany). These range from Theatrical Fields (2014), Incomplete Urbanism (2016/2017) inspired by architect William S.W. Lim (Singapore), Ghosts and Spectres—Shadows of History (2017), The Oceanic (2017/2018), Trees of Life—Knowledge in Material (2018), Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again (2019), The Posthuman City (2019/2020), and Non-Aligned (2020), to first institutional solo exhibitions in the region of ground-breaking artists such as Yang Fudong (China) in 2014/2015, Allan Sekula (US), Simryn Gill (Australia/Malaysia), and Tomás Saraceno (Argentina/Germany) in 2015, Joan Jonas (US), Charles Lim (Singapore), and Amar Kanwar (India) in 2016, Ulrike Ottinger (Germany) in 2017, Tarek Atoui (Lebanon/France) in 2018, Jef Geys (US) in 2018/2019, Siah Armajani (Iran/US) in 2019, and Trinh T. Minh-ha in 2020/2021. The Centre released 17 publications, amongst them Theatrical Fields: Critical Strategies in Performance, Film and Video (2016), Becoming Palm by Simryn Gill and anthropologist Michael Taussig (Australia/US), and Saraceno’s award-winning Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions in 2017, Place.Labour.Capital. and Voyages de Rhodes by Thảo Nguyên Phan (Vietnam) in 2018, The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia) (2020), and Climates.Habitats.Environments. (2022). Most recently, it published with National Gallery Singapore The Modern in Southeast Asian Art: A Reader (2023), edited by eminent art historians T.K. Sabapathy (Singapore) and Patrick D. Flores (Philippines/Singapore).

The Centre’s residency programme has worked with and nurtured more than 210 Artists-, Curators-, and Researchers-in-Residence, among them 60 Singaporean artists and counting. Many of the projects developed by the artists during their residencies went on to be presented at international exhibitions, biennials, and festivals. Its public resource platform, programmes and conferences continue to engage with artists, curators, and critical thinkers across disciplines. The Centre was joined by 56 Young Professional Trainees over periods of six to eight months, contributing to capacity building in the arts sector. In 2018, NTU CCA Singapore and NTU ADM jointly inaugurated the Master of Arts programme in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices, the first of its kind in the region.

About the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
Situated within Singapore’s premier art precinct Gillman Barracks, NTU CCA Singapore is a pioneering institution that has been instrumental in shaping the contemporary art landscape in Singapore and beyond. With a focus on fostering creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, the Centre’s programmes have consistently challenged the status quo, encouraging artists to explore new realms of artistic expression. For more information, visit ntu.ccasingapore.org.

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Medicine, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes—the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering—and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).

Under the NTU Smart Campus vision, the University harnesses the power of digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources. Ranked amongst the world’s top universities, the University’s main campus is also frequently listed among the world’s most beautiful. Known for its sustainability, over 95% of its building projects are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a medical campus in Novena, Singapore’s healthcare district. For more information, visit ntu.edu.sg.