Date: 21 January 2020
Address: Art Science Musuem
Discover the possible futures of Singapore 200 years from now through a series of immersive installations, meditative spaces, films, paintings and sculptures.
Inspired by the work of Singaporean writer and poet Alvin Pang, 2219: Futures Imagined marks this year’s Singapore Bicentennial by looking two centuries into the future.
While we cannot be entirely sure what is to come, each section of this exhibition hinges on the scientific certainty that changes in our climate will require us all to adapt. This massive global transformation will act as a backdrop, upon which Singapore’s daily life, communities, cultures and traditions will evolve and change.
Neither a utopian or dystopian view of the distant future and resisting the clichés of science fiction, this exhibition focuses on small, human-scale acts of innovation and contemplation. The exhibition intends for visitors to reflect on what kind of future they want for Singapore, and what actions they may be prepared to take in order to bring that future into being.
Artists featured in this exhibition are as follows:
Alvin Pang (Singapore), John Akomfrah (UK), Sarah Choo Jing (Singapore), Johann Fauzi (Singapore), Hafiz Ozman (Singapore), Superflux (UK), WOHA Architects (Singapore), Debbie Ding (Singapore), Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore) Finbarr Fallon (Singapore), Donna Ong (Singapore), Lisa Park (USA/Korea), Fyerool Darma (Singapore), Gordon Cheung (UK), Rimini Protokoll (Germany), Bao Songyu (Singapore), Shan Hur (Korea), Larry Achiampong (UK), Zarina Muhammad (Singapore), Amanda Heng (Singapore), Yanyun Chen (Singapore), Priyageetha Dia (Singapore), Adeline Kueh (Singapore), Joshua Ip (Singapore), Clara Chow (Singapore), Rachel Heng (Singapore), Judith Huang (Singapore), Pomeroy Studio (Singapore) and Tristan Jakob-Hoff (New Zealand/UK).
Extract from Art Science Museum
Exhibition
6-channel HD colour video installation with 15.1 surround sound, 62 min looped
Single-channel video installation, 19 min 42 sec looped
As cities became hyper-connected and globalised, their cultural markers and individuality gradually diminished. This work illustrates how people became increasingly estranged from a sense of shared cultural identity in these dense homogeneous zones.
The artworks depict key moments in Singapore’s history. His work also investigates colonisation in Southeast Asia, the historical framing of nature and his identity as a Malay person in Singapore.
Modified bicycle
The Penghuluis a 2.5 metre tall bike. It is a playful, artistic intervention, but now, in light of the rising sea levels of the mid-21st century, could be seen as a utilitarian and functional object. It may serve as a practical use from transportation in time of flooding.
Installation
An installation that allows visitors to experience the lived consequences of global warming. The mid-21st century apartment shows how our lives might have to change as a result of climate crisis. The home is a space for domestic food production. A living space alive with multi-species inhabitants, surviving and thriving together in an indoor microcosm.
Newspaper
The newspaper presents a detailed urban planning proposal which aimed to make Singapore safer from rising sea levels, whilst shrinking the ecological footprint of the country to the size of the island.
Minor objects were reproduced using deep learning, shape, recognition, 3D shape interpolation and generative CAD modelling. The objects she created show how ordinary, disposable and non-precious refuse sometimes reveals the deepest insights into how domestic lives are lived.
Green glass vessels, wood platters and steel supports, LED lights
Constructed from approximately 5000 green glass bottles, it depicts a forest that no longer exists.
interactive installation, sensors, video, sound
The installation responds to physical ad aural contact between 2 to 4 participants. When participants stand on the sensors in bare feet, the tree flourishes, it also releases petals when participants hold hands or embrace.
These books have been deposited by members of the community, past and present. The donations represent the most precious archive within the Library of Necessary Books, sacrificed by readers for the education, survival and guidance of future library users.
This is a participatory theatre piece that speculates on the animal species most likely to thrive in an oceanic world transformed by climate change. It attempts to warn us of a future where humans are no longer the dominant species.
Site-specific installation, basket ball
The installation presents a farmiliar object partially concealed within architecture. The embedded objects appear strange and out of place now, but uncovering of them, by hacking away walls and pillars of the building, the artist suggests that the architecture literally, and metaphorically, holds history.
The series of portable shrines can be moved over time as a consequence of sea level rises. This work imagines how cultural traditions that are currently tied to place and space, will be maintained in an uncertain future.
From the series Stories of a woman and her dowry
Installation, chairs, lamp, silk, text
This novelistic work explores the deep and meaningful relationships that often exist between a grandmother, her daughter and granddaughter, as well as the expectations and tensions that accompany such close relationships.
Photographic print
The artist hopes to address the social responsibility that artists often feel to include, involve and embrace those who are not ‘insiders’. By including her in the work, this was one way to literally engage her mother with, and connect her to, the artist’s work. The image is a reminder that a simple gesture, like a hug, can be a political act.
