SINGAPORE — From May through September, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) at Tanjong Pagar Distripark will be home to a suite of exhibitions that appeal to audiences of all ages and interests, kicking off with the opening of “Superfluous Things: Paper” followed by the third and final presentation of the multi-sited exhibition titled “Lonely Vectors.” Aimed at the young and the young-at-heart, “Superfluous Things: Paper” explores the role of paper in today’s world as a carrier of ideas. Meanwhile, the global economy comes into focus with “Lonely Vectors”, an exhibition that draws attention to the flow of bodies and labor that characterizes our world.
Dr. Eugene Tan, Director of SAM, said, “From the playful and vivid exhibits of Superfluous Things: Paper, to the varied explorations of the impact of today’s global economy and society on our lives with Lonely Vectors, we want SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark to be a place where different communities can gather and encounter diverse, immersive art experiences that expand their perspectives and reflect upon our contemporary condition. By making contemporary art accessible to audiences across all ages and interests, SAM hopes to offer visitors a new way of experiencing art through different entry points and site-responsive installations, as we continue to shape our space at Tanjong Pagar Distripark into a key art destination in Singapore.”
Lonely Vectors
From June 3 to September 4 2022 at Gallery 1, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Opening a week after “Superfluous Things: Paper”, the multi-sited “Lonely Vectors” will hold its third presentation at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, joining the two other presentations simultaneously showing at the museum’s hoardings and public libraries around Singapore. Taking its cue from the location of SAM’s new space at a historic port, the exhibition looks at the different ways we connect to the world through an examination of the global economy and its circulation of goods and commodities, as well as other terrestrial flows such as the bodies and histories that have been set adrift by a world in motion.
From the construction of special economic zones to patterns of migration, seed distribution to peasant movements against mega-plantations, and the uneven flow of land and water to the cosmologies and worlds lost over time, the artworks across the various “Lonely Vectors” presentations explore themes of:
● Choreographies of Labour, examining the role of laborers as a force often brushed aside in spite of their facilitation of the global flow of goods and capital.
● More-than-Human Ecologies, encouraging us to reconsider the boundaries between the human and nonhuman, as the global economy continues to reshape and damage the earth over time.
● Heatmaps and Hotzones, where artists recentre maps on human stories and micro-histories, to facilitate our understanding of the space around us.
Visitors can look forward to eight site-specific installations from ten local and international artists that span across these themes. As part of the theme focused on ‘More-than-Human Ecologies’, Singaporean contemporary artist Ho Tzu Nyen will present a new commission “H for Humidity.” Drawing from topics such as the region’s high intensities of rainfall and humidity, as well as our struggle against humidity in the age of climate change, the work seeks to reframe and reimagine Southeast Asia as worlds of water and air. Comprising a video installation and VR component where audiences are made to embody different states of water, “H for Humidity” asks, “What does it mean for us to ‘be like water’?”
Other artworks under this theme include Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang’s “UKI VIRUS SURGING”, a new iteration of the artist’s ongoing series UKI. The work is an ever-evolving science fiction that serves as a critical response to the global financial crises of the 2000s, prompting us to reconsider the possibilities of a different social order altogether. In Dioramas for Tanjong Rimau, local artists Zarina Muhammad, Zachary Chan, and Joel Tan draw on ancient cosmologies and spirit paths as a means of remembering. Here, “cosmologies” is used to refer to a community’s shared understanding of the formation and organization of the world, which often binds human and more-than-human realms together.
“Lonely Vectors” will also feature Vietnamese-American multimedia artist Tiffany Chung, Filipino multimedia artist Cian Dayrit, local artist Ho Rui An, dance collective P7:1SMA, as well as Netherlands-based Bo Wang. Interested audiences can also experience the full multi-sited exhibition by visiting the presentations of Australian artist-duo Zheng Mahler’s “The Green Crab: A Diagram of Auspicious Spatial Organization” at SAM’s hoardings and local artist Chu Hao Pei’s “Seeding Sovereignty” at public libraries around Singapore.
“Superfluous Things: Paper”
From May 28 to August 14 2022 at Gallery 2 and The Engine Room, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Kicking off the new wave of exhibitions is “Superfluous Things: Paper”, an exhibition that spotlights the ubiquitous but often-overlooked material, paper, an agent through which ideas are carried. The exhibition challenges the audience to ponder, “In an increasingly digital world, is paper still relevant? How do artists think through paper?”. Through five vibrant works presented by nine contemporary artists, this seemingly mundane material is transformed into objects of visual feast and emotional resonance, conveying the artists’ experiences and evoking personal and cultural memories. As part of the museum’s commitment to sustainability, up to 80% of the material used is paper-based, a renewable resource.
In Gallery 2, visitors can look forward to miniature paper sculptures by local contemporary artist and paper sculptor Cheryl Teo’s “Just a Little at a Time.” “Just a Little at a Time” puts on display over 80 miniature sculptures, each featuring a tiny scene on a matchbox-sized stage, toying with our perception of reality through the elements of surprise and scale.
New commissions by Nabilah Said and Jumaadi position paper as having its own personality and voice. Nabilah Said’s “100ish Meaningless Statements”, a collection of more than 100 sentences that explores the role of paper in our lives, is an exercise in performativity, poetry, and visual design. Jumaadi’s Joli Jolan is imbued with a poetic sensibility, affording audiences a glimpse of his grand private cosmology, weaving together a personal iconography of human and organic motifs, where natural and spiritual worlds converge.
Other works include Li Hongbo (李洪波)’s “Land of Fairy Tales (童话世界)”, an imaginary map of the world where borders and boundaries can be laid flat, twisted, or stretched; and PHUNK with Keiichi Tanaami’s “Eccentric City”, an imaginary floating city that consists of tatebanko or Japanese paper dioramas popular in the Edo period (1603-1867) and Meiji period (1868-1912).
As part of the experience, an extension of “Superfluous Things: Paper” at The Engine Room will feature interactive activities to spark imagination and curiosity. To expand on the themes explored in the exhibition, there will also be a variety of programs where visitors can engage in activities such as crafting decorative paper boxes and shadow puppet performances.
Epigram Coffee Bookshop
Open daily from 11am to 6:30pm, Level 1, beside The Engine Room, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Apart from a variety of art programming, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark will also be home to Epigram Coffee Bookshop. Operated by independent local publisher Epigram Bookshop and Balestier Market Collective, the newly launched coffee bookshop features all-local items made in Singapore such as locally roasted coffee and brands such as Fossa, Harri Ann’s, and Yeastside. It will also be Epigram’s only physical store in Singapore, carrying over 450 titles spanning a wide spectrum of genres.
Find more information on “Superfluous Things: Paper” and “Lonely Vectors” at bit.ly/SAM-SuperfluousThingsPaper and bit.ly/SAM-LonelyVectors.
