Pasar

Digital print (photographic composite)

Grieve Perspective (United Kingdom/Singapore)

A giant word floats above Orchard Road’s flagship new shopping mall. It shares its etymological roots with ‘bazaar’ and all its associated implications of the exotic and of cornucopia. PASAR seeks neither to celebrate nor critique Singapore’s ancient yet modern obsession with ‘the purchase’.

Grieve Perspective are a collaborative consisting of filmmaker Charles Lim, artist Guo Liang Tan, art historian Adele Tan and artist Martin Constable. They partake of technological bits and piecemeal processes to grieve, to harbour loss, and to find place in the vista—the terms of the digital age.

Invisible Life: Flip-flops Journeys Perspectives

Installation with archival inkjet prints on paper, threads and a book

Michael Tan (Singapore) in collaboration with Caroline Knowles (United Kingdom)

Penetrating beyond the banal percept of flip-flops, Michael collaborated with sociologist Caroline Knowles to navigate through China and Ethiopia to animate the life-worlds that have been downplayed by the economics of matter. This project proposes a different way of seeing and thinking about everyday objects, and suggests an alternate encounter for sociological pondering.

Michael Tan is assistant professor in the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. His practice seeks to link art and design to the fields of humanities, architecture and urban studies. Besides research in studio arts, he is also interested in art and design pedagogy.

Sponsors for the original project were Nanyang Technological University and the British Academy.

“Jurong West Street 81”

Multiple videos mounted on pillars

Shannon Lee Castleman (USA/Singapore)

Best described as a synchronised community video project, 16 residents in opposite flats agreed to have video cameras placed in their windows for a synchronised period of time. Rear Window meets The Conversation Singapore-style, the cameras recorded the activities of the neighbours as well as their ambient sounds and conversations.

Shannon Castleman is assistant professor in the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. Castleman has worked as a freelance photographer for clients and publications including Ray Gun, Rolling Stone, Alternative Press and Workman Publishing. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally.

This project was initially funded by the Substation in Singapore.

Singapore Pangram

Colour marker on canvas (printed on pp paper) and perforated by hand

Jesvin Yeo (Singapore) 

Taking the concept of pangram as a point of departure, this exhibit of works illustrate how ‘Singlish’ is part of Singaporean culture, describing the fusion of different races and their influences. Viewers have to filter light through the tiny holes that perforated on the artworks to view the pangram.

Jesvin Yeo is assistant professor in the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. Jesvin worked as an art director and brand consultant in Singapore and the UK. She researches, presents and publishes on Asian cultural identity and knowledge visualisation semantics, and also exhibits internationally.

These artworks were originally funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore.

“The Snail on the Slope”

Generative movie, duration 7:42, running on a continuous loop

Vladimir Todorovic (Serbia/Singapore)

The Snail on the Slope is a generative movie based on a book of the same title by the Strugatsky brothers.  The novel is set on an unknown planet, where humans have a base from which they are investigating and trying to conquer the Forest.

Vladimir Todorovic is assistant professor in the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. He works with environmental data, sustainable systems, game cultures and technologies. He has exhibited at Wired NextFest, ISEA06, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Siggraph 06, Transmediale 05, File 2004, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, and Museum of Contemporary Arts Belgrade.