Curator

Home is Where…

2015

On the 50th anniversary of our Island Nation, Singapore, we will look back at our history and think about what has gone before. The visions and the achievements of our founding fathers will be looked at and celebrated. What they were trying to achieve and how well they have succeeded is apparent because we Singaporeans are living in the nation that they have built.

For us to understand the future of Singapore, we need to look at the younger generation, for they are the ones that will bring Singapore into the future. What is their understanding of home and identity? What could their aspirations be for the future of our island?

I have chosen three young photographers for this exhibition ‘Home is Where…‘, whose work deal with the understanding of home, space and identity. Their understanding of Singapore is a mixture of the quickly changing landscape of what is known as the economic miracle of Singapore and a connectedness to global thought and philosophy. It is too easy for many to complain that Singaporean roots are lost in its rapid growth, but this rapid growth is our common heritage. And one cannot simply discard and ignore the influence of family, friends and society, even in a fast changing world, values, traditions and beliefs get deposited on people’s psyches in layers. I believe that the younger generation have access to tools of inquiry and frames of references that help them navigate this new territory, to form new visions, while being fed by the history of Singapore.

These artists, with their examination on the theme of home, will be the future of Singapore in the next fifty years.

Venue: NUSS Guildhouse
Date: 4 August – 30 Spetember 2015

01

<p>Image from series <em>This city by any other name (Would smell just as white)</em> (2012 – Ongoing) by Geraldine Kang</p>
<p><em>This city by any other name (Would smell just as white)</em> is a series of abstract contemplations on space and land usage in Singapore. Each image contains an intervention and also an element of white. The colour white was chosen for its varying (and contrasting) connotations, and inescapably, for its political associations with the State. A broader understanding of the forces negotiating social space is evoked, and underlying that, a consideration of the very ideas of progress, home and our relationship with land itself.</p>

Image from series This city by any other name (Would smell just as white) (2012 – Ongoing) by Geraldine Kang

This city by any other name (Would smell just as white) is a series of abstract contemplations on space and land usage in Singapore. Each image contains an intervention and also an element of white. The colour white was chosen for its varying (and contrasting) connotations, and inescapably, for its political associations with the State. A broader understanding of the forces negotiating social space is evoked, and underlying that, a consideration of the very ideas of progress, home and our relationship with land itself.

02

<p>Image from series <em>家</em> (2013)</p>
<p>家 (the home), is part of my name. Taking the subject 家 as a point of departure, I am exploring who am I in relation to my family and the home.<br />
How can one represent their relationships? How can one find meaning in our banal existence? The notion of home is extended beyond kinship to citizenship, an island, surrounded by water. Like waves rushing towards the shore, memories of the past and present laps and flows into our knowledge of self and others.</p>
<p>In 家 (Home), I present an attempt to present a simple contemplation of urban Singapore existence. Private and public, this work seeks to unravel and re-contemplate, the vernacular, the day to day. To observe, to reveal and attempt to resolve the discontinuity between assumptions, representation with our temporal experiences of time, home, relationships and places.</p>

Image from series 家 (2013)

家 (the home), is part of my name. Taking the subject 家 as a point of departure, I am exploring who am I in relation to my family and the home.
How can one represent their relationships? How can one find meaning in our banal existence? The notion of home is extended beyond kinship to citizenship, an island, surrounded by water. Like waves rushing towards the shore, memories of the past and present laps and flows into our knowledge of self and others.

In 家 (Home), I present an attempt to present a simple contemplation of urban Singapore existence. Private and public, this work seeks to unravel and re-contemplate, the vernacular, the day to day. To observe, to reveal and attempt to resolve the discontinuity between assumptions, representation with our temporal experiences of time, home, relationships and places.

03

<p>Image from the sereis <em>Noor</em></p>
<p><em>Exit/Exist</em> is part of a larger series entitled <em>Noor</em>. This narrative manifested through the artist desire to have a more intimate, emotional variant to the installation, to thread all the strings together. As the title suggests, the series speaks of that ambiguity between leaving and living. The artist want this section to be an externalization of the disquietude stirring within him.One where there is a struggle in reclaiming his identity. He holds the belief that the Self is dissipating, hence the 6 image piece, follows a narrative of losing the face.</p>
<p>Aside from putting forth this feeling of decadence, it crosses a dangerous supposition on the turbulence of finding faith. In today’s age, the artist posited that the distortion and fabrication of truths creates a perplexity in the spirituality of oneself. He feels that there is always that transition phase where the real does not seem as it is and the Self gets trapped in that in-between territory. This series proposes a deep, introspective vision of Home. A sanctuary within the soul, in this sense, an intimate intermingling of faith and the Self. Of seeking solace, of seeking shelter, of seeking Home.</p>

Image from the sereis Noor

Exit/Exist is part of a larger series entitled Noor. This narrative manifested through the artist desire to have a more intimate, emotional variant to the installation, to thread all the strings together. As the title suggests, the series speaks of that ambiguity between leaving and living. The artist want this section to be an externalization of the disquietude stirring within him.One where there is a struggle in reclaiming his identity. He holds the belief that the Self is dissipating, hence the 6 image piece, follows a narrative of losing the face.

Aside from putting forth this feeling of decadence, it crosses a dangerous supposition on the turbulence of finding faith. In today’s age, the artist posited that the distortion and fabrication of truths creates a perplexity in the spirituality of oneself. He feels that there is always that transition phase where the real does not seem as it is and the Self gets trapped in that in-between territory. This series proposes a deep, introspective vision of Home. A sanctuary within the soul, in this sense, an intimate intermingling of faith and the Self. Of seeking solace, of seeking shelter, of seeking Home.