The Life of Things (Jan – Apr 2018)
Kevin Fee (Singapore), Lim Sokchanlina (Cambodia), Phan Thao-Nguyen (Vietnam), Sarker Protick (Bangladesh), Sim Chi Yin (Singapore), and UuDam Tran Nguyen (Vietnam)
Objects and places are repositories of history and conduits of memory, associated with experiences both personal and collective. While they are material things with physical attributes, they also have symbolic qualities that represent abstract ideas, signal emotion, and in the case of animistic belief systems, possess energies that people powerfully relate to.
In three exhibitions around Esplanade, artists from Singapore and the region present new and recent photographs, paintings, sculpture, video and installations. Broad in historical and geographical scope, these artworks uncover ways that colonial legacies, geopolitical tensions, and urban development leave material traces of their existence on things and places. In these exhibitions, objects and landscapes become discursive sites for the expression and interpretation of competing historical narratives and the complexities of contemporary experience.