Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Cloud of Unknowing (2011) is titled after a 14th-century medieval treatise on faith, in which “the cloud of unknowing” that stands between the aspirant and God can only be evoked by the senses, rather than the rational mind. In the video, eight protagonists act out their daily lives. The setting is a soon-to-be-demolished public housing facility in Singapore, a country in transition from a mindset of Eastern collectivism to global neoliberalism.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The lecture performance, Screen Green takes the telecast of a speech made by the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, during which he was pictured against a homogenous green backdrop commonly used for visual effects or post-production in film, as a point of departure. Taking the lush, botanical landscape of Singapore, administered through a series of governmental gardening efforts, Ho offers a speculative narrative through the metaphor of a space of future possibilities that are simultaneously a method to limit and modulate its citizens.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Embracing the conflicting negative and positive affect of the horror genre, Ho Rui An’s film Student Bodies is a self-described work of “pedagogical horror,” that organizes social, political, and economic events in Asia around the motif of the student body. Bound together by a suspenseful, eerie soundtrack, the film temporally cycles through its separate, though thematically interrelated, phenomena and events centering Asian students. Using the student body motif as a human signifier of varied connotations, the film follows phenomenon ranging from the Ch?sh?

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Filmed underwater, this is the third video in Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s “Memorial Project” series which began in 2001. The title already implies the cultural complexities about to be ironically unravelled: Ho Chi Minh is parodied and Okinawa (where this was filmed) was a battle site in Japan during World War II which then became an American training base during the Vietnam War. To a remix of James Bond movie tracks composed by Quoc Bao, no less than thirty divers in wet suits and full gear advance against the water resistance armed with cartridges of color.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Heat Waves by Kent Chan examines the contexts, politics, and proliferation of the different aesthetics of heat by drawing from the aesthetics of regions defined by hot and humid climates and associated with histories of coloniality such as ‘the global south’ and the ‘developing world’. The video takes the form of a curated broadcast or music video of historical and contemporary imagery and videos of both found and filmed footage, including media broadcasts; TikToks; DJ sets; an interview with Keanu Reeves; an excerpt of Ho Tzu Nyen’s 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art (2005); an interview with KADIST Collection artist Julian Abraham Togar; and DJ sets. The barrage of footage weaves together contrasting tropes about the tropics: depicting it as a diseased paradise; naturally abundant, yet economically poor; filled with people who are at once energetic and lazy; with dynamic aesthetics, but lacking order.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Oliver Laric’s video Versions is part of an ongoing body of work that has continued to evolve and mutate over time. Comprised of several video and sculptural works that share the same title, the Versions series reflects Laric’s key concerns: the mutability of images and objects and the negotiation between original and copy. In this video, we see several 3D renders of recognizable objects and places, while an ubiquitous feminized robotic voice that evokes the domestic familiarity of voice recognition tools such as Siri and Alexa, speaks of issues relating to identity, language, and translation.

This work presents the image of an immolated monk engraved on a baseball bat. The flames surround him eroding the extremity of the bat. The delicate sculpture refers to the sacrifice of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, who immolated himself on June 16th 1963, in reaction to the discrimination and the repressive politics of the Diem Catholic regime (regime installed by the Americans) towards the Buddhists.

Photography (Photography)

To the Cardinal Gods: Central Axial Consecration (Site 6) is from a 2017 series made by Ren Zi during a residency in the Arctic Circle. The work reflects upon the serious ecological issues we face today. During the residency Ren Zi was joined by other artists, scientists, architects and educators exploring the high-Arctic Svalbard Archipelago in an interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavour to create work addressing such issues.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Dislocation Blues by Sky Hopinka is a portrait of the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in South Dakota. Working against grand narratives and myth-making, Hopinka attempts to provide a clear look towards the participants of the protest movement and the protectors of the water – their testimonies, reflections, and histories. In the film, Cleo Keahna tells about the everyday life of the camp and its difficulties and Terry Running Wild shares his dreams for the future.

Photography (Photography)

Phan Quang’s portrait series Re/cover grapples with a lesser-known history in Vietnam. After World War II, many Japanese soldiers who fought in Vietnam stayed in the country. They married Vietnamese women, had children, and lived in the country until Japan recalled them home.

Photography (Photography)

The American War , which takes its title from the Vietnamese term for what Americans call the Vietnam War, has toured the United States extensively with the goal of presenting a Vietnamese perspective of that history. The project began in 2005 when Fletcher visited the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. He was shocked by images that depicted the lasting effects of the war and the atrocities committed by the United States.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Fade In (the whole title of the film is actually the entire five page script) is a collaboration with the Danish artist collective Superflex (group of freelance artist–designer–activists committed to social and economic change, founded in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen). There are several time layers to understand the story behind this film. In 1601, the San Jago set sail from Goa for Lisbon; the cargo included the first consignment of South East Asian porcelain destined for the European market.