Photography (Photography)

Au non de la liberté (Tiko drink Kumba drunk) is a photographic series by Zacharie Ngnogue and Chantal Edie that considers the correlation between those who hold power in Cameroon and how their actions affect the populations they rule in often compromising ways. “Tiko drink-Kumba drunk” is an adage that is commonly used in the Southwest province of Cameroon to speak of how one’s actions affect others. Civil liberties are next to non-existent in Cameroon, the law is lawless, and structured in a way that is intended to attack its citizens’ human rights.

Photography (Photography)

Au non de la liberté (Tiko drink Kumba drunk) is a photographic series by Zacharie Ngnogue and Chantal Edie that considers the correlation between those who hold power in Cameroon and how their actions affect the populations they rule in often compromising ways. “Tiko drink-Kumba drunk” is an adage that is commonly used in the Southwest province of Cameroon to speak of how one’s actions affect others. Civil liberties are next to non-existent in Cameroon, the law is lawless, and structured in a way that is intended to attack its citizens’ human rights.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

A Thoughtful Gift by Pio Abad is based on a version of a letter written by the former First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan to the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. Written in 1986, the letter assures Marcos of their safety from persecution in the United States, following widespread anti-government protests across the Philippines. The Marcoses were granted exile in the United States by the Reagan administration and they eventually fled to Honolulu.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Welcome to Xijing – Xijing Olympics is the third of five chapters in the Xijing series. Produced concurrently to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Xijing Men stage their own versions of the Olympics, comprising events such as shot-put throwing with eggs, relay races with cigarettes instead of batons and marathon naps, often umpired by family members and children. Through slapstick skits they satirize the spectacle of stately ceremonies by playing on the absurdity of state pomp, for a reflection on modern society.

Photography (Photography)

Au non de la liberté (Tiko drink Kumba drunk) is a photographic series by Zacharie Ngnogue and Chantal Edie that considers the correlation between those who hold power in Cameroon and how their actions affect the populations they rule in often compromising ways. “Tiko drink-Kumba drunk” is an adage that is commonly used in the Southwest province of Cameroon to speak of how one’s actions affect others. Civil liberties are next to non-existent in Cameroon, the law is lawless, and structured in a way that is intended to attack its citizens’ human rights.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

Pyre , an installation by Mexico City-based artist Joaquín Segura, addresses corruption, impunity, and the role that failed governments play in the normalization of violence. The work references mass disappearances at the hands of corrupt armed forces and paramilitary groups that have taken place in Mexico since the 1960s and significantly escalated over the last decade due to the War on Drugs. While the piece may be installed any number of ways, it is marked by the precision of its material content: 71 liters of gasoline, 23 used car tires, and 760 kilograms of wood.

Photography (Photography)

In the Family Portrait series, Akiq AW documents reliefs and statues in Jogja, Indonesia that present an image of the ideological nuclear family. Following Indonesia’s communal and political conflicts, and its economic collapse and social breakdown of the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, the second Indonesian President Suharto established the “New Order” regime. During this period, there were efforts to control the national birth rate through a programme called Keluarga Berencana (Family Planning).

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Gikan Sa Ngitngit Nga Kinailadman (From The Dark Depths) by Kiri Dalena is a stylistically collaged film inspired by the true story of a young activist’s drowning. Moving between reality and fantasy, it depicts the story of a dead communist who sinks to the bottom of the ocean into a dreamlike subaquatic utopia. In the film a young woman mourns the death of an activist that took place years ago.

Painting (Painting)

They burn our village by Aung Ko is part of the artist’s daily visual diary as an attempt to process and note what has been happening in Myanmar while he is being exiled, following the military takeover of the government in February 2021. Almost two years ago, Myanmar’s military ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power in a coup. Since then, the country has descended into turmoil.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Minutos de odio contra sí mismo (Minutes of hate against itself) is a simple and powerful work about the political situation in Venezuela, replacing the stars on the flag with bullet holes. A meditation on the disillusionment of the people towards the government and nationalism. The precision of the marksman is impressive, as if “drawing” or re-making the representation of the symbol within a contemporary reality and climate.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

After the decade-long conflict (1996-2006) that ended with Nepal becoming a Federal Democratic Republic, political unrest and weak governance continued to mark the country’s future as daily life repeatedly witnessed ruptures. From accessing essentials to employment, education, compensation, legal justice, health facilities, and human rights, the people of Nepal have been forced to wait. Meanwhile by Karan Shrestha records moments of impasse as the post-conflict period dragged on.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

His large installation entitled The Museum of Proletarian Culture (2012) looked at the changes in artistic practice that have occurred in Russia throughout the last thirty years – from the amateur art of the late Soviet era to the commercialized post-Soviet cultural practices and the more recent self-expression via contemporary social networks. Thus, the exhibition becomes a whole installation where it is impossible to distinguish architecture from assemblage, facts from fantasy, document from fiction. It is a museum of museums where viewers find themselves in the era of didactic exhibitions; whereby the main protagonists are workers, engineers, and amateur artists, and finally replaced by the creative class of 1990s and 2000s.

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)

The single-channel video Myth of Modernity opens on historical representations of the universe in Thai Buddhist places of worship –pagodas, palaces and spirit houses. Denoting three cosmological worlds, the colored religious illustrations and ornate monuments are slowly replaced by images of anti-Yingluck protesters during the 2013-2014 Thai political crisis. Over the masses, a flying neon pyramid –the light sculpture Myth of Modernity – echoes the popular simplification of worship architecture into geometrical shapes.

Photography (Photography)

For Bettina Poutsttchi’s large-format, site-specific photographic work Echo (2009–10), the four exterior walls of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin were covered with a digitally edited collage of archival images of the glass-and-steel facade of the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), which had once been located nearby. That milestone of late East European modernism was completed in 1976. It served as the seat for the Volkskammer—the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Throughout his career, Marwan Rechmaoui has maintained a drawing practice. During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns the artist spent his evenings recording thoughts and imagery on paper, inspired by events happening around him, music, his garden, and the news. These drawings are contemporaneous in their concerns and are indexical of a destitute time and space in the aesthetics they conjure.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Throughout his career, Marwan Rechmaoui has maintained a drawing practice. During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns the artist spent his evenings recording thoughts and imagery on paper, inspired by events happening around him, music, his garden, and the news. These drawings are contemporaneous in their concerns and are indexical of a destitute time and space in the aesthetics they conjure.

Installation (Installation)

Tan Zi Hao produced Pest Control 1110, 709, 428 (or, a Myth for Another) , in response to the Bersih social movement, that catalyzed three rallies on 10th November 2007, 9th July 2011 and 28th April 2012, respectively, to demand a clean electoral roll. Tan Zi Hao’s work is a commentary on the Bersih protest movement; “Bersih” is the Malay word for “clean” and the movement was an important precursor to the changes in Malaysia following the 2018 elections when the Barisan Nasional coalition lost power for the first time since the country’s independence in 1957. Najib Razak, the prime minister ousted in those elections and the focus of some of the biggest demonstrations during the Bersih movement was sent to prison in 2020 after being found guilty of massive theft of public funds.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

25 by Vuth Lyno addresses the legacy of the UN’s 1992-93 peacekeeping operation in Cambodia (UNTAC). This operation steered the country’s transition out of three decades of war and destruction—civil war, the Khmer Rouge era (1975-79), and the factional conflicts of the 1980s—towards a new, ‘democratic’ future. It was the most ambitious and successful UN peacekeeping mission of its time.

Installation (Installation)

In the nine-channel video installation, Against Step by Yim Sui Fong, a phantasmagorical image of a male dancer appears on a large-scale video projected on a floating retro-projection screen. His cathartic sequence of movements is based on an index of the bodily behavior of random people previously recorded by the artist while observing thousands of Hong Kong citizens in public space. Some of this recorded footage, done in poor mobile video quality, is played on loop in a set of TV monitors placed below the large projection.

Photography (Photography)

State Terrorism in the ultimate form of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood features a portrait of the artist wearing a zipped utilitarian jacket reminiscent of a worker’s uniform, with one arm behind his back as if forced to ingest a bundle of stick—a literal portrayal to the definition of fascism. The title alludes to the Pre-Raphaelite notion of a brotherhood based on “truth to nature.” Censorship of the mouth and indigestion of freshly cut stalks, central to Chen’s language of tree branches, feeds back provocatively to the title’s suggestion of “state terrorism.” However, one must resist seeking symbolic meaning in the image as Chen’s focus is on the direct visual impact of the absurd act portrayed.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

The series Nightmare Wallpapers represents a shift if Chuen’s practice, allowing the artist to immerse himself in an “artistic pilgrimage of self healing” following the failure of the 2014 Umbrella Movement. These drawings were created during the trial of political activists pursued by the government that the artist would regularly attend. During the tribunal, the artist would let his pen slide freely across his notebook, replicating the automatic drawing techniques of the surrealists.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Some Dead Don’t Make a Sound (Hay muertos que no hacen ruido) is a single-channel video by Claudia Joskowicz that features the Mexican legend of the Weeping Woman (La Llorona) as its main protagonist. The video begins with the image of a ghost-like female figure, representing La Llorona, slowly walking down a well-known street in Oaxaca, from the main square (el Zócalo) to the Teatro Macedonio Alcalá, with a painful expression on her face. According to this famous oral myth, the Weeping Woman drowned her two sons in a fit of grief and anger after her husband abandoned her.