SEASTATE 6: Phase 1

2014 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

15:06 minutes

Charles Lim


In SEA STATE 6 Charles Lim takes the viewer down the Jurong Rock Caverns in Singapore, a massive underground infrastructure for oil and fuel storage, built to support the commercial operations of oil traders, petrochemical ventures and manufacturing industries in the area. The first of its kind in Southeast Asia. Located at a depth of 130 meters beneath the Banyan Basin on Jurong Island, the Caverns provide infrastructural support to the petrochemical industry that operates on Singapore’s Jurong Island, a cluster of islets reclaimed into one major island and connected to the mainland in the 1980s. When it opened in 2014, Phase 1 of the caverns were holding some 1.47 million cubic meters of oil storage tanks. This is about the size of 600 Olympic swimming pools. The volume of undersea rocks excavated from Phase 1 equals 1.8 million cubic metres, enough to fill 1,400 Olympic swimming pools. In the opening scenes, we see the artist sailing, his boat ultimately capsizing, leading us to discover the Jurong Rock Caverns. Viewers are guided down a still-empty cavern, where there is ongoing construction and workers toil away to the comforting melody of a Malay song and the sailing boat appears as the metaphor of a possible escape.


Charles Lim Yi Yong’s work encompasses film, installation, sound, recorded conversations, text, drawing, and photography. Over the last thirteen years, he has developed a body of work entitled SEA STATE that explores the political, biophysical and psychic contours of the city-state of Singapore, largely through the visible and invisible lenses of the sea. SEA STATE premiered at the Singapore Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, and has since been shown at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, where he developed the work over a nine-month residency. Lim’s multimedia project takes the sea as its focal point. Here, the sea is treated as a mapped resource, an abstract commodity, and an entity through which strategic nation-building, as well as economical and political pursuits, are built. A former Olympic sailor, Lim’s lifelong engagement with the sea reveals the invisible politics of Singapore’s relationship with the ocean as a political entity, a commodity and an imaginary boundary. The project’s early stages studied Singapore’s coastal ecology and the effects of industrial activities, while recent iterations examine Singapore’s expansion through land reclamation and the ongoing quest to make the finite, infinite.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

The Big Review: Caspar David Friedrich at the Hamburger Kunsthalle
© » THEARTNEWSPER

The Big Review: Caspar David Friedrich at the Hamburger Kunsthalle ★★★★★ Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Exhibitions review The Big Review: Caspar David Friedrich at the Hamburger Kunsthalle ★★★★★ This curatorial triumph highlights the measured artificiality of the German Romantic artist who made work that still mesmerises J...

Hermit Crab Project
© » KADIST

Charwei Tsai

2008

Charwai Tsai’s photograph documents her Hermit Crab Project installation upon the construction site of gallery Sora in Tokyo...

Map of the universo from El Cerro
© » KADIST

Chemi Rosado-Seijo

2016

Map of the Universe from El Cerro continues Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s long-term engagement with the community of El Cerro , a rural, working-class community living in the mountains of Naranjito, Puerto Rico...

Marina Abramović spreads the love in one-off performance at the Royal Academy
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Marina Abramović spreads the love in one-off performance at the Royal Academy Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Diary blog Marina Abramović spreads the love in one-off performance at the Royal Academy Against backdrop of turbulent real-world events, crowds gathered and hugged for Unconditional Love recital The Art Newspaper 11 December 2023 Share Marina Abramović performs An Invitation to Love Unconditionally in the Annenberg Courtyard at the Royal Academy of Arts, London...

Solid are the Winds: Aeolian Encounters at The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (Part II)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Solid are the Winds: Aeolian Encounters at The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (Part II) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles January 10, 2019 By Marcus Yee (1340 words, five-minute read) This is the second of a two-part essay on the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial running at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, from 24 November 2018 to 28 April 2019...

Matt Lipps Part 2
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps, Populist Camera at Silverman Gallery Sf...

The Ballad of Special Ops Cody
© » KADIST

Michael Rakowitz

2017

The Ballad of Special Ops Cody by Michael Rakowitz is a serio-comic stop motion animated film in which an everyday African-American G...

Interview with Xaviera Simmons
© » KADIST

New York-based artist Xaviera Simmons and AFRO Charities executive director Savannah Wood introduce Nectar , on view at KADIST Paris from May 6th to July 24th 2022...

A Bruxelles, les foires d’art prolifèrent avec la Brafa et Ceramic
© » LE MONDE

A Bruxelles, les foires d’art prolifèrent avec la Brafa et Ceramic Cet article vous est offert Pour lire gratuitement cet article réservé aux abonnés, connectez-vous Se connecter Vous n'êtes pas inscrit sur Le Monde ? Inscrivez-vous gratuitement Article réservé aux abonnés Des œuvres de Kevin McNamee-Tweed et Anne Marie Laureys, de la galerie Tatjana Pieters, à la foire Ceramic, à Bruxelles, en janvier 2024...

Podcast 65: M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival (Part 1)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Podcast 65: M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival (Part 1) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Photo: Crispian Chan September 12, 2019 Duration: 20 min Podcast host Chan Sze-Wei and guest Melissa Quek discuss works they saw at the recent M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival, specifically at the platforms DiverCity, Off Stage and M1 Open Stage...

Jason Dodge
© » KADIST

Jason Dodge talks about his work “Above the weather” (2007)...

Tropical Siesta
© » KADIST

Phan Thao Nguyên

2017

Tropical Siesta begins in a rural landscape of Vietnam...

“Medium Rare”, “God or Dog” and the makings of a Singaporean monster
© » ARTS EQUATOR

“Medium Rare”, “God or Dog” and the makings of a Singaporean monster | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Courtesy of Asian Film Archive August 26, 2019 By Alfonse Chiu (1,700 words, 7-minute read) Content warning: References to violent or disturbing behaviour In late January 1981, the body of a young girl was discovered in a brown PVC bag about a metre high by a young man in Toa Payoh...

Italy donates replica of Bull of Nimrud destroyed by Isis to Iraq
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Italy donates replica of Bull of Nimrud destroyed by Isis to Iraq Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Heritage news Italy donates replica of Bull of Nimrud destroyed by Isis to Iraq The 3D-printed reproduction of the Assyrian statue was previously displayed at the Colosseum in Rome and the Unesco headquarters in Paris James Imam 9 February 2024 Share The replica of the Bull of Nimrud at the Colosseum © Museo Archaeologico del Colosseo Italy has donated a reconstructed Assyrian statue to Iraq in what has been described as a “miracle of Italian cultural diplomacy”...

Marwa Arsanios
© » KADIST

Marwa Arsanios, in conversation with Heidi Rabben...

7 Shocking Incidents of Mona Lisa Vandalism & Theft
© » ART & OBJECT

7 Shocking Incidents of Mona Lisa Vandalism and Theft | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...

Weekly Picks: Malaysia (19–25 Nov 2018)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Picks: Malaysia (19–25 Nov 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do November 19, 2018 KLEX 2018: Translucence , at various locations, 22–25 Nov An independent artist-run grassroots international festival of experimental film, video art and music...

10 Stunning Prehistoric Sculptures from The Met's Collection
© » ART & OBJECT

10 Stunning Prehistoric Sculptures from The Met's Collection | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...