Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya

A project which stretches over the course of two years (2011-2013), and drawing on a series of smaller curatorial projects undertaken at the NUS Museum, Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya, brings together varied objects, from natural history to ethnographic to films to modern paintings and contemporary artworks.

Persistent Visions | Erika Tan

One of the most challenging exhibitions in terms of creating context. Much of the complexities emerged from the very rich nature of the work itself. Persistent Visions as an artwork, seems so relevant to pretty much most of my curatorial practice. The Museum space mediated through the very recurrence of colonial imagery; bare and undefined, yet so potent in terms of its relevance. Excerpt from the catalogue is below:

Past-Present: Craft Communities in Contemporary India

A highly experimental project, the gallery space was filled with vinyll text in an attempt at bringing the two different experiences together. Below is a quote:

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Proverbial In(ter)ventions: Ratnadeep Gopal Adivrekar

My first foray into contemporary Indian art, curating Ratnadeep’s exhibition has been immensely fullfilling. The works render themselves to such multitudionous readings that each encounter continues to ‘haunt’ but also perplex. Below is an extract from my curatorial introduction to the exhibition:

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Spacing Identities | J. Ariadhitya Pramuhendra

10 – 31 May 2009

A youngster on the Indonesian contemporary art scene, Hendra’s works continue to mesmorize. Co-curated with Aminuddin TH Siregar. Below is the wall text from the exhibition:

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being | ahmad zakii anwar

24 April to 7 June 2009

One of the most interesting projects i have worked on with one of the most respected artists in the Malaysian contemporary arts scene. All the works were charcoal on paper and Zakii used but one model for all the paintings. Below is an extract from my longer introduction to the project contained in the exhibition catalogue.

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St. John’s and Kusu Island, Singapore

Amidst the madness (perhaps even mundaneity) of everyday life, ‘escaping’ away seems a very welcomed idea.