Stepping into Intersection exhibition, you will be immersed into an ink wash of vibrant colour, a lingering scent of incense and something magical, a map of poems, and the gentle twittering of birds at dawn. Launching as one of the first official Singapore Art Week events, this exhibition is worthy of a visit.
An encounter between poetry and visual art, this show is a collaboration between poet Marc Nair (recipient of the 2016 Young Artist Award) and visual international artist Nicola Anthony (whose public artworks you will have spotted lighting up Marina Bay last year). The show maps an architecture of memory at the junction of three diverse cities: London, Singapore and Yangon.
The exhibition has been three years in the making and both artists took time to journey to each city to engage in field research. Nicola’s artworks reflect and even embed Marc’s poems and, in turn, the poems evolve in response to Nicola’s artworks in a creative dialogue.
The exhibition consists of drawings, paintings, poetry, kinetic and light sculptures, with installation works. An artist book, based on the exhibition, is also part of the project, launched on the opening night of the exhibition. It is printed as a limited edition risograph, a technique resulting in exquisite pages with the feel of handmade screen prints.
In this show, Marc’s poems organically bloom in everyday objects which are displaced by Nicola to enter into the art realm. As an example, To Mecca, a poem which reminds us that Kampong Glam was once the pilgrim hub for Southeast Asia, is written onto a ship and imprisoned in a bottle. Referring to history and strata of memories, drawings hide themselves in layered artworks such as Merchant Road, whilst in others such as After Oud, laser-cut letters are displayed in glass vessels like objects in a cabinet of curiosities.
Throughout her career Nicola has made extensive use of paper and text in experimental forms such as her signature technique of hand burning her drawings with incense sticks; which in Intersection subtly refers to themes of faith and death. In other pieces, when Marc’s poems address the passage of time and change, the dilution of watercolour ink on calligraphy paper epitomises the constant transformations of the cities and the ephemeral nature of life.
By comparing cross-sections of neighbourhoods in their home cities of London and Singapore, and in a completely new city, Yangon, Marc and Nicola strive to express the secret links which bind personal and national stories. Ultimately they show how a universal dimension exists in any personal experience, transcending time and space.
Part of this exhibition, a sculpture-installation titled Observatory, (2m x 2m x 2m), will be showcased at Singapore Contemporary Art Fair (Suntec Singapore and Convention Centre, from 20 to 22 January). The installation will then relocate to Intersections gallery for the second half of the exhibition.
Observatory is an immersive, interactive installation made from thousands of paper scrolls and light. Observatory references the bird’s nest and the honeycomb structure of a beehive- a space that visitors can step inside to observe themselves and the world around them: a chamber of observation.
For Observatory Marc Nair has written a series of short poems as part of the artwork. These are ‘windows’ into moments and lives, observed through the yearning of time and distance. Visitors are free to pick up these poetic fragments from the nest, and even leave their own pieces behind.
Both the book and the exhibition are supported by funding from the National Arts Council. Nicola Anthony’s artworks were created while she was artist in residence at the NPE Art Residency.
For more details visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/126389184494430/
Intersections: 34 Kandahar Street, Singapore 198892
Exhibition calendar:
Opening: January 10, 2017
Part 1: 11 January to 11 February
Part 2: 25 February to 5 March
Singapore Art Week 2017 is upon us again and as usual the frenzy of events is building up. Fairs, exhibitions, vernissages, performances, talks, walks, tours ….how much can one accomplish in the twelve-day celebration of the visual arts that begins on January 11 and runs through January 22.
After two successful editions, ARTWALK Little India returns with a new theme, Your Path To Remember. This year, the festival leads visitors into a space in time where memories and stories of the precinct come to life through animated tellings of traditional folktales and mythologies, captivating art installations, and immersive performances.
Renowned artist, curator and scholar Dr Iftikhar Dadi discusses how contemporary artists navigate the dilemmas of a globalised and fractured world through this talk on his project Lines of Control. Echoing ideas explored in Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies, this exhibition-led inquiry co-curated with Hammad Nasar examined the notion of border-making as a productive space—where nations are made through forging new identities, reconfiguring memory, re-writing history, and patrolling physical and psychological borders.
The Singapore Biennale 2016 Symposium contextualises key ideas and questions about biennale modalities and art practices in Southeast, South and East Asia, in relation to the international contemporary art circuit. It will feature presentations and conversations between biennale directors, curators, art historians, writers, and artists. Scheduled to run over two days during Singapore Art Week 2017, the symposium asks: Why Biennale At All? and will be shaped to enable different modes of engagement with core issues relating to the making, scope, and experience of biennales in general, with a special focus on the region’s expositions.
