Art experiences by 12 museums, art spaces and collectives to support the local art community opens to the public

A series of exhibitions and programmes by 12 local art institutions and independent art spaces and collectives will open between now and February 2021 to support the local arts community and audiences as they move forward in the time of a pandemic. The initiative, titled Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, is of unprecedented scale and scope. It features the works of over 170 local artists and cultural workers, including independent curators and emerging and established artists in Singapore. Through a range of art programmes and offerings, Singaporeans can find new ways to process their experience of the pandemic and draw inspiration to imagine new possibilities for the future.

The partners for Proposals for Novel Ways of Being comprise seven institutions and five independent art spaces and collectives. They are: ADM Gallery, NTU School of Art, Design and Media; Coda Culture; Grey Projects; INTER–MISSION; LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore; National Gallery Singapore;  National Museum of Singapore;  NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore);  Singapore Art Museum; soft/WALL/studs; STPI; and The Substation.

LASALLE College of the Arts President, Professor Steve Dixon, says, "When COVID-19 hit Singapore, the role of art in this pandemic became a question that was very much at the forefront of our minds as an institution. It was important to us that our students' work should engage with wider conversations about navigating uncertainty and our common humanity in a time of crisis. So, we are very pleased to be part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, which gathers such a dynamic, diverse range of artists and perspectives under a nationwide initiative. We hope audiences will find our exhibition compelling and thought-provoking, while also discovering new connections between the works at LASALLE and elsewhere.”

On rallying the arts community together for Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, Dr. Eugene Tan, Director, National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, says, “As national art institutions, we ask ourselves how we can show solidarity with the local network of independent art spaces, institutions and collectives to engage and support members of the art community, and how we can highlight the role that art can play in times of crises such as the current pandemic. We hope that through the exhibitions and programmes presented as part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, local audiences will be inspired to make meaning out of their own experiences of the pandemic and collectively imagine new possibilities for the future.”

From now to February 2021, visitors can participate in a series of immersive programmes and exhibitions by the 12 programme partners:

• The Substation’s we are not going back, we are coming around (from 12 Aug) engages practitioners from different fields in the arts (visual arts, performing arts and literary arts) and fosters inclusivity through talks, workshops and sharing sessions.  The programme is curated by The Substation, and participating artists include Chu Hao Pei, Shaiful Risan and Stephanie Chan.
   
• Grey Project’s Stranger Still (from 20 Aug), offers five programmes that consider our infrastructures of care in these times of estrangement; these include a penpal programme with elderly and schoolchildren in Tiong Bahru and Bukit Merah, a drawing exhibition of chimaera bodies, and a mutual assistance programme. Curated by Jason Wee, participating artists include Jerome Kugan, Yang Zhong Da and Daryl Yam.
   
• soft/WALL/studs’s Beyond Repair (from 29 Aug), transforms the space into a site for mutual care through nine initiatives that span gardening projects, research and learning platforms, gaming sessions and more. The project is collectively curated by the 12 participating artists, including Luca Lum, Marcus Yee and Huiying Ng.
   
• National Gallery Singapore’s An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season (from 4 Sep) invites visitors to collectively reflect and imagine new ways of thinking and doing towards a more humane future through immersive mixed media installations, sound and movement performances, and site-specific artistic interventions. This exhibition sees guest curator Syaheedah Iskandar collaborating with ten artists, including Kin Chui, Priyageetha Dia, Aki Hassan, Ila and Norah Lea.
   
• Singapore Art Museum’s Time Passes (from 4 Sep), features contemporary artworks which explore the passage of time, and ways of caretaking and living in a world changed by the pandemic. This exhibition, guest curated by Samantha Yap, features works from 13 artists such as Victor Paul Brang Tun, Diana Rahim, Divaagar and Fazleen Karlan.
   
• LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore’s The Fabric of Sympathy (from 12 Sep), curated by Luke Heng, is an exhibition where featured artists such as Lee Pheng Guan, Nicholas Lim and Ong Sihui employ a wide range of art forms while sharing a keen devotion to materiality. Their artworks reveal how, amidst uncertainties, we can make sense of our lives, through a call to treat things with care and sympathy.
   
• National Museum of Singapore’s #NEVERBEFORESG (from early Oct), showcases a series of digital artworks by multiple artists who explore states of mind during this pandemic. An online digital presentation, #NEVERBEFORESG is curated by Yang Derong and features works from an estimated total of 87 artists and creatives, which include the likes of Dick Lee, Lee Aik Soon and Brian Gothong Tan.
   
• Coda Culture’s Precious Things (from 7 Nov), features newly commissioned works, bringing together 12 Singaporean artists who produce works with extant objects. The exhibition looks at how the “value” of art and artists has been called into question due to the ongoing pandemic, and how, for some artists, their methodologies and artworks have always existed at the margins of presumed “value”. Precious Things is curated by Seelan Palay, and features 12 artists, including Maisarah Kamal, Genevieve Leong, Jeremy Hiah, Tang Da Wu, Tang Mun Kit and writer Syed Muhammad Hafiz.
   
• NTU CCA’s Under the Skin (from 1 Dec), will treat audiences to a trio of new performative works by artists George Chua, Nina Djekić, and Noor Effendy Ibrahim. Curated by artist Cheong Kah Kit for NTU CCA Singapore’s Free Jazz III, these artists will engage with sound, bodily movements and performance, with their performances translated to the medium of video and streamed online.
   
• INTER–MISSION’s Negentropic Fields (from 4 Dec), co-curated by formAxioms, is a process-based platform created in a 3D virtual environment. It seeks to address what the digital turn means for art, and what the new considerations and possibilities are for artistic practice. Participating artists include Debbie Ding, Ong Kian Peng and Andreas Schlegel.
   
• STPI’s Strange Forms of Life (from 5 Dec), a physical exhibition that comprises works by STPI artists and other prominent Singaporean artists such as Han Sai Por, Kim Lim and Suzann Victor. Curated by Guo-Liang Tan, the exhibition considers the natural, emotional, technological, and temporal facets of our existence through the language of abstraction, and looks to ignite conversations centred around moving forward from the ongoing crisis in new and generative ways.
   
• ADM Gallery’s In Our Best Interests: Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities during a Cold War (from 21 Jan 2021), which presents contemporary art works and archival material that nuance Afro-Asian legacies that grew out of the Cold War. This exhibition focuses on Southeast Asia as a geopoetic imagination alongside a post-WWII global anti-colonial resistance to racism. Curated by Kathleen Ditzig and Carlos Quijon, Jr, participating artists include Bani Haykal, Vuth Lyno and Fyerool Darma.
   

For more information, please visit www.novelwaysofbeing.sg or refer to the annex within the PDF version of this release. Media assets can be accessed via this link.