Artists: Kenenza Michiko Hasan, Nathan Tan Yew Wai, Jasmine Ng & Putri Erina Fitriyana, Nur Adlina Tan, Nur Alya Rahmat, Nur Dini Suradi, Parmar Simrat, Seetharam Poorvaja, Vaidya Riddhi Abhijit, and Wan Wing Lam
Imagining New Futures is a collaboration between the Fine Art Programme at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Amsterdam-based multimedia artist Margret Wibmer which contemplates the social, cultural, and political shifts as well as the deep uncertainty that shrouds the current pandemic. Presented in this showcase are 10 selected projects by second year students from the Diploma in Fine Art that are diverse in form and expression, but more importantly, shed light on their individual preoccupations and collective concerns, whilst looking towards new futures.
These projects respond to five given themes provided by invited artist Margret Wibmer: Consumerism and Waste; Bodies and Screens; Maintenance and Care; Time & Space; and The Domestic – Notions of Home. In the works of Keneza Michiko Hasan and Nur Alya Rahmat, there exists a desire to break out of patterns, to resist traditional frameworks and cultural contexts that remain deeply entrenched in their identity, roles and obligations as an Indonesian and Malay-Muslim woman, respectively. They ask: “How does one birth a new beginning while in a state of chaos?”, while carefully negotiating fragile boundaries and fixed ideologies.
From the pandemic also surfaces unspoken conversations – Seetharam Poorvaja’s haunting portraits of self-made women, who grapple with the loss of individuality in the selfless pursuit to provide and care for their home and family, highlights the often-invisible labour that precedes gender roles in our society. Parmar Simrat’s video documents the everyday domestic space inhabited during lockdown, questioning the ways women present themselves at home and to the outside world, inherently shaped by cultural and social norms. The touch of violence is permeated in Nur Dini Suradi’s work, revealing the hidden terrors and rising incidences of rape and sexual assault in domestic settings during the pandemic.
As our society begins its long process of healing, the power of community, solidarity and a growing kinship proves more significant than ever. Wan Wing Lam’s installation is a poetic homage to her homeland, embodying the strength of hope and resilience of the human spirit, which never fades but changes in appearance and form. The pandemic has also drastically altered the way people connect – the collaborative performance between Jasmine Ng and Putri Erina Fitriyana mediates upon the idea, “How can we be physically distant but emotionally intimate?”
In seeking human connection, there arises an urgency to remember, to collect stories and memories. Vaidya Riddhi Abhijit’s participatory project explores the thesis of “What makes a house a home” and draws upon stories of 30 participants which are translated into motifs and embroidered onto their personal items. Nur Adlina Tan’s projection of personal photographs is a nostalgic memento of her past, while Nathan Tan’s stencilled silkscreen prints of misplaced, lost and forgotten objects, similarly harbour stories of the past and much like the works of this exhibition, carry the potential of possible futures.
Public programmes
Exhibition Tours (each tour is limited to no more than 5 participants, register here)
15 May (3pm, 3.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm)
22 May (3pm, 3.30pm)
Online Conversation with Margret Wibmer, Kenenza Michiko Hasan, Riddhi Vaidya and Nathan Tan (Register here)
22 May, 5pm (Zoom link will be sent to registered participants)
* Safe distancing measures consistent with government regulations will be deployed at the exhibition at all times.