October Round-Up

Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Biennale Jogja, Esplanade, Galerie BAQ, Objectifs, Sa Sa Art Projects, Silverlens Galleries
By Riley Yuen

Thảo Nguyên Phan, ‘Becoming Alluvium’, 2023, exhibition view. Image courtesy of Galerie BAQ.

Tropical Hallucinations

Co-curated by Galerie BAQ’s Lê Thiên Bảo, ATTA Gallery’s Atty Tantivit and RUBANAH-Underground Hub’s Grace Samboh, Tropical Hallucinations will be shown as a two-part exhibition in two locations, the first being Galerie BAQ, and the second, Asia Now Art Fair 2023. On view are twelve works by the artists Paul Kadarisman, Kamin Lertchaiprasert, Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, M. Irfan, Thảo Nguyên Phan, and Tôn Thất Minh Nhật that engage with the lived realities of artists living in Southeast Asia. Under classic Southeast Asian tropical climate as a uniting theme, the group exhibition explores the diverse religious and belief landscapes of the region. In doing so, this multi-part collaboration seeks to lift the veil of exoticism that so often clouds the view of Southeast Asia to Western audiences. 

Part I of ‘Tropical Hallucinations’ runs from 20 September to 28 October 2023 at Galerie BAQ in Paris, France. Part II runs from 19 to 22 October at Asia Now Art Fair 2023 in Paris, France. Click here for more information.

Yasmin Sison, ‘Sisters (Ingrid and Zoe)’, 2023, water soluble oil colour on canvas. Image courtesy of Silverlens Galleries.

Time is a Restless Sea | Drift and Vapour

Silverlens Galleries opens Yasmin Sison’s ‘Time is a Restless Sea’ which features the artist’s autobiographical paintings. Centring nature as the protagonist of her paintings, Sison pays tribute to the unpredictability and ephemerality of the world through the sea, sky and sand. Concurrently, Silverlens Galleries will also show ‘Drift and Vapour’ in which artist Maya Muñoz experiments with screen-printing, painting, and photography. Muñoz demonstrates her long-standing fascination with experimental techniques in the darkroom and virtuosity of material to illustrate the landscapes and communities she encounters everyday.

‘Time is a Restless Sea’ and ‘Drift and Vapour’ run from 5 October to 4 November 2023 at Silverlens Galleries in Manila, Philippines. Click here for more information. 

Kong Siden, ‘Moments in Light’, 2023, installation view. Image courtesy of Sa Sa Art Projects.

Moments in Light 

In Kong Siden’s first solo exhibition, he introduces a new series of digital works. By compressing hundreds of images and videos taken between 2018 and 2023, the artist draws attention to the changing urbanscapes and landscapes of Cambodia from the past five years. The fragments of colour and light that punctuate the art space reference the transience of all that surrounds us, allowing the viewer to partake in the artworks. With allusions to the complex relationship between humans and nature, the work explores the tensions between visual perception and bodily experience, past and present, and reality and illusion. 

‘Moments in Light’ runs from 14 September to 30 November 2023 at Sa Sa Art Projects in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Click here for more information. 

Melati Suryodarmo, ‘Fracture (Performance)’, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

Lapse

Commissioned by Esplanade and as part of their da:ns festival which spotlights Asian contemporary dance and performance, Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo presents ‘Lapse’. The performance is created with collaborators from across Asia, including Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore, and engages with the tenuous separation between coherence and disorder as well as disruption of social cohesion, institutions, and moral frameworks. The artist will also be showing ‘Fracture’, an installation work of objects, prints, and video which explore the human condition in the face of globalisation, socio-political divides, and the dynamics between bodies and the world.

‘Lapse’ runs from 13 to 15 October 2023 at Esplanade Annexe Studio and ‘Fracture’ runs from 29 September 2023 to 7 January 2024 in Jendela Visual Arts Space in Singapore. Click here for more information.

Lisa Peh, ‘Dear Lisa’, 2022, inkjet prints on fine art photographic paper. Image courtesy of Objectifs.

Women in Film and Photography 2023

Objectifs’ annual celebration of women photographers and filmmakers will return for its seventh edition showing works by artists Vân-Nhi Nguyễn, Brindha Anantharaman, Geraldine Kang, Lisa Peh, Nisa Rizkya Andika, Low Pey Sien, Sunaina Bhalla, Khin Thethtar Latt, and Taniya Sarkar. Centred around bodies as the theme, the exhibition parses through personal identity and collective existence as an invitation to see this world in a new light. To highlight the contributions women and non-binary artists make in the art world, ‘Women in Film and Photography 2023’ will navigate the geographies of the body, exploring it further through dance and movement, and unravel its complex histories and territories.

‘Women in Film and Photography 2023’ runs from 22 September to 5 November 2023 at Objectifs in Singapore. Click here for more information.

Official Poster of Biennale Jogja 17. Image courtesy of Biennale Jogja.

Biennale Jogja - TITEN: Embodied Knowledges, Shifting Grounds

The17th iteration of Biennale Jogja is curated by Eka Putra Nggalu, Adelina Luft, Sheelasha Rajbhandhari and Hit Man Gurung, with Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez as curatorial consultant. The exhibition will feature 70 international artists under the framework of translocality and transhistoricity as a means to rewrite and decolonise art history. Meditating on themes of ecology, both built and natural, and the village as a political identity and location, the title of this year’s biennale draws from the Javanese language. Titen in Javanese refers to the ability to read signs from nature and represents the exhibition's efforts to decolonize knowledge production. 

‘Biennale Jogja 17 - TITEN: Embodied Knowledges, Shifting Grounds ’ runs from 6 October to 25 November 2023 at various locations in Yogyakarta. Click here for more information. 

Womanifesto: Flowing Connections, installation view. Image courtesy of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Womanifesto: Flowing Connections 

‘Womanifesto: Flowing Connections’ is a collaboration between the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and the artist-organisers of Womanifesto: Nitaya Ueareeworakul, Jamilah Preenun Nana, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, and Varsha Nair. As the first feminist collective of Southeast Asia, founded in 1997,  Womanifesto’s ethos embeds itself in supporting local culture and artisanship. Featuring over 30 artists from Asia and abroad, the exhibition continues Womanifesto’s goal of creating collective space, and creating a platform, for intergenerational women artists to interact with the public while centring itself in the practice of care and amiability. 

‘Womanifesto: Flowing Connections’ runs from 12 September to 30 December 2023 at Bangkok Art & Culture Centre in Bangkok, Thailand. Click here for more information.