Worlds Apart, Strangers Together

‘Tropical’ Symposium at National Gallery Singapore
By A&M

Poster for ‘Worlds Apart, Strangers Together’. Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore.

On 23 and 24 March 2024, the symposium ‘Worlds Apart, Strangers Together’ will take place in accompaniment to the exhibition ‘Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America’ at National Gallery Singapore. Over two days, it will present lectures,  conversations, a film screening as well as a performance. Together, they will reconsider the conception of the “Global South,” both within the legacies of modernism and in light of post-colonial debates.

On the first day, Professor Partha Mitter, Emeritus Professor of Art History at University of Sussex, England, will deliver the keynote lecture titled ‘Reimagining Modernism: Picasso Manqué Syndrome and the Virtual Cosmopolitan’. A writer and historian of art and culture, Professor Mitter specialises in the reception of Indian art in the West and within debates surrounding Global Modernism. In this keynote lecture, he will speak about the asymmetrical relationship between the “centre” and “periphery” and offer strategies for decentring the Western canon.

Installation view, ‘Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America’, National Gallery Singapore, 2023. Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore.

Next, Patrick Flores, Deputy Director for Curatorial and Research at the National Gallery in Singapore, will be in dialogue with Yuki Kihara. She is the first Fa'afafine and Sāmoan artist to represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale with the work ‘Paradise Camp’. The work comprises 12 tableau photographs presenting a cast from the Fa’afafine community, Sāmoa’s third gender, and explores colonial histories, as well as gender and ecological issues. This will be a key work discussed in the conversation, against the broader context of colonial legacies in Oceania, and how the primitivist gaze has been transformed in contemporary art in general. 

To wrap up the first day, there will be a screening of ‘Maison Tropicale’ by Manthia Diawara. ‘Maison Tropicale’ looks at the intersection of modernism, colonialism and architecture in the Republic of Congo and Nigeria, and considers complexities of cultural heritage in a post-colonial world. 

The next day, Solange Farkas will speak about transcultural curation, and elaborate on curating exhibitions that traverse art ecologies and geopoetic conditions. Next on the programme is a presentation by Professor Atreyee Gupta, who specialises in Global Modernism. She will depart from a close reading of a poem written by the Mexican poet Octavio Paz to Indian painter Jagdish Swaminathan in 1965 to unpack the links between the political climes in South Asia and South America at the time.

Installation view, ‘Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America’, National Gallery Singapore, 2023. Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore.

Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera, ‘Magic Maids’. Image courtesy of Rockbund Art Museum and Hugo Boss Asia Art Awards 2019.

To conclude the symposium, artists Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera will present ‘Magic Maids’, a work in progress which expresses excerpts of their research, centering around  the broom as a symbol and prop. This draws connections between of foreign domestic labour from the Global South to European witch hunts of yesteryears, revealing deep-seated structures of power that restrict the movement and choices of migrant workers. The premier of ‘Magic Maids’ will take place at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt in September 2024, before it is performed at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore in October 2024.

All together, the symposium will reconsider the meaning of the “Global South” as a construct, in the context of the legacies of modernism, and in light of current post-colonial debates. Curators Lim Qinyi and Teo Hui Min share with us more about the symposium.

Could you elaborate on the symposium title/theme 'Worlds Apart, Strangers Together'? 

The expression ‘Worlds Apart, Strangers Together” comes from Patrick Flores’ essay in the exhibition catalogue. It is a poignant reminder that if we are to truly connect our stories in the Global South, what we must attempt is to generate a type of “terrain of the ‘monsoon assemblage’ and a kind of writing that is a turning of both the word and the world, an awareness and an aroundness that condenses in the Visayan term kalibutan, at once cosmos and cognition, a ‘structure of feeling’ and a feeling of structure.” It is in this spirit that this symposium aspires to create a moment where polyphonic voices from the Global South can be seen, spoken and heard. 

Hélio Oiticica, ‘Tropicália’, 1966–1967, remade 2023, wooden structures, fabric, plastic, carpet, wire mesh, tulle, patchouli, sandalwood, television, sand, gravel, plants, birds, television and poems by Roberta Camila Salgado, dimensions variable. Collection of Projecto Hélio Oiticica. Image courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica and National Gallery Singapore.

How does the symposium build upon the research that informed–or emerged from–the 'Tropical' exhibition?

During the period of preparation for the exhibition, the curatorial team referenced and drew from the works, gestures and spirit of the speakers, thinkers and artists involved in this symposium. This event acts as a catalyst where these individuals are invited to be in the same space for the first time, presenting their research. Through this gathering, the speakers will hold their positions on various pertinent issues to reveal solidarities and strategies that can be built through a shared belief of a decolonialised modernity.

Could you talk about the choice of speakers and the geographical spread represented? 

Drawing from ‘Tropical’, we highlight the parallels in themes, influences, exchanges and art practices across the two regions from the Global South, instead of the geopolitical definitions that are often used today. Thus, ‘Worlds Apart, Strangers Together’ include scholars, thinkers and artists who may not have been born in what is commonly defined as Southeast Asia or Latin America but created works and scholarship that reflect or respond to the stories of the two regions. This include keynote speaker Professor Partha Mitter whose scholarship on decentering modernism was a key inspiration for us, Sāmoan artist Yuki Kihara who has probed the history behind the construction of the primitive trope, and Malian filmmaker Manthia Diawara who has critically considered marginalised historical narratives left in the aftermath of European colonisation in parts of Africa. 

What do you hope the symposium can offer to attendees and participants? 

The Gallery is a progressive public art museum that sees this symposium as an opportunity to create dialogue and explorations on art, ideologies and artistic aspirations between the two regions. We hope that attendees and participants will be able to have a rich and dialogic exchange of knowledge and experiences that will further inform their reading of ‘Tropical’.

‘Worlds Apart, Strangers Together’ takes place on 23 and 24 March 2024 at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium and Auditorium Foyer at National Gallery Singapore. To sign up for each event of the symposium, click here. 

This article is presented in partnership with National Gallery Singapore.