ART-PRESENTATION: Trees of Life-Knowledge in Material
Changes in the environment influence weather patterns and these climatic shifts impact habitats, and vice versa. Precarious conditions of habitats are forcing migration of humans and other species at a critical level. The consequences of human intervention are felt on a global scale, affecting geo-political, social, and cultural systems. The Centre intends to discuss and understand these realities through art and culture in dialogue with other fields of knowledge.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: NTU CCA Archive
The topical research cluster “Climates/ Habitats. Environments” (9/12/17-9/12/19) connects the research & academic programmes, exhibitions, and residencies of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA), part of this project is the exhibition “Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material”. The exhibition focuses on materials from four plants deeply rooted in Asia: indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), lacquer (Rhus succedanea and Melanorrhoea usitata), rattan (Calamoideae), and mulberry (Morus). The works trace the ongoing involvement with the above plants in the artistic practices of: Manish Nai, Phi Phi Oanh, Sopheap Pich, Liang Shaoji and Vivian Xu. While the featured installations serve as a starting point to uncover the materiality of the chosen plants, the study of their natural and cultural DNA allows further exploration into their biological processes and diverse usages at their locale. Manish Nai concentrates on the material qualities of the various substances he utilises in his work. His interest is in the discovery of abstract forms through the physical manipulation of matter, and the new life assumed by cast-offs when transformed from objects of use to objects of art. Using the color indigo (indigo dye), itself loaded with a multitude of representations and associations, this opens up the visual form to subjectivities in the interpretation of the medium throughout time. Phi Phi Oanh’s work is informed by her inquiry into lacquer as a material combined with her studies of the Vietnamese lacquer painting tradition. Drawing from the hybrid nature of her personal history, Oanh constructs pictorial and evocative installations that reconfigure culturally-specific signs and symbols, creating familiar yet distinctive experiential spaces. Sopheap Pich left Cambodia with his family as a refugee at the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign, settling in the United States in 1984. Memories of his childhood and a desire to reconnect with his home country drew the artist back to Cambodia in 2002. He began working with local materials (bamboo, rattan, burlap from rice bags, beeswax, and earth pigments gathered from around Cambodia) to make sculptures inspired by bodily organs, vegetal forms, and abstract geometric structures. The strength, durability, lightness, and incredible malleability of rattan allow Pich to create organic forms that have become a signature of his practice. Liang Shaoji’s practice intersects science and nature, biology and bio-ecology, weaving and sculpture, and installation and performance. He has been working with silkworms for almost three decades, using the life process of these insects as a medium. Vivian Xu’s practice focuses on the exploration and intersection of electronic and bio media. While creating new forms of machine logic, life, and sensory systems, Xu explores the possibilities of designing a series of hybrid bio-machines that are capable of generating self-organised silk structures that combine the silkworms’ natural production process with automated computational systems of production. The artworks intertwine with selected research documents that address the complex histories and circulation, as well as the effects of human intervention on these natural resources. Starting from the properties and characteristics of the materials themselves, the project expands into their cultural representation and significance for communities and their crafts.
Info: Curators: Ute Meta Bauer, Laura Miotto and Khim Ong, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Gillman Barracks, 43 Malan Road, Singapore, Duration: 21/7-30/7/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-19:00, http://ntu.ccasingapore.org
