#nusmuseum

[hemanchong]

A photograph of Ahmad Mashadi and I back in 2010 during the first Curating Lab @nusmuseum. #AhmadMashadi #HemanChong #CuratingLab #NUSMuseum (at NUS Museum) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZq3SkeFkQX/?utm_medium=tumblr

[singaporefutureandpast]

Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography

A project by Manit Sriwanichpoom

Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography is a beautiful exhibition (available until 21 July 2018) located on the concourse level within the Lee Kong Chian University of Singapore Museum. The exhibition is a project by Manit Sriwanichpoom, that collaborates 247 remastered images taken in Thailand during the 1950s-1970s. These prints were taken by seven different photographers:

Buddhadasa Bhiku

Liang Ewe

S.H. Lim

Saengjun Limlohakul 

Pornsak Sakdaenprai 

’Rong Wong-Savun 

M.L. Toy Xoomsai

The project’s collaboration with NUS Museum offers the construction of content and methodology, while proposing photographic archives as a language in discovering and establishing histories. According to Sriwanichpoom, the connection between Thai and Singaporean photography has a lineage of over a century, yet both Thailand and Singapore remain unaware of the special dimension of our relationship (NUS Museum, 2018). Sriwanichpoom also made it evident that the reason why Thai photographic work of the past had not survived (and therefore the lack of awareness of the relationship between Thai and Singaporean photography), was because the photographs that constituted this relationship had been lost or damaged by Singapore’s heat, humidity or flooding.

Masters of Photography

Manit Sriwanichpoom decided to start up the project in 2010, and the seven photographers he collaborated with were classified as ‘masters’ in his view. To be classified as the work of a ‘master’, outstanding content, perspective, camera angle, photographic technique, and courageousness of the creativity in the social context of their lifetime are the factors that had to be considered in the image. Anything else was too ‘ordinary’ for Sriwanichpoom, as it did not satisfy these conditions. This view of ‘master’ remains to be proven and accepted by the Thai society and the world (NUS Museum, 2018).

“I am both thrilled and honoured that the National University of Singapore Museum has offered to host the exhibition ‘Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography’ at this time. I hope the exhibition will serve to inspire both a curiosity in your neighbour’s past and, finding yourself therein, a sense of our common humanity and shared history.” — Manit Sriwanichpoom (NUS Museum, 2018, p.10)

References

NUS Museum (2018). Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography [Brochure]. Singapore: NUS Museum of Singapore. 

Photos: Copyright © NUS Museum Brochure

[ssgaktest]

[hemanchong]

This is a photograph taken by #TanPinPin @pinpincam in 2007 during a press walk thru of #WE, an exhibition curated by #AhmadMashadi and I in #2007. It shows me making things up as I go along, Ahmad being completely terrified because he knows I'm just making things up and #AdelineChia (who was writing for #TheStraitsTimes then) taking notes. 2007 is such a long time ago. Date: 28 July – 4 November 2007, #NUSMuseum @nusmuseum WE - an everyday term. Its familiarity and #ubiquitous use in the #dailycontext belies its #complexity. As constructions of #community or #nation, what constitutes the ‘we’? How does it come to be? #Placemaking, references to memory, history and iconography form part of the processes of identity formation. How is this determined and where are the fault lines? Through the works and projects by contemporary Singaporean practitioners – including #AngSongMing, #MichaelLee and #FrancisNg, Tan Pin Pin and #MingWong - WE invites us to consider the production and reproduction of #collectiveidentities and its related discourses such as place, culture and nation. Curated by #HemanChong and Ahmad Mashadi. (at NUS Museum)

[whocaresblog]

[unkenny]

OPEN EXCESS

Centred around the notion of the bibliographical, OPEN EXCESS is an ongoing prep-room project that...

As a means to contextualise the anticipated changes to the project OPEN EXCESS, this site will mark and record through fragments such as notes, images, quotations and conversations that revolve around the materials in the room. It's also, I suppose, a first of my own attempts at long-term exhibitionary projects (approximately two years). But these are not meant merely to incubate in a given space (since such a metaphor seems a little inadequate); rather, they would also calibrate themselves according to their immediate settings over time (i.e. other exhibitions in proximity). In any case, the exhibition will feature materials donated to the NUS Museum by art historian T.K. Sabapathy and also an ongoing "curatorial essay" situated on site.