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Reconstruction of a City - A Visions & Illusions Exhibition

21 Tanjong Pagar

The Exhibition:

The exhibition involves 26 unique and highly innovative installation works incorporating new media, video, photography and architectural installations. 

Highlights include:

The Lost Garden

The Lost Garden

Artists:                         Henderson Secondary School Aesthetics Club, Visions & Illusions collaborators and members of the public

Curators:                     Heng Swee Kiang and Michelle Lim

Venue:                         St James Power Station and 21 Tanjong Pagar

The toughest obstacles are the limits we draw for ourselves. Young artists and gardeners from a local school begin by turning the concrete floor into a giant canvas, weaving chalk patterns into an imaginative display. The youths, together with the Visions & Illusion project collaborators, plant the seeds for a unique urban garden by placing potted plants in the vast gallery.  The idea being that the more plants there are, the more lines will be covered. Members of the public are invited to participate in this public art activity by bringing their own potted plant or by helping to water the plants.  Only with the support of our community can a flourishing garden appear at the end of the process, thus creating a dynamic living artwork about overcoming the invisible boundaries in our lives.  

 

Rethinking Space: Art in all Nooks ‘n’ Crannies

Artists:                         Various artists

Curators:                     Putri Trisulo and Tan Shir Ee

Venue:                         St James Power Station and 21 Tanjong Pagar

Art is everywhere!  Artists and creators from various disciplines including the graphic arts, fashion and music have installed their works in unexpected places all over the site, transforming the former power station into a true home for art.  In a site once devoted to consuming natural resources in order to produce energy for the city’s development, the artists share fresh perspectives on recycling and conservation issues. 

 

TGV

Artists:                         the2ndrule

Curator:                       Michelle Lim

Venue:                         21 Tanjong Pagar

TGV is an interactive digital media work focused on the idea of movement. It taps on the pulse of our urbanscape through an installation combining sound-reactive video and video-reactive sound. Movement and sound produced by the audience and performers generates constantly changing projections on a large screen, while movement triggers off audio loops from installed speakers.  A true collaboration between artist and audience, TGV combines art and technology in a stimulating performance that reflects the organic nature of human activity in an urban space.

Inhabitations

 

Inhabitations: Entrapment of a Culture

Artists:                         sciSKEW Collaborative

Curator:                       Michelle Lim

Venue:                         21 Tanjong Pagar

In this architectural installation, visitors are taken through a looped journey of radical experimentation and discovery through St James Power Station. Making their way through conceptual mind traps, visitors are compelled to challenge their own consumption of art against the context of broader urban culture processes. Real time documentation of visitors and their interactions with the five mobile installations will be looped to the virtual spaces of the project website. sciSKEW draws from issues of construction and reconstruction that weave through three metropolises: New York after 9/11, Shanghai before Expo 2010 and Singapore as a comprehensive hub. With a combination of physical and online manifestations, the project will confront Singaporeans with the very real implications of a global city under reconstruction.

 

Super Mart III

Artists:                         Various artists and collaborators

Curator:                       Michelle Lim and Putri Trisulo

Collaborators:                         Zouk and ANT

Venue:                         21 Tanjong Pagar

In the dead of the night, the lighted convenience store is the only beacon of life in the sprawling metropolis. Located in the depths of an anonymous Asian city, a reconstructed convenience store designed by artist-architects becomes the stage for an urban theatre performance that will challenge our definition of art.  Super Mart III re-contextualises and distills the scene into the context for the opening club party by Zouk. Unique and aesthetically original "products" by invited architects, musicians, artists and fashion designers will be displayed for sale at vintage prices. A cultural project that challenges the boundaries between pure art and commercial incentive, Super Mart III is also an interactive performance art show where all visitors will have something to bring home. And they will walk out and say, well, is this ART?

 

The Team -  Curators, Artists, Writers, and Project Managers:

Reconstruction of a City is truly an international contemporary culture project of our times.  As a natural reflection of Singapore's location on the global mindmap, the team consists of curators, artists and writers from various parts of the world – from New York, Spain, Nice, Yugoslavia to Xi’an – who are sharing their own unique experiences in relation to Singapore or Singaporeans they know, as filtered through their cultural lens.

 

Curators:

A team of independent curators has conceptualized a series of curatorial projects to frame the debate of key issues of art-making and writing in Singapore against a larger international context.  Curators include Michelle Lim, who is also a critical writer and artist, and Low Kee Hong, a sociologist and Associate Artistic Director with TheatreWorks (Singapore).

 

Artists:

The artists have been chosen for their varied interests and vastly different modes of expression. They each possess a strong proven track record for committed initiatives in art-making and experimental innovations in terms of concept and technique.  Artists include New York-based architect-artist Eunice Seng, performance installation artist Ana Prvacki, and the2ndrule team consisting of Shannon Low, Koh Beng Liang, Russell Chan and Jason Tong.

 

Writers:

Various critical writers, including photographers, will participate in a large-scale documentation which will be next phase of the Visions & Illusions project, following the exhibition.  It will serve to capture a “snapshot” of these salient issues that have surfaced in art-making and critical writing for this generation of 20-35 year olds at this point in time.  Participants include award-winning poet, playwright and writer Alfian bin Sa’at, poet-writer Toh Hsien Min, and New York-based photographer John Clang.

 

Project Managers:

For the first time, issues in the larger context of the Singapore creative industry such as sponsorship, arts branding, and project management will be explored by a team of branding, advertising, finance, engineering, IT and architecture professionals. They will build a new support infrastructure which will enable independent art activities to flourish with the institutional structure of government and private corporations.

The scale of this cross-disciplinary collaboration is unprecedented in Singapore’s contemporary art history.  This new generation of creative guerrillas will take Singapore art scene to the next plane and prove that with enough faith, visions can become reality and not mere illusions – even in a pragmatic place like Singapore!


Fact Sheet

 

 

Reconstruction of a City

A Visions & Illusions Exhibition

 

An In-Conjunction Visual Arts Event of the Singapore Arts Festival 2004

 

 

Reconstruction of a City @ St James Power Station

 

 

 

Address:

St James Power Station

211 Keppel Road Singapore 099421

 

Directions:

Beside the entrance to the Sentosa Causeway Bridge

Nearest MRT: Harbourfront MRT (Northeast Line)

Car Park: Private car park in front of building (limited parking) or at Harbourfront Centre

 

Dates: Tuesday, 1 June – Friday, 18 June 2004

Time: 11.00am – 6.00pm daily (closed on Mondays)

 

Admission is free and open to all members of the public

 

 

Reconstruction of a City @ 21 Tanjong Pagar

 

 

Address:

21 Tanjong Pagar Road, #02-01 & #03-01, Singapore 088444

 

Directions:

3 min walk from Maxwell Food Market

Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar MRT (West Line)

 

Dates: Tuesday 1 June – Friday 18 June 2004

Times: Monday to Saturday, 11.00am to 9.00pm; Sunday 11.00am to 6.00pm

 

Admission is free and open to all members of the public

 

 

Media Preview / Soft Opening

 

Venue:  21 Tanjong Pagar Rd, #02-01, Singapore 088444

Date:     Tuesday 1 June 2004

Time:     7.00pm onwards

One-for-one house pour drinks all evening

 

Hosted by ANT

 

 

Opening Party by Zouk

 

 

Venue: 21 Tanjong Pagar Rd, #02-01, Singapore 088444

Date: Thursday 3 June 2004

Time: 7.00pm onwards

 

Admission is free and open to all members of the public

 

 

 

Telephone Numbers

 

 

+(65) 9009 0070 & +(65) 9621 8216

Website

 

 

www.visionillusion.com

 

 

Organizers

 

Reconstruction of a City, the first Visions & Illusions exhibition, is a collaborative effort by several established curators, artists, writers and project managers.  All members are providing pro-bono support for this cause.

 

 

Sponsored by

 

 

Major Sponsors:

 

ANT                                                 Mapletree           

St James Power Station is part of the 24-hectare HarbourFront Precinct that is currently being developed into a world-class business and lifestyle waterfront destination by Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd.  St James Power Station has been designated a Special Interest Village in the Master Plan. Its future development plan could see it transformed into themed pubs, centre for specialised arts events or other interesting entertainment formats. 

Other Sponsors:

 MOX                                                 Zouk

 

Supported by:

Art Vital                    BrandCulture

Twilight                     doubledutch               

the literary centre       Instant Access Systems    

Earl Lu Gallery of LaSalle-SIA          Avo Kinetix

Cementone                Zephyr

Elmich                       The 8th Continent

South East Community Development Council

Henderson Secondary School

Quarterly Literature Review Singapore

 

 

 

In Conjunction With The Singapore Arts Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Content Contributor: Art Vital

 

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