Post-PopUp at CCA
Block 38, Studio #01-07
Malan Road, Gillman Barracks
Singapore 109441
This session features 3 presentations: Milica Topalovic will speak on ‘Constructed Land – Singapore 1924-2012’ and focus on comparing the topographic changes of Singapore between this two moments in time and the implications of this territorial transformation; Chun Kai Feng and Chun Kai Qun will speak about their project LATENT SPACES which is currently situated in Haw Par Villa; and Dr Chong Ja Ian will speak on ‘States, Land, and People: Some Observations from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan’.
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Constructed Land – Singapore 1924-2012
The project Constructed Land: Singapore 1924-2012 investigates the material flows of soil and the changing physical form of the island of Singapore over time. Until today, around one quarter of the land area has been added to the surface of the island-state by means of importing sand, claiming land from the sea, reshaping of existing terrain, and dredging material from the seabed. For more than a century, the transformation of topography has accompanied the change of Singapore’s urban landscape. While this process continues at an ever-increasing pace, its scale and implications are breathtaking: The project reveals constructed land as the central paradigm of Singapore’s urban development today.
Milica Topalovic has been attached to the ETH Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore as Assistant Professor of Architecture and Territorial Planning since 2011. In 2006 she joined the ETH as head of research at the Studio Basel Contemporary City Institute and the professorial chairs held by Diener and Meili, where she taught research studios on cities and on territories such as Hong Kong and the Nile Valley. Milica graduated with distinction from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade and received Master’s degree from the Dutch Berlage Institute for her thesis on Belgrade’s post-socialist urban transformation. Since 2000 her work includes different scales and media from urban research and design, to architecture and spatial installation. She lectured and exhibited in deSingel, Antwerp, Munich’s Haus der Kunst and the Swedish Architecture Museum, among others. She contributes essays on urbanism, architecture and art to magazines and publications including Oase and San Rocco.
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LATENT SPACES adopt idle spaces in Singapore and reinvent them as platforms for experimental art and social entrepreneurship. Presently, they are temporarily situated at the historical Haw Par Villa theme park until Nov 2014 and have curated a series of art exhibitions examining the relationship of human societies to objects. With its collection of large-sculptural exhibits, Haw Par Villa is a place with enduring material presence rich for analysis. With these investigations, LATENT SPACES hopes to encourage thinking about material objects, to understand their fundamental role in influencing us and the physical world that we live in. More at http://www.randian-online.com/np_feature/the-crude-matter-of-history-latent-spaces-at-haw-par-villa-singapore/ and http://boonscafe.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/materialised-time/
Chun Kai Feng is a Master of Fine Art graduate from The Glasgow School of Art (2010). Chun was the recipient of the National Arts Council Overseas Bursary (2009), the Singapore Art Exhibition Prize (2009), and the Arts Creation Fund (2012). His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions locally. He is interested in mapping the day-to-day. He regularly makes works based on urban elements which do not draw attention to themselves. His works are made with industrial techniques and materials, and cohere to a personal formal sculptural regimentation. These abstracted urban objects compose to form a space which is charged with narrative potential.
Chun Kai Qun received his Master of Fine Art from the renowned Glasgow School of Art. In 2011, Chun was awarded the prestigious NAC Arts Scholarship (Overseas) and he was also the recipient of the Arts Creation Fund in the same year. Chun has participated extensively in art exhibitions, residencies and collaborations. He is interested in the study of object biographies to better our understanding of how they texture and inform human identity. He examines everyday objects as a reflection of personal tastes, attributes, moral principles and social ideals.
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States, Land, and People: Some Observations from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
How do states and governments view territory and land use? How do societies, markets, and individuals interact with land and the soil? What happens when state, society, markets, and people have different perspectives on how to relate to land and space? How do actors representing these different forces contest and defend their claims to land, space, territory, and the soil? This talk explores these themes in the context of contestation over land and development in three settings: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Dr Chong Ja Ian is assistant professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. His research crosses the fields of international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on security issues pertaining to China and East Asia and issues at the nexus of domestic and world politics. He has projects in several areas. They include the effects of external intervention on state formation in weak states, the collective effects of responses to power transition, the contending historical understandings of China in world politics, and the influence of historical legacies on post-transitional alliance politics. Chong publishes in Chinese as well as English and his work has appeared in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, International Security, and Security Studies. His book, External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation: China, Indonesia, Thailand—1893-1952 (Cambridge, 2012) won the 2013 International Security Studies Best Book Award from the International Studies Association. Chong previously worked with several policy-related organisations in Singapore and the United States. He received his Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and was a post-doctoral research associate with the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Programme.
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The project More than [show] business – Post-PopUp at CCA is a collaborative effort between Post-Museum and CCA, led by curators Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey, with the additional support of the National Arts Council (NAC).
[Image: Constructed Land Booklet by Topalovic Hassler]