Lost & Found: Embodied Archive
Singapore Art Museum - SAM
25 October - 24 November 2024
at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents Lost & Found: Embodied Archive, at Gallery 3, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. As the second pillar in SAM’s multi-phase, multi-year curatorial project Lost & Found (2024–2026), this exhibition features nine artworks by seven emerging and established contemporary artists, including iconic works from the National Collection and a new commission. Questioning traditional perceptions of collection and visualisation, the exhibition invites audiences to explore the body as a living archive that can accumulate past experiences and present senses. The works engage viewers meaningfully through choreographed encounters, highlighting the process-driven, research-based, and durational approaches the artists employ.
Dr June Yap, Director of Curatorial and Research at SAM, said, “Lost & Found focuses on artists exploring the boundaries and conventions of “legitimate” or “traditional” archival practices whilst also connecting overlooked and intangible stories. Unveiled across multiple events, Lost & Found: Embodied Archive draws attention to artworks embracing exciting methodologies, envisioning the body as a reservoir of memory. It exemplifies SAM’s research and engagement of art and artists to reflect upon significant narratives and concerns of the region to foster critical dialogue and meaningful conversations.”
Curated through a series of programmes, performances, workshops, talks, and screenings, "Lost & Found: Embodied Archive" creates an intentional, dynamic space for physicality, movement, and reflection that deepens engagement and reflects the gradually evolving nature of the exhibition.
Considering the body as an archive
Lost & Found: Embodied Archive invites audiences to reexamine the boundaries of the act of archiving with artworks that reflect how the region's geography, politics, history, and environmental contexts influence art with archival characteristics.
Installation view of Lee Wen’s ‘Anthropometry Revision:
Yellow Period (after Yves Klein) No. 2’ (2008)
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
As visitors enter the gallery, they are greeted by Lee Wen’s "Anthropometry Revision: Yellow Period (after Yves Klein) No. 2", a seven-metre-long canvas that offers a poignant reinterpretation of the french artist Yves Klein’s "Anthropometry Revision". First presented in 1998, the current work on display is a product of its second iteration performed in Chengdu, China in 2008, where Lee adapts Yves Klein’s work for an Asian context and modifies its elements to enhance cultural relevance, such as the use of a traditional Chinese pentatonic five-stone scale and the genders of the work’s collaborators. This version of "Anthropometry Revision" critically examines the gendered politics of Yves Klein’s work. It exemplifies the defining characteristics of Lee Wen's artistic practice — collaboration, archival work, and engagement in art history discourse through performance
Installation view of Au Sow Yee and Chen Yow-Ruu’s
(Her Lab Space) ‘Bad Dream Rocking, a.k.a. The
Rocking Malay(a)’ (2024).
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
SAM’s latest commission "Bad Dream Rocking, a.k.a. The Rocking Malay(a)" by Au Sow Yee and Chen Yow-Ruu (Her Lab Space), unpacks the renowned Malay folktale "Si Tanggang", which depicts an individual who transforms into stone as a consequence of filial ingratitude. Weaving together cinematic retellings, journalistic accounts, and interviews with undocumented children born and residing in Malaysia who each narrate the tale in their own ways, Her Lab Space traces the various iterations of the folktale while simultaneously deconstructing and reconstructing it. Integrating archival materials and reenactments, Her Lab Space explores the metaphor of a fracturing rock being altered by imperceptible forces, reflecting the instability of identity.
Installation view of Albert Yonathan Setyawan’s
‘Cosmic Labyrinth’ (2011) from its 2011 performance.
Image courtesy of the artist
Lost & Found: Embodied Archive celebrates the process of transformation by allowing space for the live aspect of performance art. Albert Yonathan Setyawan's "Cosmic Labyrinth" turns the quiet act of creating art into a visual meditation, reflecting the artist's deeply personal, embodied journey. Created through a durational performance, each meticulously crafted pagoda symbolises the merging of his artistic essence with the physicality of clay, a material deeply rooted in human civilisation. Using a contemplative technique called slip-casting, Setyawan infuses the clay stupas with spirituality, connecting the material world with the metaphysical. The arrangement of the pagodas as a labyrinth and mandala gives them a cosmic presence, encouraging visitors to ponder the significance of existing in the present moment, which is central to Setyawan's artistic approach. "Cosmic Labyrinth" has been brought to life by Setyawan as a live performance during the exhibition’s opening night on 25 October 2024.
In "Skin", Lee Kang Seung captures the body of 80-year-old queer dancer Meg Harper, whose skin and scars serve as a testament to a life lived fully, marked by memories, trauma, and pleasure. The video installation presents the body as a register of personal and political that transforms as it shifts and ages. Lee’s work is an homage to Harper's long-standing practice and the many artists and activists within his extended non-heterosexual community, weaving together the stories of people who may have never met in life but now exist together in his work.
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
Tiyan Baker's works explore the connections between the muscle memory of one’s body and language, shaped by culture, history, and identity. Using the mouth as a focal point for exploration, Baker documents her evolving relationship with the Bukar language, her mother’s native tongue spoken by the Indigenous Bidayǔh people, over two years. With nyatu’ maanǔn mungut bigabu, Baker uses photographs of Bidayǔh farmlands and rivers, transformed using autostereograms (Magic Eye images) to subvert traditional photographic perspectives and create the illusion of depth. The prints are embedded with words from the Bukar language, relating to lesser-known words of wandering, collecting, and foraging within the language today, serving as incantations to summon words and local epistemologies.
In "MY MOTHER’S TONGUE", buccal takes centre stage, with its title serving as a playful pun on "mother tongue," amplified by a pond sculpted in the shape of Baker's mother's mouth. Words from the Bukar book "Atung dengan Awang" are projected onto the pond's surface, reflecting the elusive journey of learning an Indigenous language from afar.
Lastly, "mouthbreather" is a film depicted from the perspective of a 360-degree camera placed in Baker’s mouth, guiding viewers through the Bidayǔh landscape. Layered with text reflecting on loss, language, and memory, the film highlights the significance of the Bukar language as a form of communication with other worlds and more-than-human beings, extending beyond its role as a bridge to the ancestors.
Installation view of Tuguldur Yondonjamts’s
‘The secret mountain of falcons’ (2011)
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
Tuguldur Yondonjamts’s collection of four books, "The secret mountain of falcons", captures different regions of Mongolia from a falcon's perspective, illustrating the vast Mongolian landscape. By following the flight paths of sixty falcons across the country, Yondonjamts seeks to gain insight into the natural habitat of falcons and encourage a deeper connection between birds and mankind.
Detail view of Gregory Halili’s
‘Karagatan (The Breadth of Oceans)’ (2016)
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.
Finally, Gregory Halili’s "Karagatan (The Breadth of Oceans)" pays tribute to the coastal communities of the Philippines and embodies a mapping of seafaring cultures, visualising them on both micro and macro scales. The work comprises 50 intricate mother-of-pearl shell pieces, each depicting the eyes of coastal workers who live and work in coastal areas in the Philippines. These miniature shells echo a brief 18th-century English fad of creating eye miniatures as personal keepsakes among lovers, drawing viewers into intimate encounters with the fisherfolk, boatmen, divers, and merchants portrayed.
About Lost & Found
SAM’s multi-year curatorial project Lost & Found aims to explore narratives beyond traditional methods of collection and visualisation, with a focus on artists who seek out undocumented stories, often working alongside vulnerable or marginalised groups and subjects. The project commenced in June 2024 with its first pillar, "Lost & Found: Sea Chanty Project", featuring three music video commissions from artists Rosemainy Buang & Zachary Chan, Riar Rizaldi, and Vien Valencia. They expand the conventional understanding of maritime work songs through contemporary interpretations by exploring the connections between water-based communities and the contemporary politics of labour, streamed together through the metaphor of water's flux. Visitors can view the music videos on Samplings, a digital exploratory space for sharing work-in-progress research projects and an ever-growing collection of resources. Artists Rosemainy Buang and Zachary Chan also presents a performance of Tirta Maya as part of the programme line-up for "Lost & Found: Embodied Archive".
SAM - SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM
39 Keppel Road, Gallery 3, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065
