This world, out here: Katakatha

featuring Lai Chee Kien

First of its kind exhibition in the region to feature never-seen-before formative materials of prominent Southeast Asian artists.

The exhibition reflects the first KataKatha experience, exploring the influence of environment, climate, history, movement and myth that compel the creative process. Participants of the first KataKatha will share formative materials that offer insights into their creative process in their respective fields, many of which have never been publicly displayed before. Several participants will also be headlining the weekend exhibition programmes.

Performing Capitalism in the Museum of Capitalism Exhibition

Featuring Kah Wee Lee

The Museum of Capitalism opens its inaugural exhibition with a series of multimedia exhibits created by a diverse network of artists, scholars, and ordinary citizens, exploring the historical phenomenon of capitalism and its intersections with themes like race, class, and environment in the United States. The Museum’s inaugural exhibition will appear in Oakland, California in 2017.

Visual Jalanan: amplifying voices from the urban fringe 2015

by Amanda Achmadi

In November 2015, the Visual Jalanan team curated an exhibition at the National Gallery of Indonesia as part of the Jakarta Biennale. The exhibition, Bebas tapi Sopan, (Free but Polite), showcased a spectrum of visual work from the streets, all of which provided a direct or implied commentary about the nation’s fragmented social and urban realities.

Chandrigarh Urban Edge Exhibition

by Manu Sobti

This project involved one visit to India with 12 students (collaborating with 10 local architecture students in Chandigarh), 2 international research seminars and 1 mini seminar held at UWM-Milwaukee (altogether 12 speakers/presenters, including yourself), one exhibition/public at large seminar at Chandigarh with student materials (drawings and models) specifically shipped to India, one full-color 280-page publication that came out with ORO Press in 2017, using a total of US $ 85,000 in grant and publication funds.

Homecoming SPK: Space, history & community development exhibition

Organized by Chiahui Lin

PIF2014 is showcasing the Homecoming.SPK once again!The characteristic of historical building has been depicted and observed with the cultural history of SPK in this community project. It evokes collective memories of the residents in SPK.

Homecoming SPK: Space, history & community development exhibition

Organized by Chiahui Lin

PIF2014 is showcasing the re-bloom coral reef resilience exhibition. The exhibition shows the grief and failures of protecting the coral reef along the coast line of Pangkor Island.

National Theatre @ 50 2013

Organized by Chee Kien Lai

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Theatre, a scaled replica of its very recognisable façade, was put up at Tank Road, across from its original site, by architect Lai Chee Kien, for the Singapore Biennale (entitled National Theatre@50). And it was at the installation on Saturday that perhaps some of our ghosts, not only of the National Theatre, did return in a collective lament for lost spaces and a lost past, in a poetry sharing session.

Bukit brown: Our Roots, Our Future

Featuring by Chee Kien Lai

An exhibition to showcase the history and culture of Bukit Brown Cemetery, and to highlight the pioneers buried their and their contribution to the development of modern Singapore.

Complementing the exhibition was a series of talks which include presentations on cemetery research in Malaysia and Singapore culminating in a panel discussion, nature in Bukit Brown, personal accounts by descendants on rediscovering their roots and Qing Ming practices.

There was also a  screening and talk by the producer of“Light on Lotus Hill” –  an award winning documentary set against the backdrop of the Sino Japanese war about the Buddhist Abbot Venerable Pu Liang and the part he played in supporting the China Relief Fund and the recruitment of Nanyang volunteers who served onthe Burma Road.

Curating Nation | A Cord of Rail History
an exhibit for the 2012 Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale

by Chee Kien Lai

In 2011, Singaporeans witnessed the closure of the historic Tanjong Pagar Railway Station as well as train services that used to run on a north-south line almost “cutting” the island in two. From July last year, trains started from the northernmost point of Woodlands instead of in the south, and marked the end of a century-old legacy that had seen the country endure the colonial era to the post-Independence period and early industrialization. The line, like a cord that connected physically and historically with northern neighbours Malaysia, was the subject of an exhibit for the third Hong Kong-Shenzhen Biennale from 15 February to 23 April of this year. The curatorial team, comprising Mr. Tan Kay Ngee, Dr. Lai Chee Kien and Ms. Yap Mong-Lin, was joined by photographer Darren Soh who documented the last train journeys visually. This talk discusses the various aspects of how this exhibit came into being.

Houses of Emptiness: Suan Mokkh and the Architecture of the Modern Monastic Complex 2009

Curated by Lawrence Chua

This photography exhibition at the Hartell Gallery, Cornell University examines the unique architectural legacy of Suan Mokkh, a monastic complex in the south of Thailand that was founded in 1932 by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. Buddhadasa sought to create a center in which Buddhism could be practiced as it was in the historic time of the Buddha. Eschewing the architectural vocabulary of state-sanctioned Buddhism, Buddhadasa and his supporters instead developed a series of buildings that celebrated the concept of sunnyata, or emptiness, through abstract symbolism and the use of humble materials like concrete, brick, and wood.