Time Passes is helmed by guest curator Samantha Yap and comprises works by 13 artists, 12 of whom are based locally. The exhibition is conceived as a corridor of time that reflects on the passage of our days as we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. The exhibition’s title is borrowed from the middle chapter of Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse, which captures a movement in time that bridges the narrative’s past and future. The works presented in the exhibition, most of which are new commissions or adaptations of existing works, touch on modes of caring, living and relating, especially in a time that begets difficulties and uncertainties.
Featuring works across diverse media such as paper, rattan, assemblage, soil, paint, video and photography, visitors are invited to reflect on how our social bonds and acts of care have persisted through the pandemic. Victor Paul Brang Tun’s Frame(works) is a series of rattan sculptures made by deconstructing an unused rattan chair. His processes consider how care and compromise become mutually entwined in the creation of new forms and possibilities. In #sgbyecentennial, Fazleen Karlan draws on archaeological processes to explore the indeterminate passage of time and presents a visual record of our present through the unearthing of familiar everyday objects layered with soil and time.
Diana Rahim’s Interventions documents intimate ways of reimagining hostile architectural features in shared spaces across Singapore, while Divaagar’s immersive installation, Render Tender, takes the form of a fictional reiki studio, exploring how intimacy can continue to be performed at a time of limited physical contact.
The exhibition is part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, an unprecedented initiative by National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, in partnership with 10 other local art institutions, independent art spaces and art collectives. The large-scale collaboration features the works of over 170 artists in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and they offer the public inspiration in moving forward in a changed world. Gallery visitors will experience diverse art works that draw them into poetic meditations on the present state of affairs in society and invite them to explore notions of caretaking and time in a world altered by the pandemic.
Website: www.novelwaysofbeing.sg
Venue: National Gallery Singapore
When: 4 Sep 2020 - 21 Feb 2021,
By: National Gallery Singapore
