Still film (2019), silk screen on fabric, Kent Chan. Image courtesy of the artist.

Following from the film Seni (2019) screened at the NUS Museum on 20 March this year, Kent Chan debuts the exhibition tropics, a many (con)sequence. Positioned as a two-fold inquiry into the tropical imaginary that continues to frame aesthetics and artistic identities, the presentation seeks to grasp the artistic agency of individuals from the “tropics”, while exploring the motivations that perpetuated and cemented notions of identity.

Conflating history with art history, a consistent cinematic language that incorporates music, spoken text, written text and images permeates the presentation. Trope imagery and manifestos are prompted in the exhibition, marking the striking consequences these developments in art have had on modelling and perpetuating identities.

Deeply rooted in Chan’s practice that displaces the frame of modernity by enacting stories within primeval, lush settings, this presentation also further explores the interlocution between film representations and the art historical as a node from which symbols of the jungle and frontiers can be used to perceive state demands and colonial projections of the region.

Venue: Ng Eng Teng Temporary Gallery

When: 24 Oct 2019 - 20 Jun 2020,

By: NUS Museum, NUS Centre For the Arts (CFA)