The global nature of a pandemic reveals the intricacies of our relations, especially the significance of that which previously appeared distant or conveniently overlooked. As exhibitions and travel resume their pre-pandemic schedules, we are left to ask if we have fundamentally changed after its wide-reaching disruption, even if just by a little. After all, it is from little and cumulative movements that great shifts occur. The challenge of climate change is precisely in its interconnectedness on a massive scale, and the same may be said of artistic and curatorial evolution.
Central to this collective navigation through visual experience and expression is the subject of the ecological that has of late taken a lead – in direct representation, engagement, reference and context – in part related to attempts of understanding our place and purpose in the midst of climate change. Interestingly, it is a resurgence that also brings landscape back to the fore. Yet what does and could this mean for us from a curatorial perspective and in critical consideration of its possibilities? What revelations and presentations are artists creating and envisioning of this present and of our futures? And how might these representations and presentations influence the environment and aesthetic ecologies as felt and made?
Director, Curatorial and Research, Singapore Art Museum
June Yap is the Director of Curatorial & Research at the Singapore Art Museum, where she oversees content creation and museum programming. Her prior roles include Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator (South and Southeast Asia), Deputy Director and Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and curator at the Singapore Art Museum.
Amongst exhibitions she has curated are: the Singapore Biennale 2022 named Natasha, The Gift as part of the curatorial collaboration Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories; Nam June Paik-The Future is Now at the National Gallery Singapore, They Do Not Understand Each Other co-curated with National Museum of Art, Osaka, at Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong); No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia as part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative; The Cloud of Unknowing at the 54th Venice Biennale with artist Ho Tzu Nyen; The Future of Exhibition: It Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore; Paradise is Elsewhere at Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Germany); media art exhibitions Interrupt and Twilight Tomorrow at the Singapore Art Museum. She is the author of Retrospective: A Historiographical Aesthetic in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia (2016).
Senior Curator, New Taipei City Art Museum
Feng-Rong Hsieh is the Senior Curator at the New Taipei City Art Museum. He was a founding staff member and senior curator of Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai. Recent programs curated by Hsieh include: Interweaving Travelers (New Taipei City, 2023), Restless Ambiance: Re-exploring Experimental Arts in Taiwan and Beyond-International Forum (New Taipei City, 2022), Rehearsing the Future (Kaohsiung, 2021), Before the Whistle Blows (Shanghai, 2019), An Opera for Animals (co-curated with Cosmin Costinas, Claire Shea and Billy Tang, Shanghai, 2019), Tell Me a Story: Locality and Narrative (co-curated with Amy Cheng, Turin, 2018), Is It My Body? (Shanghai, 2018).
Director, Hong-gah Museum
Chia-Jung Yeh is the director and curator of Hong-gah Museum. Prior to Hong-gah Museum, she served as the board member of Polymer Art Space and the curatorial assistant at Art Tower Mito. Her recent curatorial practices include Beitou Local Series Collecting Project, Disco in the Museum Project, and solo exhibitions of video artists. Her research revolves around organizing participatory art projects and promoting diverse visual art engagement among different age groups from the perspective of local art museums. Beginning her research on video creators at the Hong-gah Museum, she curated Matter of Scale: Solo Exhibition of Sheng-Wen Lo (2022), Selamat, the messenger over the sea. Lin Yi-Chi Solo Exhibition (2020), Commissioned: I-Hsuen Chen Solo Exhibition (2019) and The History of the Concave and the Convex: Liu Yu Solo Exhibition (2018). She co-curated the 8th Taiwan International Video Art exhibition－ Living Togetherness (2024), with the independent curator Shih-Yu Hsu.