You need to be more eagle-eyed than usual.
Singapore Art Museum – one of the “back-up” places to visit – when there’s nothing much to do in town. While the main building is already closed for their $90 million facelift, it’s business as usual over at SAM at 8Q, which is just directly opposite.
This Saturday, SAM at 8Q will be hosting their annual contemporary art exhibition. Featuring 9 contemporary artists, Imaginarium: To The Ends Of The Earth will introduce ideas and stories explaining how human, flora and fauna adapt to their habitats.
You might want to bring a notepad along as it definitely will be an enriching visit as the artworks are all interactive. Also, site-specific adaptations and specially commissioned artworks takes centre stage, all of which comes alive through human interaction. Lost? Read on to delve deeper into the different offerings including colorful installations, workshops and film screenings.
Enter The Brains Of The Region’s Most Famous Artists
Walk yourself through a floating island, volcano erupting in all its glory and a cotton candy waterfall. You’re basically stepping into an artist’s dreamscape with this one. From Thailand’s Unchalee Anantawat and Eko Nugroho, the latter famous for his trademark black and white loopy street art-meets-traditional Indonesian illustrations.
Snap Out Of That Afternoon Daze
There are also a couple of works you need to be more eagle-eyed than usual. Our homegrown artist Calvin Pang will feature his work – comprising of seven small clusters of colorful dried mushroom scattered all over the different levels of the building. For those of you who visited the Singapore Biennale, it’s a akin to the concept featured there – regular pieces of rubbish scattered in the most unexpected places. The idea is to snap you out of your usual dreamy self and allow you to be more aware of your surroundings.
The Masterpiece You Should Look Out For
For the first time, the Imaginarium exhibition will also star a unique interactive drawing piece by Vietnamese artist UuDam Tran Nguyen’s. Imagine your multiplayer role playing games like Counterstrike, but on a different level. His work, called License 2 Draw uses a special drawing machine that you can control to draw random lines on a paper canvas.
Do so by downloading the app or on the three available iPads in the space. Or else, you can also remotely draw in real-time too. It’s not really a game, per se, but there’s a map that tracks everyone using the programme wherever they are in the world. The idea is to control the robot whilst everyone else is trying to do the same thing. Somewhat a you-vs-world, this challenges online etiquettes in our increasingly connected world. This is one work where you can, ahem, draw some lessons from.
Definitely one to check out during the weekends, since it will be going on for a month!
Imaginarium: To The Ends Of The Earth 6 May – 27 August 2017