Across three exhibitions around Esplanade’s visual arts spaces, engage with newly commissioned site-specific works that undergird the centre’s commitment to nurturing new works and supporting the development of long-standing projects by Singapore and Southeast Asian artists.
At Esplanade Tunnel, The Long and Oblique View by Mike HJ Chang (Taiwan/USA/Singapore) unfolds across various newly conceptualised wall-oriented objects, intertwined to create a visual narrative drawing from two enduring threads within Chang’s practice: the faculty of sight and the construction of space. In developing these works, Chang responds to the linear and elongated characteristic of the space by experimenting with ideas of stretching and its potential to create effects of distortion, interference and obstruction.
印映 reflections impressions by Hong Shu-ying (Singapore) at Esplanade Community Wall delves into imitation and mimicking as a way of learning. At the source of these works lies the famed 1950 erhu audio recording of Mirrored Moon in the Erquan Spring by Abing—a seminal figure in the realm of the erhu revered for his innovative playing style and contributions to musical compositions for this two-stringed bowed instrument. The exhibition unfolds through video, print and annotations to examine subsequent user-contributed content on video-sharing platforms responding to Abing’s pivotal piece.
Taking root within Esplanade Concourse, Locus Amoenus by Ryan Villamael (Philippines) envelops the space with meticulously crafted leaves, created from replicas of geographical maps from the Philippines. This intricate installation, presented in various iterations since 2016, explores themes surrounding territorial boundaries, colonisation, the creation of controlled environments, as well as the tangled relationships between the natural world and human intervention.
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