23 June 2011
7.30 pm to late
The Substation, Theatre
45 Armenian Street, Singapore 179936
1. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé (U.K.)
2. Jeremy Hiah (SG)
3. Shannon Cochrane (CA)
4. Wunderspaze (SG)
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1. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé (U.K.)
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé was born in Morocco, lives between London and St Yrieix la Perche in France. Her work straddles across various disciplines including performance art, photography, storytelling and Book art, While anchored in explorations on language, identity and displacement, recurring themes such as the relationship between body and identity and the limitations of translation were seen as poetics of survival and resistance.
Through her continuing commitment to both education and practice based research she tries to foster new enquiry across and between Photography, Performance art and Book art, developing collaborative projects and communities both at local and international levels, in academic and non academic contexts.
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a reader in Photography and relational practices at University for the Creative Art in Farnham UK, and co-founder / co-director of bookRoom research cluster. She helped set up bookRoom press.
The art of letting go (on the edges of language)
To a greater or lesser extent, everyone depends on stories to discover the manifold truth of life. Only such stories, read sometimes in a trance, have the power to confront a person with his fate. This is why we must keep passionately striving after what constitutes a story.
George Bataille. Blue of Noon appendix: The author’s foreword (1957)
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé will conduct “Jungle Fever (wish you were here)”, a workshop on 22 June as a prelude to the presentation of “The art of letting go (on the edges of language)” on 23 June. Participants (max.25) who respond to “Jungle Fever”, will be taken on a tour with Emmanuelle Waeckerlé as tour guide.
“Jungle Fever (wish you were here)”, will be conducted as a workshop on 22 June in the dance studio of the Substation. For the past 5 years she has been developing a series of workshops “Body thought Body talk” - a collaborative construction of personal meaning using simple performance exercises to explore one’s body (as opposed to one’s mind) as both a tool and the object/subject of observation. Emmanuelle’s process set out to liberate the participants by demanding stretches on preconceived habits of consciousness between de-learning the past habits and renewal of inter-personal interactions and thinking behaviors, by working on the body through the performances in “Jungle Fever”.
“The art of letting go (on the edges of language)” (23 June)
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé sets out to link the workshop processes of “Body thought Body talk” conducted on the day before in “Jungle Fever” by using VINST, developed in collaboraton with software artist, Sebastian Lexer first presented in 2005. VINST is a unique vocal instrument, part human part virtual - a body without organs - responding to touch but also to mood and sensibility. It is an exercise in verbal procreation and story telling, weaving together personal, conceptual and whimsical concepts that might have led Emmanuelle Waeckerlé to become a vocal instrument for all to play {with) and a tourist guide for authentic travel and beyond. The sounds are pre- or non- linguistic, and are based on how the body reacts to touch and how it produces sound. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé personally derive as much pleasure playing (with) her virtual self as well as from watching others doing so.
Estimated Duration: approx: 45mins
2. Jeremy Hiah (SG)
Born in 1972, Jeremy Hiah began his involvement in the arts since 1993. His works mostly deal with social questions, based on his personal experiences and background. As a practicing artist Hiah widely explored different art media and materials in painting, sculpture, installation, performance and collaborations with different artists in different fields. Hiah has presented his works in various countries including Germany, Italy, Austria for UNSECO Artists In Residency Vienna, Hong Kong Art Center, Vietnam Contemporary Art Center Indonesia Australia, South Korea Thailand and China for exhibition festival and artists in residency. He is also an active organizer and member of The Artists Village and Sculpture Society Singapore. Former 2001 Vice President of The Artist Village and 2005 Vice President of Sculpture Society and doing art workshop in Secondary, Junior College and Polytechnic schools. He established and ran Your MOTHER Gallery, an alternative living room art space since 2004. Hiah is the artistic director for Fetter-Field Performance Art Event 2006, 2007 and 2009.
The White Crocodile
The work that I intend to make for this project is the myth of the white crocodile. Bendemeer Road is where the two rivers Kallang River and Whampoa River meet. This white crocodile myth comes from the canal Whampoa River and Kallang River. The neighborhood use to say that there is a white crocodile living in this River and believes to be the guidance of this river and had protected the people of this area. Whoever sees it will have good luck and number some time appears on the body of the crocodile and one see it will strike lottery. I have been living in this area for the pass 27 years and River was my playground during my childhood time. I believe this white crocodile has protected my friend and me. This white crocodile is a mystery to us, as I have not seen it. The myth said that it would only appear if there were some good events coming into our neighborhood. This white crocodile is like a deity according to some of our old folks.
Estimated Duration: approx: 30mins
3. Shannon Cochrane
Shannon Cochrane's performance works have been presented across Canada in Toronto, Montréal, Halifax and Vancouver and internationally in China,Chilé, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Shannon is a co-founder and co-curator/organizer of the 7a*11 International Festival of Performance Art (www.7a-11d.ca) and is the current Artistic and Administrative Director of FADO Performance Art Centre (www.performanceart.ca).
Performance for Prepared Invisible Table
My performance work engages directly with audience, strategically with humour, and methodically with material to create situations and images that are concerned with the formal presentation of action, the possibilities of social interaction, and the investigation of authorship, repertoire, the archive and the practice of performance art itself. Performance for Prepared Invisible Table is an action collage using some everyday materials and some not-so-everyday materials to create images that appear and disappear in the exact same moment.
Estimated duration: approx.: 30mins.
4. Wunderspaze (SG)
Wunderspaze is the contemporary art initiative first established in January 2006 in Singapore. As a modest collective, Wunderspaze has been operating independently without receipt of government or other institutional funding. It aims to be a venue of exchange for emerging local, Southeast Asian and other artists and curators interested in the development and discourse of contemporary art in Southeast Asia. It intends to make its work through regional networking, research, documentation and presentation of works, ideas and strategies by such young artists and curators that is has contact with. Aside from artistic development within contemporary visual art and associated practices, the concurrent direction is to examine and develop curatorial approaches, models and methodologies. Wunderspaze is represented by Khairuddin Hori and Zaki Razak.
White Market
Founded in 2006 in Singapore, Wunderspaze is a loose collective of artists and artworkers interested in the research and presentation of art. Amongst its interests is the profiling of artists and artworks belonging to minority groups. This time, Wunderspaze activates a community of Malay-Singaporean artworkers for a performance called “White Market”. “White Market” is an assembly of improvised rituals and actions, juxtaposed in the given space and time, taking off from the notion of collective and analogous actions that is often associated with organised assemblies and cults.
Estimated Duration: approx: 45mins
