Panel Discussion: Art as Historical Method in Southeast Asia

How can contemporary art create new ways of understanding the past?

This panel explores the turn toward history in Southeast Asian contemporary art practice, how it offers models for the ways in which we understand the past and the work that history can do in the world. Panellists will discuss works by Dinh Q. Lê, Yee I-Lann and Ho Tzu Nyen, whose practices draw upon historical photographs, cultural artefacts, collage, video and performance to consider the roles of history and memory in the making of social experiences in colonial and postcolonial Southeast Asia.

The panel will feature Dương Mạnh Hùng, Goh Sze Ying, Issa Yi Xian Sng, Mark Philip Bradley and Seng Yu Jin. The discussion will be moderated by Patrick Flores (Deputy Director of Curatorial & Research, National Gallery Singapore).

This programme is part of “Art as Historical Method,” a collaborative project between the National Gallery Singapore and The American Historical Review.

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About the Panellists

Dương Mạnh Hùng is an independent translator, writer and curator. Their practice weaves together textual intricacy with visual subtlety to raise questions about art and society. Hùng’s interest in the dynamics of translation in art is informed by global and Southeast Asian socio-political and ecological histories.

Goh Sze Ying is a Curator at National Gallery Singapore. She has worked on various exhibitions, including “Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965” (2021), “Singapore Biennale 2019: Every Step in the Right Direction” (2019) and “Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.” (2018).

Issa Yi Xian Sng is a Researcher at the National Heritage Board Singapore. Beyond her work in heritage preservation, she pursues research, writing, and creative projects like the independent online publication of “Bagyi Aung Soe (1923–1990): Juggling Paradoxes in the Here & the Now,” the curatorial essay for the 2021 exhibition “Bagyi Aung Soe (1923–1990)” at Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Mark Philip Bradley is the Bernadotte E. Schmidt Distinguished Service Professor of History at the University of Chicago and Editor of the American Historical Review. He is the author of multiple publications including “Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam” (2000), which won the Harry J. Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.

Seng Yu Jin is Senior Curator at National Gallery Singapore. He currently lectures in the Minor in Art History at the National University of Singapore. His research interests cover regional art histories, with a focus on exhibition histories and collectivism in Southeast Asia.

Patrick Flores is Deputy Director of Curatorial & Research at National Gallery Singapore. Up till 2022, he was Professor of Art History and Criticism at the Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, which he chaired from 1997 to 2003. He was also concurrently the curator of the Jorge B. Vargas Museum.

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Image Credit: Yee I-Lann. ‘Tabled’. 2013. Ceramic rimmed flat plates with digital decal prints and back-stamp (set of 50) and custom-made plate cabinets made from recycled colonial era solid teak wood, 195 × 312 cm overall, (ed. 2/5). Collection of Singapore Art Museum. Photo credit: “Living Pictures” Exhibition View, National Gallery Singapore.