I See You | Artists & Curators in Conversation

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NationalGallerySingapore

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The exhibition “See Me, See You: Early Video Installation in Southeast Asia” explores the emergence of video installation art in the region during the 1980s and 1990s through the restaging and reproduction of important works by ten artists, including Dr Baharudin Mohd Arus and Jean Marie Syjuco.

In this online conversation between the two artists as well as curators Clarissa Chikiamco and Cheng Jia Yun, they will discuss the significance of their artistic innovations in the age of emerging technologies and the dynamic process of collaboration between the artists and curators as they worked closely to recreate their respective artworks.

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About the Speakers

BAHARUDIN MOHD ARUS is one of Malaysia’s pioneering media artists. Interested in motors from a young age, Baharudin has been making robotic sculptures and kinetic artworks since 1989. He participated in the Balai Seni Visual Negara’s Young Contemporary Art Exhibition in 1969, 1971, 1975 and 1981. Baharudin is a professor at Universiti Malaysia Sabah and has also written several papers on fine art, art education, the indigenous art of Malaysia, the art of Brunei and Islamic art history. He received his BFA and PhD from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia and his MA from the University of Tulsa, USA. He is currently a lecturer in the Art and Design faculty at City University Malaysia.

JEAN MARIE SYJUCO is a visual artist whose practice spans painting, performance, sculpture, installation and video. She is well known for performance art and the collaborative nature of her works. She won the gold medal for Sculpture in the 1980 Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition for her minimal nylon string installation titled “Traps: A Spatial Approach to Mass and Insinuation”. She is also a recipient of the 1990 Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Thirteen Artists Award. She is the co-founder and chief curator of ART LAB: Atelier Cesare and Jean Marie Syjuco, a developmental art facility in Manila focused on multi-media art experimentation.

CLARISSA CHIKIAMCO is a curator at National Gallery Singapore, researching on Philippine art, artists’ moving image practice and post-war art of Southeast Asia. Exhibitions at the Gallery she has worked on include “A Fact Has No Appearance: Art Beyond the Object”, “Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real” and “Nam June Paik: The Future is Now”. She is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at King’s College London.

CHENG JIA YUN is a curator at National Gallery Singapore, where she researches post-war art of Southeast Asia. Her projects include “Awakenings: Art in Society in Asia 1960s–1990s”, “Suddenly Turning Visible: Art and Architecture in Southeast Asia 1969–1989” and “Chng Seok Tin: Drawn Through a Press”.