Singapore Art Museum (SAM) announces the return of the Singapore Biennale for its seventh edition from 18 October 2022 to 19 March 2023.
Helmed by a team of four Co-Artistic Directors, the 2022 edition of the Singapore Biennale (SB2022) brings together four curators from around the world – Binna Choi from South Korea/the Netherlands, Nida Ghouse from India, living in Germany, June Yap from Singapore and Ala Younis from Jordan. The selected team comprises individuals with a strong profile of multidisciplinary, experimental and participatory practices, and who activate different sites and archives, drawing relations between the historical and contemporary. The Singapore Biennale is a platform for international contemporary art organised by SAM and commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), Singapore.
Southeast Asia’s cultural, social and artistic diversity and multiplicity stems from its long-standing connections with other global influences. In drawing out perspectives from the region as situated within the world, the SB2022 Co-Artistic Directors reflect upon and revisit curatorial approaches and collaborative forms of cultural production, generating renewed perspectives in contemporary art, as well as engaging emerging vocabularies, infrastructures, critiques and narratives that are of interest to the region and beyond.
Artistic Direction for SB2022
The Co-Artistic Directors are committed to the functions and potentials of contemporary art in and after pandemic time. They posit the Biennale as a presence through which art, as well as that which is considered other to art, may be deeply connected to life. Coming together from across distinctive artistic and curatorial practices, cultures, institutions and positions, the CoArtistic Directors will endeavour to engender forms of curatorial and artistic collectivity.
In a statement on their process for SB2022, the Co-Artistic Directors explain, “While the region of Southeast Asia remains the Singapore Biennale’s immediate context, this edition will journey through unfamiliar terrains and beyond geography itself. In an attempt to apprehend and grapple with questions pressing for humanity, the Biennale will conceive ways in which to relate to a public without relying on spectacle. Turning away from the conventional preoccupation with the visual, it will dwell instead on interiority, gather around other senses and sensibilities. Artists, curators, researchers and publics will be invited to imagine the possibilities of a biennale, of art and life, and of being.”
Apart from collaborations with local, regional and international visual art practitioners and art organisations, engagement with the public will be central to SB2022. Audiences can look forward to programmes and encounters with art at multiple sites and contexts, both in Singapore and overseas.