The Foot Beneath the Flower Catalogue

2020

This exhibition catalogue features 18 artists from the group show The Foot Beneath the Flower: Camp. Kitsch. Art. Southeast Asia. Hailing from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Vietnamese diaspora, their works engage with the region in various ways by utilising visual idioms of kitsch as strategies of subversion to complicate the status quo. The publication also features an essay by guest curator Louis Ho.

This flamboyant publication features a solid state bronze hot-stamped illustration sprawled from cover to back, re-emphasising the indulgence of camp and kitsch in radical and responsive ways.

The Foot Beneath the Flower: Camp. Kitsch. Art. Southeast Asia

2020

The Foot Beneath the Flower is an exhibition held at the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design & Media's ADM Gallery, featuring contemporary art from Southeast Asia in the key of high-pitched camp and kitsch. Camp, as Susan Sontag has remarked, is characterised by artifice, frivolity and “shocking excess”, qualities that likewise mark the aesthetics of kitsch. Guest curated by Louis Ho, the show proposes that such excess may nonetheless encompass themes that are in equal measure canny, critical, and redolent of the realities of life in Southeast Asia today.

The works here engage with the region in various ways, representing familiar socio-cultural narratives as stylistic froth and counter-ideological glee. The recontextualisation of everyday Southeast Asian visual and material cultures within the frameworks of camp and kitsch are being embodied across installation, sculpture and mixed media works.

The exhibition title was a wordplay on the book The Flower Beneath The Foot by Ronald Firbank, and we decided to make meaning of this through a graphic laden exhibition identity which also portrays an overall eccentric aesthetic. With the flower overpowering the foot, it conveys a subversive celebration of the complication of status quo.

Circadian

2020

Circadian is a digital exhibition we designed for artist Wyn-Lyn Tan, whose artistic practice is grounded in painting and driven by a visual language shaped through rhythm and intuition. Launched during the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown where people are confined to their homes, the artist installed these works in her own home-turned-exhibition space in a bid to allow viewers to rediscover domesticity, where one’s personal space becomes your world. The elusive and abstract concept of time is further re-emphasised by a rhythmic ticking ambient sound, whilst an elegant masthead reveals different crops of her works at different times of the day, mirroring each specific hour of her 24-hour circadian cycle across the lockdown period.

Visit digital exhibition here.

Thoughts on Paint and Canvas

2020

Thoughts on Paint and Canvas is a collaborative project with artist Jane Lee which traces her early experiments with paint that traverse the domains of installation and sculpture. Featuring miniature study pieces exploring the materiality of paint and canvas that she created from 2002-2017, they are accompanied by the artist's notes that highlight her developments at different stages of her practice.

A luxurious burgundy leather jacket with the title set in gold lends an elegant tone for the retrospective’s spare but contemporary layout, comprised of full-bleed pages and spreads. Presented like an artist's sketchbook, it also provides us a glimpse into Lee's processes which have led to the realisation of her signature large-scaled works.

This limited edition artist book is produced in conjunction with the exhibition Reformations: Painting in Post 2000 Singapore Art at the ADM Gallery, 18 Jan – 16 April 2019.

WKWSCI Open Day 2020

2020

WKW Open Day is NTU Wee Kim Kee School of Communication and Information's yearly student recruitment event in which prospective students get to visit and tour the campus to find out more about enrolment to the college. In light of COVID-19, we helped transform this event into a digital experience, where prospective students can understand the curriculum structure, academic requirements and even take an immersive 360 virtual tour of the school. In conjunction, the digital site also hosted livestream sessions with the faculty sharing about the curriculum and school experience, as well as student representatives #WeeKeepItReal about their personal experiences across the 5 different academic tracks - Journalism, Broadcast & Cinema Studies, Advertising, Public Relations and Communication Research & Information Analytics.

Visit: www.wkwsci.live

NTU Global Digital Art Prize Trophy

NTU Global Digital Art Prize

2019

The NTU Global Digital Art Prize (NTU GDAP) is organised by the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity (NISTH) and the School of Art, Design and Media. Taking the form of a biennial competition, it recognises global artists and technologists with extraordinary creativity in digitally mediated art, design and cultural heritage.

The theme of the inaugural NTU GDAP is the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The key components driving it includes big data, the Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, real-time and deep data generation and analytics, 3D printing, machine learning, personalised health care and medicine, and cyber security. Their effectiveness in shaping the human condition in the 21st century will inevitably call for close integration of technological innovations with areas such as social sciences, ethics, policy, and digital arts and humanities.

ADM Prospectus 17/18

2017

The annual NTU School of Art Design & Media prospectus publication takes on a different format this year as it prepares its first intake of students under the new structure of its undergraduates programme.

We designed a multi-layered, blind embossed cover to symbolise what we describe as a synergy of creativity; a reflection of the school’s merger of its six majors into two new big umbrellas: Design Art & Media Art. As a nod to the spiral architecture of the school, the multi-layered cover when closed transform from blue to red as it dwelves into the introduction of the school and the new programmes.

HASS Graduate Programme

2017

The College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) at NTU, Singapore, is a growing academic community, home to about 5,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. Ranked among Asia’s finest, it has a strong team of diverse faculty members from well over 30 countries, dedicated to achieving excellence in both research and education.

While disciplinary expertise remains critical, the College encourages interdisciplinary explorations that promise to break new ground and expand its intellectual horizons. Engagement with society is closely aligned with research in HASS. We designed speech bubbles as a main visual element as a nod to the conversations and collaborations that contributes to personal development and the flourishing of ideas. The multi-tiered interior of the brochure also symbolise the multi-faceted nature of the school’s programmes.

Swedish Dads

2017

Swedish Dads is a photo exhibition organised by the Swedish Embassy in Singapore, based on portraits of fathers who choose to stay home with their babies for at least six months. Photographer Johan Bävman examines why these fathers have chosen to stay home with their children, what the experience has given them, and how their relationship with both their partners and their children has changed as a result. The exhibition, held at DECK Singapore, aims to show the effects of gender equality in parenting on both individuals and society.