"The word ‘bodily’ has been very vital in my practice. To some extent, it serves as an anchor to the way I relate to everything - be it lines, forms, words and space. In many ways, I have referred to my body as a point of reference, especially in the way I relate to straightness and stiffness, but I feel that the relationship I have with my body is far more nuanced and complex. It does not excite me to regard my body in a literal way, I am not interested in that. My concerns lie in the slightest shifts and adjustments. I pay attention to the pulsing pain of a muscle knot or the awkward stretches over layers of fatness."
Aki Hassan is a Singaporean visual artist, whose work is concerned by the varying forms of dependencies evolved within trans* kinships and solidarity. Primarily working through sculptural installations and experimental comics, Aki speculates on nonbinary bodily (con)sequences, as they reflect on the present dilemmas with cultural and systemic forces. They see their practice as a tool to locate strengths, resistance, precarity and imbalances in exchange, whilst carefully disentangling normative imaginaries of support and care.
Recent residencies include Cutes / ظِراف with Samandal and Nino Bulling as part of Documenta 15 (2022) and SAM Art Residencies at Singapore Art Museum (2021/22). Recent exhibitions include RSA New Contemporaries 2022 (Royal Scottish Academy, 2022), innate (Yeo Workshop, 2021), An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season (National Gallery Singapore, 2020), Pig Rock Bothy Residency & Exhibition (Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, 2019) and Show Me The Difference (Studio for an Art Lover, Glasgow 2019).