SCREENSHOT OF PRIYAGEETHA DIA’S WORK ON AN ARCHIVAL IMAGE FROM THE SUMATRA CAOUTCHOUC COMPANY PHOTO ALBUM (RIJKSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM). THE IMAGE IS FURTHER PROCESSED BY MAKING DIRECT ‘GRAFFITI’ EDITS, WHICH MANIPULATES HOW THE SOUND NOTES ARE READ BETWEEN THE BRIGHT AND DARK AREAS OF THE IMAGE. COURTESY THE ARTIST.
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents the second-cycle exhibition of SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR), a programme developed by NTU CCA Singapore and funded by the European Union. Titled Passages, this exhibition features new works by artists Priyageetha Dia (Singapore), Ngoc Nau (Vietnam) and Saroot Supasuthivech (Thailand), inspired by their three-month-long residencies in Europe.
As part of the SEA AiR programme, Dia had undertaken her residency at Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands), Nau at Rupert (Lithuania) and Supasuthivech at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany) through the summer. Bringing back their experiences from diverse contexts in the EU to Singapore for this exhibition, Passages speaks of the artists’ journeys across geographical and cultural boundaries from one continent to another; the cultural exchanges that take place during this time; and the continuous development of ideas as they return to their home countries to create new works for the exhibition.
Priyageetha Dia’s research interest lies in the plantations of Southeast Asia and their colonial histories, including those of migrant labour and structures of production and power. She explores gaps in historical records that are not only text-based, but also non-textual ones such as photographs, artefacts and oral interviews. Her four-channel sound installation Sap Sonic is a sonification of images from the photo album of the Sumatra Caoutchouc Company, a rubber planting company, from the archives of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Beyond their visual representations, the images bear witness to the power dynamics between the coloniser and its labourers as well as the hierarchy between nature and machine. Reframing this landscape from a visual to a sonic one, Sap Sonic serves as an aural gateway to the plantations as it delves into the lived yet unspoken lives of those who work on and inhabit the plantations, both human and nonhuman. Accompanying the work, Sap Script is a text installation in white latex paint, referencing rubber sap, on a black, obsidian-like background. Its typeface echoes the slender and linear structure of rubber trees, distorted to resemble the waveform of sound waves. Through the intangible, unseen nature of sound, Sap Sonic probes aspects of the visual world; expanding the agentive possibilities of the uncounted and the underheard.
Installation view of Priyageetha Dia's 'Sap Sonic' at NTU CCA, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 2023. Photo courtesy: NTU CCA
Installation view of Priyageetha Dia's 'Sap Script' at NTU CCA, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, 2023. Photo courtesy: NTU CCA
PASSAGES
NTU CCA Singapore Residencies Studios
Block 38 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks
Singapore 109441
Block 38 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks
Singapore 109441
28 November 2023 - 28 January 2024
