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15 Oct 2022 - 21 Apr 2023, 6:00 pm
Free admission. Registration required.
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NUS Museum (NX2 Gallery)
Prompted by gaps in Malaya and Singapore’s canonical art histories that the prep-room Yang tidak lupa considers, this roundtable series is an intimate retelling of intersectional subjectivities by contemporary art and cultural workers, taken in conversation with curator Nurul Kaiyisah. Inspired by the warm hospitality that the term Jemput connotes, the roundtables hold a welcoming space for encounters with these subjectivities that are informed by complex relational lines of feminine identities. This series invites perspectives on the continuum of labour that is often invisible, alongside the expression of cultural work in the past and present. From this tapestry of experience, the conversation traces historical and contemporary iterations of spaces that document artistic practices, ultimately repositioning the vernacular to facilitate generative art historical writing.
Please note that the roundtables will be held in the NX2 Gallery space of the NUS Museum (where the Yang tidak lupa prep-room is located) and seating will be on the floor. A limited number of chairs will be provided for guests who require it.
Roundtable with Fajrina Razak (Event Concluded)
Date: 15 October 2022
Time: 11am – 12pm
The first Jemput conversation with visual artist Fajrina Razak presents her involvement in the vital realm of archives. Locating her archival work from within grassroots art associations and her artistic practice which involves excavations of personal histories, the conversation explores artists whose narratives and legacies are embedded in the archival world but who have yet to acquire more formal visibility in Singapore’s art history.
About the speaker
Fajrina Razak is an artist, educator and curator whose practice concerns the notion of individuality and cultural identities while being driven by the aspects of emotions, traditions and spirituality. Working primarily with batik, her works are also translated into mediums such as image-making, installation and text-based art. Her projects include initiating a residency programme @405artresidency (2020-23) and Between the Living and the Archive (2021). Her works are in private collections and in the permanent collection of the Singapore Art Museum. She was the President of Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya (APAD, Association of Artists of Various Resources) in the term 2020-22.
Roundtable with Dr. Suriani Suratman
Date: 29 October 2022
Time: 11am – 12pm
The second Jemput roundtable welcomes Dr. Suriani Suratman, a social anthropologist and ceramics artist, who will share her experiences on the expanded labour art and cultural workers take on, and how these diverse identities shape artistic practice. In particular, her conversation brings to light the influences behind these identities – both intergenerational and of kinship – in view of her exchanges with the gendered body in the worlds of art and academia that she also inhabits.
About the speaker
Dr. Suriani Suratman, a social anthropologist, is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore. Her teaching covers areas on Malay culture and society, lived experiences of families and households as well as artmaking in the Malay and Indonesian archipelago. Her research focuses on Malay ethnic identities and the (re)production of portrayals of Malays, gender relations and inequalities in Malay families and households as well as politics of remembering. She started her journey with pottery in 2001 at the Centre for the Arts, National University of Singapore under the tutorship of Master Potter Iskandar Jalil. She continued to study with Iskandar at his studio in Jalan Senyum from 2003 and at Jalan Bahar Clay Studios from 2005. She currently practices at Jalan Bahar Clay Studios where she also teaches ceramics.
Roundtable with Masturah Sha’ari
Date: 5 November 2022
Time: 11am – 12pm
The third instalment of the Jemput Roundtable series is a conversation with Masturah Sha’ari, visual artist and the co-founder of Maya Gallery. Her works explore spaces that represent aspects of artistic practice in Malaya and Singapore’s art history that are less documented. By tracing the evolution of such spaces, this conversation gleans the ways in which artistic spaces can elicit plurality when reading art histories and thereby allowing alternative narratives to emerge from the canon.
About the speaker
Masturah Sha’ari is the co-founder of Maya Gallery, an art gallery with a focus on Singapore and Southeast Asian art. An accomplished designer with 25 years of experience, she has designed numerous publications. As a visual artist, her paintings have been exhibited in Singapore and Malaysia. Masturah holds a Master of Arts in Asian Art Histories from Goldsmiths, University of London through LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Economics and Malay Studies, from the National University of Singapore and a Diploma in Design Communication from LASALLE College of the Arts. Her research focuses on the spirit of collectivism amongst the early Malay artists in Singapore and exploring traditions in Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Roundtable with Syaheedah Iskandar
Date: 19 November 2022
Time: 11am – 12pm
The final Jemput roundtable encounters Syaheedah Iskandar’s work as a curator and researcher, where she has been involved in forming vocabularies that facilitate readings of visual languages articulated in the artworks of contemporary Malay artists in Singapore. Further questions are traced in the conversation: what new knowledges in imaging artistic practice and labour emerge from an intersectional reading of narratives? What is included in the vernacular of visual culture when approaching feminine identities in art history?
About the speaker
Syaheedah Iskandar is Assistant Curator at Singapore Art Museum. She works with vernacular ideas of seeing, thinking, and being. Drawing from Southeast Asia’s visual culture(s), she is interested in the entanglements between the unseen, the hypervisual, and their translations from material to new media practices. She holds an MA in History of Art and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and was the recipient of the IMPART Awards 2020 (Singapore) in recognition of her curatorial practice.