01 December 2005:

BELIEF

Singapore Biennale 2006
4th September to 12th November 2006
Vernissage: 1st to 3rd September 2006

BELIEF is the theme for Singapore's first visual arts biennale, Singapore Biennale 2006 (SB2006). If today's world has painfully called into question many certainties governing society, history and humankind, can it also be described as an era of uncertainty in which the very subject of belief is in question? In the context of this so-called crisis of values, what do we individually and collectively believe in? Do we act on our beliefs or is belief simply a mindless act? Are the religious beliefs communicated by the great faiths more relevant than the secular beliefs in science, progress, democracy and politics that succeeded them? Or has the conflict between the two spawned such states of violent and ethical extremism in the service of religious and economic power that belief in anything appears incomprehensible? Are we beyond belief or at the threshold of its revival?

SB2006 aims to address the complexities that surround and inform some of these questions. Through a diverse selection of international contemporary art practices, including artists from Singapore and its neighbouring regions, the biennale sets out to create a reflection rather than a representation of contemporary art's relationship with the subject of belief. In turn, this process of reflection will also examine the question of belief in relation to the system of art itself. With its longstanding relationship to religious and secular systems of thought, what are the inherent values of contemporary art today?

Artistic Director Fumio Nanjo and his curatorial team will present the Biennale across a collection of venues, including museums, religious spaces, public institutions and disused buildings. Traversing the city, some of the exhibition sites will include the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, National Museum of Singapore, Sri Krishnan Temple, The Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator and Tanglin Camp. Together, these selected sites provide a local perspective onto one of the unique features that characterise Singapore, among other things, as a multi-religious and multi-cultural society, where many seemingly conflicting beliefs appear to co-exist alongside one other. Additionally, many of the chosen venues, most obviously the religious spaces, also provide a historical context through which to reflect on the critical relationship played by architecture in the construction of belief. Paradoxically, sites of religious worship in Singapore continue to draw a retinue of worshippers, whilst, the great temples of culture' represented by museums, remain significant, for their lack of devoted followers.

SB2006 is a culmination of the growth of Singapore's artists and achievements in visual arts at home and abroad. It highlights Singapore's prominence as an international visual arts hub, not only providing new opportunities for Singapore artists, curators and arts businesses, but also as a key enabler of exchange and collaborations for the global arts community.

Organised by

In Partnership with

18 artists and collectives have accepted invitations to participate in SB2006 to-date. They include internationally renowned artists Barbara Kruger and Yayoi Kusama. Kruger is known for her iconic photo/text montages that address cultural representations of power, identity and sexuality, while Kusama's trademark polka dots, in obsessive and repetitive patterns, have made her one of the most influential and widely-collected artists of our time. SB2006 will also feature performance artists Jonathan Allen and Rizman Putra, known for their performance alter-egos Tommy Angel and Manic Jango respectively. Also in the first list of confirmed artists are: Jane Alexander, Sheba Chhachhi, George Chua, Alwyn Lim and Yuen Chee Wai, Santiago Cucullu, Federico Herrero, Ho Tzu Nyen, Zai Kuning, Learning Site (Cecilia Wendt, Rikke Luther, Julio Castro and Brett Bloom), Donna Ong, Handiwirman Saputra, Nakhee Sung and Erika Tan. Please refer to Annex 1 for their profiles.

The full list of participating artists and exhibition venues will be announced in Spring 2006.

Please find the following annexes enclosed for information:

Annex 1 - About the Artists
Annex 2 - About the Exhibition Sites
Annex 3 - Profiles of Curatorial Team

For media enquiries, please contact:

Eileen A. Chua
Corporate Communications Manager
National Arts Council (Singapore)

DID: + 65 6837 9575
Mobile: +65 9048 3141
Email: eileen_chua@nac.gov.sg

Kim May
Assistant Director, Corporate Communications
National Arts Council (Singapore)

DID: + 65 6837 957
Mobile: +65 9680 5469
Email: kim_may@nac.gov.sg

Annex 1

About Singapore Biennale 2006

Organized by the National Arts Council (Singapore) in partnership with the National Heritage Board of Singapore, SB2006 opens to the public from 4 September to 12 November 2006. The first international contemporary art exhibition is curated by Fumio Nanjo, internationally reputed for having headed the programming and adjudication of major art events throughout the world.

As the anchor cultural event for Singapore 2006: Global City. World of Opportunities, SB2006 provides the platform for the presentation of international art in dialogue with Singapore and Asia. Singapore 2006 is the umbrella event where Singapore will play host to the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group.

As part of the Biennale programming, the curatorial team has planned a series of dialogue sessions with the local arts community, from July 2005 leading up to and throughout the inception of the Biennale. These regular dialogue sessions, Encounters, provides a discursive platform for Singaporeans to voice issues and concerns pertinent to SB2006.

Key Events
Singapore Biennale Club Night 24th June 2006 Media Preview 1st - 3rd September 2006
Inauguration Ceremony 2nd September 2006, Morning
Opening Party 2nd September 2006, Evening
Exhibition Period 4th September - 12th November 2006
Closing Event 11th November 2006

Related Events
Opening of exhibition site, VivoCity 13th - 15th October 2006
Deepavali Weekend Event 20th - 22nd October 2006

About National Arts Council, Singapore
The National Arts Council (NAC) was established in September 1991 to spearhead the development of the arts in Singapore. To realise its vision of developing Singapore into a distinctive global city for the arts, NAC provides total support to nurture artistic talent, promotes the practice and appreciation of the arts among Singaporeans, builds up capabilities and resources, facilitates internationalisation and advocates the value of the arts. Through its holistic range of programmes and initiatives to develop the entire arts value chain, the Council champions the growth of a vibrant arts sector where the arts is accessible to all, and the community of artists, arts groups and arts businesses can innovate, excel and achieve sustainability in the long term.

About National Heritage Board, Singapore
The National Heritage Board champions the promotion of a vibrant cultural and heritage sector in Singapore. It aims to make heritage enriching, relevant and accessible to all through forging collaborative partnerships and staging innovative programmes to engage different audiences. NHB is a statutory board formed on 1 August 1993 under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

Singapore Biennale 2006
About The Artists

Jane Alexander
Jonathan Allen
Sheba Chhachhi
George Chua, Alwyn Lim and Yuen Chee Wai
Santiago Cucullu
Federico Herrero
Ho Tzu Nyen
Barbara Kruger
Zai Kuning
Yayoi Kusama
Learning Site (Cecilia Wendt, Rikke Luther, Julio Castro and Brett Bloom)
Donna Ong
Rizman Putra
Nakhee Sung
Handiwirman Saputra
Erika Tan

Jane Alexander was born in 1959 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She currently lives in New York.

Jane Alexander's work sits within the tradition of figurative sculpture, albeit transformed and cut away to reveal the human as bestial or part-animal. In Butcher Boys from 1985/6, three male figures sit on a bench. Though they have been cast from real people, the figures have been deformed and contorted. Heads are only half-human, horns grow out from the skulls and faces are distorted, pulled out of shape, flattened into snouts that do not open into mouths. Her works express images of brutalization and alienation while also often being strangely quiet and contemplative.

The Sacrifices of God are a Troubled Spirit was arranged in 2004 by the Museum for African Art, New York and Spier, Cape Town. The exhibition took place at the Museum for African Art and the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York where Jane Alexander installed nine figures, produced between 2002 and 2004, combined with additional components for the pre-selected site of the All Souls Altar of St John the Divine. The tableau was accompanied by Gregorio Allegri's choral arrangement of Psalm 51, Miserere Mei (c1638), a prayer for the remission of sins from the King James Version of the Bible. Reference to this psalm was previously made in the 1986 photomontage, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51 v7.

Jonathan Allen is a British artist who was born in 1966.

For the last 5 years his practice has evolved around the development of a unique body of work that focuses on the critical parody of a fictitious 'gospel magician', who goes by the name of Tommy Angel. Angel, who has been described as an incarnation of 'Billy Graham meets David Copperfield via Donald Rumsfeld' is a character of beguiling conception, chutzpah and evangelical charm. To date, the persona of Tommy Angel has taken form through a series of live 'magic' shows and black and white photographs. Echoing the theatrical miracles of mediaeval mystery plays, Allens's work alludes to the relationships between Christendom's long history and the history of stage-crafted illusion. A white tipped magician's wand in the shape of a crucifix offers questionable salvation, the word FAITH appears on the flag of a child's bang-gun, a bible bursts into flames when opened. While the artistry of Angel's power is never fully hidden, the omnipresence of magic's relationship with religion and the relationships of power upon which both rely, is stirringly observed in Allen's photographs and performances.

Born in 1958 in Harare, Ethiopia, Sheba Chhachhi lives and works in New Delhi. In 1980, she co-established Lifetools, a design and communications studio working with a wide range of graphic, photographic and audio-visual media related to social and developmental issues. Over the course of the last 13 years, photography has become her principal medium of interest, alongside installations that employ the moving image. More often than not, Chhacchi's choice of medium is also the subject of her critical concerns. In her work Ganga's Daughter's, for example, which was began in 1992 and consists of a large series of a colour portraits portraying India's Sanyasin or renunciant woman, overtones about photography's relationship with the exotic subject are implicit. As is, the artist's relationship with the very discourses of anthropology, reportage and documentary photography as models of truth. Chhachhi's interests as artist and activist have led her to work in a diverse range of socio/economic contexts, including women's groups (both rural and urban), educational institutions, and development agencies, in addition to museums and galleries.

George Chua was born in Singapore in 1973. He lives and works in Singapore. Alwyn Lim was born in Singapore in 1975. He lives and works in New York. Yuen Chee Wai was born in Singapore in 1975. He lives and works in Singapore.

Brought together by an interest in sound art, George Chua, Alwyn Lim and Yuen Chee Wai are among Singapore's foremost artists working with sound. A performance artist, photographer/designer and sociologist respectively, their collaborative work uses sound to examine the nature of social and human relations in urban space. Although these three artists have performed and exhibited widely individually and in collaboration with others, this will be the first time they will be collaborating together.

Santiago Cucullu was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and currently lives in Milwaukee.

Santiago Cucullu chooses historically marginalized figures (such as anarchist and pamphlet printer Severino di Giovanni and the historian Osvaldo Bayer) and events (often from his homeland's anarchist movement among other topics) as the subject of his works, which include large wall drawings made of contact paper, watercolors, and sculptures made using everyday materials such as colorful table cloths. The artist marries biographical details from these largely forgotten lives with places and people recollected from his own, creating composite visual storyboards that mix references to high and low culture, range across the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and freely jumble the contemporary with the historical.

Recent solo projects include exhibitions at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Group exhibitions include the 2004 Whitney Biennial; How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Federico Herrero was born in 1978 in Costa Rica. He lives and works in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Federico Herrero is a painter whose practice flows beyond the spaces of the canvas or wall surfaces. He refers to his works as 'activating the spaces which we inhabit through colour fields'. He has made line paintings on the streets, mimicking traffic and pedestrian markers, created large scale mural works in old disused buildings or walls, changed the ambience of spaces through painting on every conceivable surface including public buses and swimming pools, and continues to work on canvas. In recent exhibitions Federico Herrero has also shown his photographic archives as slide shows, provided hammocks and rest areas for viewers and chosen music to accompany his installations. The surfaces he creates take myriad shapes and colours, but usually contain trademark motifs such as strange worm-like shapes and cryptic texts such as 'OK', nestled in between lush colour fields and rainbow coloured textures. His practice, although painterly, suggests something which is not merely about painting, but which seeks to borrow painterly expressions to reclaim an arena of theatricality and pleasure and our psychological relations to space.

Recent exhibition include: Urgent Painting, Musee d'art moderne de la Ville, Paris; 2001: 49th Biennale di Venezia (curated by Harald Szeeman) and the Aichi Expo 2005 Japan.

Ho Tzu Nyen was born in Singapore in 1976. He lives and works in Singapore.

Ho Tzu Nyen's practice defies easy categorization. Ranging across painting, video, performance, lecturing and writing, Ho blurs the boundaries between these genres, creating a complex interdisciplinary practice. Ho's work is largely concerned with the social and cultural history of Singapore. His video installation, Utama — Every Name in History is I (2003), was exhibited at the Sao Paolo Biennale (2004), as well as the recent Fukuoka Triennale (2005). It engaged with the myth surrounding the founding figure of Singapore, Sang Nila Utama. His most recent work, 4 x 4 — Episodes of Singapore Art, examined the history of modern art in Singapore through four works by four influential artists. Broadcast on television as part of the Singapore Art Show (2005), it proved to be one of the festival's highlights. Ho's work has also been presented in exhibitions in Australia, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

Barbara Kruger was born in New Jersey, USA in 1945.

In the late 70s she was one of the most significant artists to challenge the conventions through which visual culture was understood and analysed. Amongst her generation, Kruger was instrumental in establishing the street as a gallery and the billboard as a frame. In short pioneering a practice that questioned not only what we see but also how we saw it. From the outset, Kruger's work placed critical attention upon the medium being the message. By building her practice within and around the vernacular of mass communication and advertising, using shopping bags, billboards, bus shelters and film, in combination with a universal graphic expression, her work can be said to seduce as much as inform. Her now familiar, repertoire of cultural truisms such as “I shop therefore I am” or “Your body is a battleground” have become iconic images not only of the 80s but also for a politically engaged art practice. Barbara Kruger has been described as “having created a voice that mocks, undermines, and rebels against a myriad of traps, critiquing their premises, their operations, their boundaries and their proprietorsÓ”. Alongside her work as an artist, she has written extensively on music, film and television, curated exhibitions and produced several major public artworks. As an artist there are few arenas into which Kruger's work has not extended. After over thirty years of international acclaim the same can be said of her cultural influence.

Zai Kuning was born in Singapore in 1964. He lives and works in Singapore.

Zai Kuning is a multi-disciplinary artist who works across a wide range of practices, from video to poetry to theatre, dance, performance art, music and installation art. Among his many collaborations with artists were 0zero01 (1993) with Kuo Pao Kun and Music Space (1996) with double-bassist Tetsu Saitoh. He also pioneered a unique brand of physical theatre performance with the group Metabolic Theatre Laboratory, which he founded and worked on numerous projects with, such as Bluemonkish (1996) and Noalibi (1999). His recent work has also seen him composing and performing a blend of electronic music that incorporates the laptop, electric guitar and vocals. In the last few years Zai has been researching the lives of the Orang Laut in the Riau islands. This project which began under the auspices of a TheatreWorks residency project, has developed into a long-lasting and wide-ranging engagement, remarkable for the way in which it creatively carries out an almost ethnographic research of the region, and the innovative means by which it has been presented. It has since been shown in various parts of the world as a documentary/filmic essay or as part of a performative screening. Zai's performance and visual art work has been presented in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and Germany.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Japan in 1929 and lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.

Yayoi Kusama has suffered from obsessive ideation since early childhood when she experienced hallucinations. She began to redirect these experiences into painting, and after moving to New York in 1957 began her 'net paintings' which established her reputation in the New York art scene. Her work is characterized by an obsessive drive to repetition and amplification, most famously expressed by her trademark dots which have covered the surfaces of canvases, furniture, balloons, clothes and phallic shapes.

In the late 1960s Kusama began producing environmental installations which utilised multiple mirrors, lights and performance. Her infamous nude orgy actions in the streets of New York reflected her participation in the social protests of the period. Kusama returned to Japan in 1973 and continues to create works of unusual power and charm. Traversing art trends including Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop Art and Feminist Art, Kusama's practice remains singularly unique and important within C20th art.

Consisting of: Cecilia Wendt, Sweden and Rikke Luther, Denmark, (co-founders of the artist group N55), Julio Castro, Mexico, (co-founder of the artist group Tercerunquinto), and Brett Bloom, US, (co-founder of the artist group Temporary Services).

Learning Site is the name of a group of loosely affiliated artists and practitioners from various parts of the world who come together to work on specific projects. They are interested in engaging with and paying attention to local situations (wherever they may find themselves) and developing art projects which are learning platforms and demonstrations about the economic, political and social structures of unused materials, recycled waste or conditions of production in societies. As their name suggests, Learning Site understand art as being related to forms of knowledge production and thus also to dialogue and learning.

They have recently created waste collection and building projects in Japan (2004) and Mexico (2005) using discarded cardboard and paper in Japan and discarded plastic bottles (PET) in Mexico. For both projects they organized workshops, worked closely with local non profit and community groups and built temporary dwellings out of unused materials. Through such initiatives, Learning Site suggest different systems and models for waste management, recycling unused materials, mobilising communities and learning through action.

Donna Ong was born in Singapore in 1978. She lives and works in Singapore.

Deriving from her vivid imagination, Donna Ong creates curious objects and contraptions which bewilder yet intrigue. Using everyday as well as found objects, her installations allude to narratives which in turn give rise to questions about the intentions, imagination and fantasy that underlies their existence. A graduate of Goldsmiths College, London, her solo exhibition at the Arts House, Singapore in 2003 was received with critical acclaim. Ong's work was also included as part of the Singapore Art Show (2005).

Rizman Putra was born in 1978. He lives and works in Singapore.

Rizman Putra is a co-founder of a multi-disciplinary collective, Kill Your Television (KYTV), a member of The Artists Village group, as well as front man for an indie music group, Tiramisu. Working predominantly with performance, Putra's work engages with issues of identity and stereotyping. His recent work, Who is Manic Jango (2005), was a performance which explores, through his alter-ego, Manic Jango, the complexities that underlie his multiple identities as a young Singaporean, Malay Muslim, contemporary artist. Putra has performed and exhibited his works in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan. Putra was one of the four artists selected for the President's Young Talents Exhibition (2005), as well as being included in the Fukuoka Triennale (2005).

Nakhee Sung was born in 1971. She currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea.

Nakhee Sung's works represent a mixing of abstract expressionist mark making, painting, graffiti and mural drawing across architectural spaces. Her works often depict architecture-like structures over which she sprays fluorescent paints or builds up dense blocks of colour. Like a network of interconnected chains or roots, her installations spread out within spaces, moving up walls onto ceilings and across surfaces.

Nakhee Sung's first wall installation entitled '#1' was exhibited at Artsonje, Seoul in 2002, and she was one of the artists shown in The Korean Pavilion at The Venice Biennale 2005.

Handiwirman Saputra was born in Bukittinggi, Indonesia in 1975. He lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

A member of the Yogyakarta based artist collective, Jendela, Saputra works with sculpture and painting, exploring the relationships between the object and image. Using various materials such as plastic, fiberglass, hair, cloth, yam, wire and wood, he constructs, often, modestly scaled objects, exploring the irrational and the strange in his random combination of materials, creating a unique visual language in the process. These objects then re-presented in his paintings, further questioning the complex relationships between objects and their representation. Handiwirman often Saputra's work has been exhibited widely in Indonesia, including the CP Biennales (2003 & 2005), as well as internationally, in Vietnam and Japan.

Born in Singapore in 1967, Erika Tan is an artist and curator from Singapore (currently based in the UK) whose work has evolved from an interest in anthropology and the moving image.

Her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts; exploring different media to create situations that excite, provoke, question, confront and invite comments from an audience. Her work has been exhibited as part of EAST International 2000 at Norwich Gallery, included in "Cities on the Move" at The Hayward Gallery, and "Incommunicado" a Hayward Touring exhibition. Recent projects include a residency commission with Turner Contemporary, Margate, a video commission with Picture This, Bristol and an Artists Links Shanghai Residency, China.

Annex 2

Singapore Biennale 2006
About The Exhibition Sites

KWAN IM THONG HOOD CHO TEMPLE

The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple was built in 1884 on a 500 square metre plot of land along Waterloo Street. From a humble and small Temple, it has expanded over the years as a result of several renovations and extensions to its premises.

The main objective of the Temple at its inception was to provide a place of worship primarily of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, for the migrant Chinese population in Singapore.

When Singapore was bombed by the invading Japanese air force during World War II, the Temple was miraculously spared despite the near-total destruction of virtually all the adjacent buildings, and the Temple provided refuge for the sick, the wounded and the homeless.

Devotees then and now attributed this miracle to the compassion of Guanyin. In 1983, the Temple was rebuilt and enlarged to its present day size.

Since 1997, the Temple had added a new dimension and focus to its charitable acts.

• In 1997, it built its Kidney Dialysis Centre at Simei.
• In 1998 it set up the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Educational Bursary.
• In 1999, it embarked on a national health screening programme.
• In 2000, it set up the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professorship in Computing at the National University of Singapore.
• In 2001, the temple was marked as a historic site in Singapore.

SRI KRISHNAN TEMPLE

In 1870, Hanuman Beem Singh set up a shrine for Lord Krishna under a banyan tree in Waterloo Street.

It has since developed from its humble beginnings to the present-day Sri Krishnan Temple, where it is adorned with ornately sculpted monuments and deities by craftsmen from the North and South of India.

The Sri Krishnan temple has become a significant landmark in building religious harmony in Singapore, with its new ancillary block housing multi-purpose halls to cater to the cultural and spiritual needs of the public.

Additionally, the spirit of inter-religious harmony is evident in the unique relationship that the Sri Krishnan Temple has developed with members of different communities. The Temple has been at its present site for more than 130 years.

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH OF ST GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR

The Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator is the first Christian church built in Singapore in 1835 and was designed by the Irish architect, George D. Coleman.

As the number of Armenian families was growing in the early 1830s due to business prospects in Southeast Asia, a place of worship was deemed necessary and in 1833, the land was acquired from the government of the time.

On 26 March 1836, the church was consecrated and dedicated to St Gregory the Illuminator, the first Armenian monk. In 1973, the building was gazetted as a national monument by the National Preservation Board of Singapore.

The memorial garden in the Church compound includes the tomb stones of famous Singaporean Armenians such as Catchick Moses, co-founder of Straits Times; Sarkies brothers the founders of Raffles Hotel and Agnes Joaquim who discovered the hybrid orchid, Vanda Miss Joaquim, which is named as Singapore's National Flower.

The Armenian Church is also known for being the first building in Singapore to have electricity in 1909, when electric lights and fans were installed.

The year 2005 marks a special milestone as the church celebrates its 170th Anniversary.

TANGLIN CAMP

In 1860, a 210-acre site in Tanglin, comprising mainly of a nutmeg plantation, was purchased by the Government of the Straits Settlements, with the intention of providing housing for military troops stationed on the island.

The construction of large, airy, single-storey colonial buildings with thick pillars and high ceilings, were scattered across the expanse of this plot of land.

These decommissioned buildings have previously housed major MINDEF departments such as The Medical Classification Centre, Officers Personnel Centre, Naval Training Department, SAF Careers Centre, Manpower Data Centre, Control of Personnel Centre, Headquarters National Cadet Corps, Finance Division and the Central Manpower Base.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAPORE

At 118 years old, the National Museum of Singapore is Singapore's oldest museum with the youngest and most innovative soul.

Designed to be the people's museum, the National Museum of Singapore prides itself on introducing cutting edge and varied ways of presenting history to redefine conventional museum experience.

More than just a space for exhibitions and artifacts, the National Museum will also distinguish itself through its challenging and vibrant festivals and events that will unleash new creative possibilities in culture and heritage.

This programming will be supported by a wide range of facilities and services including F&B, retail, Resource centre, Cinematheque and Black Box space, Public Sculpture Garden among others.

With a rich history dating back to its inception in 1887, the National Museum of Singapore has been closed since 28 April 2003 for redevelopment of the old National Museum building and will re-open in December 2006.

Annex 3

Singapore Biennale 2006
Profiles of Curatorial Team

SB2006 is curated by a team of four young curators (Roger McDonald, Sharmini Pereira, Eugene Tan and Ahmad Mashadi) under the artistic direction of internationally recognised curator Fumio Nanjo. With strong links in and around the Asia region, though by no means bound by it, the curatorial team is also working with a selection of internationally based networking curators with expertise in local art scenes or specialist areas of research.

Singapore Biennale 2006
Artistic Director: Fumio NANJO

Fumio Nanjo (b.1949) is currently the Deputy Director of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.

He is also an art critic and a lecturer at Keio University, Tokyo.

Nanjo has organized numerous exhibitions as an officer of the Japan Foundation (1978-1986), as the director of ICA Nagoya (1986-1990), and as the founder and representative director of Nanjo and Associates (1990-2002). Since 2002, he joined Mori Art Museum as deputy director. Main achievements include: commissioner of the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1997); commissioner of the Taipei Biennale (1998); member of the jury committee of the Turner Prize by the Tate Gallery (1998); co-curator of the 3rd Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1999); member of the selection committee of the Sydney Biennale (2000); director for the Japan Pavilion at EXPO 2000 in Hanover; artistic co-director of the Yokohama Triennale (2001); a selector of Artes Mundi Prize in Wales, UK in 2004. Also served as an artistic director on several public art and corporate art projects including Shinjuku I-LAND" Public Art Projects (Tokyo/1995), Hakata Riverain Art Project (Fukuoka/1999), Art Project for Obayashi Corporation Head Office (Tokyo/1999).

Advisory positions include: vice president of Association International des Critiques d' Art (AICA); board member of Comité International des Musées d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (CIMAM). Also involved in selection committees of several art awards and artist-in-residence programmes, including the coming 51st Venice Biennale (jury member of the Leon d'Or Prize).

Published From Art to the City, a record of 15 years as an independent curator in 1997.

Singapore Biennale 2006
Curatorial Team: Roger MCDONALD (Japan)

Roger Christopher McDonald PhD.

Born in Tokyo, Japan (1971). Roger McDonald was educated in the United Kingdom, studying International Politics (BA, Wales), Mysticism and Religious Experience (MA, Kent) and received a PhD in History and Theory of Art from the University of Kent in 2000. He has been based in Tokyo, Japan since 2000.

His curatorial work has included exhibitions in a number of non-gallery sites including a forest in Kiyosato, Japan, his home in London, a kindergarten in Tokyo, a disused restaurant and working vegetable market in Naha city Okinawa, a night club in Tokyo and an ongoing touring exhibition from a suitcase in the 'Moving Collection' project (Tokyo, Okinawa, Fukui, New Zealand). He was assistant curator to Fumio Nanjo for The Yokohama Triennale 2001. He was a co-curator for the major Japanese contemporary art exhibition 'Mediarena', held at The Govett Brewster Art gallery, New Zealand in 2004. He is a co-curator for 'Green Times' (opening autumn 2005), the inaugural exhibition for a new park culture centre in Tachikawa, Tokyo, which looks into the role of green spaces and parks in cities with a focus on the way people use such spaces. He maintains a weblog called The Tactical Museum where he publishes news about autonomous activities in Japan as well as his research interests into different forms of curatorial practice: http://rogermc.blogs.com/tactical/

He is Deputy Director of the Tokyo non profit arts collective AIT (Arts Initiative Tokyo) and co-organises its independent study school programme called MAD (Making Art Different), which amongst other courses, offers the first contemporary curating course in Japan. AIT emphasises a collective curatorial and working approach, and within this framework he has co-organised the ongoing 'AIT Hour Museum' series of exhibition/ events as well as the irregular lounge club night 'Minglius'. In 2004 he travelled to Weimar, Germany to represent AIT in the exhibition 'Even the Moon is Not Autonomous', an archive and exhibition of socially engaged practices from Japan. AIT has recently been initiating a series of research and exhibition platforms exploring notions of the Public now in Tokyo and beyond.

Roger McDonald also teaches on the arts management course of Musashino Art University, Tokyo, as well as being a visiting tutor at Zokei Art University. He has also lectured at the California College of Arts, San Francisco, Tate Britain, UK, The Japan Foundation, Tokyo, amongst other places.

Singapore Biennale 2006
Curatorial Team: Eugene TAN (Singapore)

Dr. Eugene Tan is an art historian, critic and curator. Born in Singapore in 1972, he received a BSc in Economics and Politics from Queen Mary College, London and a MA (Distinction) in Post-War and Contemporary Art from the Sotheby's Institute, London. He also holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Manchester.

Among exhibitions he has curated include Video Invitational at f a Projects, London in 2003, The Last Laugh: Humour and Contemporary Video Art, Painting as Process: Re-evaluating Painting and Jason Salavon: Brainstem Still Life at the Earl Lu Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore in 2004. He is also the curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the forthcoming 51st Venice Biennale.

He has written extensively for many exhibition catalogues as well as publications such as Art Review, Contemporary, Contemporary Visual Arts and Modern Painters. He has been a member of AICA (Association International des Critiques d' Art) since 1999.

He has also been invited to lecture and participate in panel discussions, on various aspects of contemporary art, in Singapore, Spain, Taiwan and United Kingdom.

He is currently the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLESIA College of the Arts.

Singapore Biennale 2006
Curatorial Team: Sharmini PEREIRA (Sri Lanka/UK)

Sharmini Pereira was born in 1970 in the UK. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1992 with an MA (Hons) in Art History she curated her first exhibition in 1994 called New Approaches in Contemporary Sri Lankan Art which was held at the National Art Gallery of Colombo. Between 1996-98, she completed an MA in Visual Arts Administration: Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in London. Since then, she has worked internationally as an independent curator, editor and curatorial consultant across the public and private sector, working with institutions and organisations such as the Queensland Art Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, eyestorm.com, The Royal Academy, The Japan Foundation, Albion, the Hayward Gallery, and the British Council. In 2004-2005 she was the first ACAPA (Australia Centre for Asia Pacific Art) scholar in residence at the Queensland Art Gallery. In 2005 she established the independent publishing organisation Raking Leaves. She is a Trustee for Bookworks, London and an academic advisor for the Asia Art Archive (AAA), Hong Kong.

Selected curatorial projects include:
• Man, Eagle and Eye in the Sky by Cai Guo-Qiang, Siwa, Egypt, 2003-04
• Crafty Thoughts, Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK, 2001-02
• Third Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999

Singapore Biennale 2006
Curatorial Team: Ahmad MASHADI (Singapore)

Ahmad Mashadi is currently Senior Curator at Singapore Art Museum. He was coordinating curator for Home Fronts, a component within the recent 'SENI Singapore 2004', an international contemporary visual arts festival of Southeast Asian and Asian art, featuring over 90 artists from 14 countries and regions. He was also vice-chairman of the curatorial committee for Nokia Singapore Art 2001, a biennial exhibition series developed since 1999, aimed at displaying the latest contemporary art developments in Singapore. He has curated many exhibitions, including 'Landscapes in Southeast Asian Art', 'Visions and Enchantment', and 'Trimurti'. He also curated Singapore's first participation in the '49th Venice Biennale' in 2001 as well as the Singapore representation in the recent '26th Sao Paolo Biennial' in 2004 and '10th Indian Triennale' in 2000.

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