22 September 2005:

Singapore Biennale 2006 Info Pack

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

Organised by the National Arts Council and National Heritage Board of Singapore, Singapore's first visual arts biennale, Singapore Biennale 2006 (SB2006), will be opened to the public from 4th September to 12th November 2006. The inaugural event will be curated by Fumio Nanjo, who is internationally reputed for having headed the programming and adjudication of major art events throughout the world. Commissioner for the Taipei Biennale in 1998 and Japan Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale, he co-founded the Yokohama Triennale in 2001. Nanjo was also a jury member for the Turner Prize by Tate Gallery in 1998, and the prestigious Leon d'Or Prize at the Venice Biennale this year. Nanjo is currently the Deputy Director of Tokyo's Mori Art Museum and lectures at the Keio University in Japan.

"The Singapore Biennale marks another milestone in the rich history of Singapore's visual arts development. Since the era of our pioneering artists, our artists have captured the imagination of the international arts community, receiving invitations to participate in prestigious visual art biennales and events. Today, over 500 exhibitions are held in Singapore every year. Visuals arts activity and appreciation here have reached a level of sophistication that will be further enhanced with the Biennale," says Lee Suan Hiang, Chairman of the Singapore Biennale 2006 Steering Committee, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the National Arts Council. He adds, "Fumio-san has extensive experience in curating, commissioning, as well as critiquing several key arts projects in Asia and other parts of the world. He also has excellent understanding and knowledge of Southeast Asian culture and will be able to relate the role and importance of contemporary art practices in the region to the global world, thus creating an impactful and unique Biennale."

As part of the anchor cultural event for Singapore 2006: Global City. World of Opportunities (S2006), SB2006 provides the platform for the presentation of international art in dialogue with Singapore and Asia. It promises to be a unique and exciting experience to the international audience through interfaces and encounters between city life and art that will inspire dialogue among citizens and visitors within the multicultural state of Singapore. S2006 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.

The biennale as a palimpsest of cultures is one of the key strands to its conceptualisation. A palimpsest is a manuscript on which an earlier text has been effaced and the vellum or parchment reused for new texts. The palimpsest of cultures thus implies many stories and many voices within any given situation, and alludes to the multi-layering and complexity of culture in Singapore, and in relation to the Southeast Asia region.

The biennale will show art and artists representing different cultures and identities, creating dialogues and telling stories with diverse expressions. It will focus on a multitude of related issues such as: relationships between the local and the global; the North and South as demarcated by the tropical belt; and, technologies vis-à-vis human endeavours. About half of the artists represented in the Singapore Biennale will be from Asia. There will also be a focus on artists from other geographical regions including Latin America and Africa, besides Europe and North America.

Visitors to SB2006 are invited to actively engage and re-read the city; as re-presented through artistic intervention in the city fabric, histories and everyday life of Singapore. A conglomeration of multi-venue visual arts exhibitions, performances, symposia, lectures and workshops are programmed such that the event will be accessible to multiple levels of audience. This encompasses overlapping and layered exhibition sites, and programmes where artists work within communities for extended periods of time.

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 the inception of the Biennale. These regular dialogue sessions, Encounters, provides a discursive platform for Singaporeans to voice issues and concerns pertinent to SB2006. The first session, Encounters 01, was held successfully on 15 July 2005 at The Substation, Singapore.

Drawing interest from top local, regional and international artists, art historians, critics, practitioners, arts and cultural organisations, museums, corporations and governments; SB2006 strives to build new audiences and participation across ages and demographics. It will be spread throughout Singapore city at various sites including several museums; galleries; old buildings; temples; and even walkways; shopping centres along Orchard Road; the Botanic Gardens; and modes of transportation such as planes, buses, taxis and boats.

SB2006 will stimulate broader demand for visual arts in Singaporeans, further cultivating and elevating their appreciation for contemporary art and enhancing Singapore's cultural image as a progressive and attractive cosmopolitan city to live, work and play in. It will be an impactful and unique Biennale, for Singaporeans and the international audience.

The SB2006 inauguration ceremony will be held on the morning of 2nd September 2006, followed by an opening party launch in the evening.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Mr Low Kee Hong
General Manager, Singapore Biennale Secretariat
National Arts Council
The Adelphi, 1 Coleman Street,
#05-06, Singapore 179803
Tel: (65) 68379270
Fax: (65) 68373654
Email: info@singaporebiennale.org
Website: www.singaporebiennale.org

Annex 1

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 organised 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 Comitée 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.

Annex 2

Singapore Biennale 2006
Curatorial Team:

ROGER McDONALD (JAPAN)

Born in Tokyo, Japan (1971), Roger Christopher McDonald, PhD 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 ContemporaryVideo 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 extensiely for many exhibition catalogues as well as publications such as Art Review, Contemporary, Contemporary VisualArts 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, LASALLE-SIA 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.

Annex 3

NATIONAL ARTS COUNCIL

The National Arts Council (NAC) was set up as a Statutory Board in September 1991 to spearhead the development of the arts in Singapore. Its mission is to nurture the arts and make it an integral part of people's lives in Singapore. In line with this, it adopts strategies to nurture artistic talent and promote the practice and appreciation of the arts among Singaporeans.

To carry out its functions effectively, the NAC is organised into six divisions, namely, Arts Cluster Development, Audience and Market Development, Business and Resource Development, Planning, Corporate Communications and Corporate Services. These divisions work in synergy to implement strategies, programmes and initiatives to help develop the arts in Singapore.

The Arts Cluster Development Division was created in April 2004 to champion the performing, visual and literary art forms. The cluster development strategy enables the NAC to take a holistic approach in developing the various art forms by working through the entire value chain, from seeding arts start-ups, nurturing and developing artists, arts groups and arts businesses, to internationalisation. As a key strategy in developing artistic talent, the Council identifies, develops and provides total support for artists through bursaries, scholarships, grants, arts housing subsidies, commissioning of works, and overseas touring and promotion.

The Council is committed to building new audiences and broadening arts participation. To engage the wider community in the arts, free outreach programmes are organised to reach out to different sectors of the population. As it firmly believes that arts appreciation is best inculcated at a young age, the Council also offers arts education programmes in schools to enable students to experience and participate in the arts.

The NAC is involved in building up capabilities in the local arts business, promoting investments and developing arts venues and distribution channels. Besides promoting Singapore artists and their works locally and abroad, it participates actively in cultural exchange programmes and works with the international arts community to promote and market the arts effectively.

To enhance the vibrancy and diversity of the Singapore arts scene, NAC organises events such as the Singapore Arts Festival, SENI Singapore and the Singapore Writers' Festival to provide a platform to showcase Singaporean talents together with international artists. Competitions like the biennial National Piano and Violin Competition and the Golden Point Award are held regularly to identify and develop new talents.

The prestigious Cultural Medallion is given yearly to artists for their artistic excellence and achievements, while the Young Artist Award is presented to artists 35 years and below who show promise of artistic excellence in the various art disciplines. The Patron of the Arts Award honours sponsors for contributing to the promotion and development of the arts in Singapore.

The Council harnesses new resources, taps opportunities, and identifies opportunities for potential growth. It is also involved in the long-term planning and development of arts infrastructure. It conducts arts research and data analyses regularly as part of its strategic planning efforts to enable the NAC to develop effective schemes and programmes. Recognising its staff is a vital resource: the NAC provides training and skills upgrading, and works on creating a conducive environment to encourage creativity and innovation.

The Patron of the Council is President S R Nathan. The Council is led by Chairman Liu Thai Ker. Assisting him is the Deputy Chairman Edmund Cheng, and 19 Council members from the private and public sectors. The Chief Executive Officer is Lee Suan Hiang. The Council is also supported by a team of arts advisers and arts resource panel members who provide feedback and advice on the initiatives taken to realise its vision of making Singapore a distinctive global city for the arts.

Annex 4

NATIONAL HERITAGE BOARD

The National Heritage Board (NHB) spearheads the appreciation and development of the cultural, artistic and national heritage of Singapore. It is a statutory board formed on 1st August 1993 under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. Over the last 12 years, NHB has grown from a small organisation comprising the National Archives and the National Museum, to the present eight heritage institutions with close to 300 staff.

NHB's vision is to make heritage an enriching part of everyone's life. Its mission is to foster nationhood, identity and creativity through heritage and cultural development. NHB preserves, presents and promotes the appreciation and development of Singapore's national and cultural heritage, including the visual arts, history and cultures of Asia.

NHB achieves its mission through museum exhibitions, outreach programmes such as travelling and on-line exhibitions, and the annual Singapore Heritage Festival, educational events, and fringe activities. It also marks historic sites, develops heritage trails, and provides archival and conservation services.

As a champion of the heritage sector in Singapore, NHB chairs the Museum Roundtable. Comprising 26 members ranging from museums, heritage centres and galleries in Singapore, the Roundtable seeks to bring the industry players closer to foster a museum-going culture.

There are presently four national museums, a subsidiary museum and three heritage institutions under NHB. They are:
• Singapore History Museum
• Singapore Art Museum
• Asian Civilisations Museum, Armenian Street
• Asian Civilisations Museum, Empress Place
• National Archives of Singapore
• Heritage Conservation Centre
• Singapore Philatelic Museum
• Reflections at Bukit Chandu

For more information on NHB, please log on to www.nhb.gov.sg

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