Synopsis:

Contrary to its sedate and inert appearance, the archive comes to life in the timely recognition of its potency. This dialogue opens up the artistic processes and motivations behind Ming Wong's Rhapsody in Yellow and Sim Chi Yin's One Day We'll Understand—two performances that work with, against, between and beyond the archive. Interweaving the past, present, and suggesting possible futures, the artists will also discuss their ways of working at the intersections of performance, film, moving image and installation.

This is a companion programme to Rhapsody in Yellow (16 & 17 Aug 2024) and One Day We'll Understand (30 Aug – 1 Sep 2024) at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade. The Studios companion programmes are an invitation to deepen engagement with the artistic works and the conversations raised in the season.

Ming Wong
Ming Wong, born in 1971 in Singapore, is an artist working with performance, video and installation to consider the construction, reproduction and circulation of identity. Wong represented Singapore at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 with the solo presentation Life of Imitation, which was awarded a Special Mention. He has had solo exhibitions at leading institutions worldwide, including UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo; Singapore Art Museum; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. Wong has been included in numerous international biennials, including the Venice Biennale; Performa, New York; Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; Sydney Biennial; Shanghai Biennale; Lyon Biennale; and the Liverpool Biennial. He lives in Berlin.

Sim Chi Yin
Sim Chi Yin is an artist from Singapore whose research-based practice uses artistic and archival interventions to contest and complicate historiographies and colonial narratives. She works across photography, film, installation, performance and book-making.

She is participating in the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) and has exhibited at the Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023); the Barbican, London (2023); Camera Austria, Graz (2024); Harvard Art Museums, USA (2021); Les Rencontres d'Arles, France (2021); Nobel Peace Museum, Oslo (2017), Datsuijo, Tokyo (2024); Arko Art Centre, Seoul (2016); Zilberman Gallery Berlin (2021); Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong (2019). She has also participated in the Istanbul Biennale (2022, 2017) and the Guangzhou Image Triennial (2021). Sim was commissioned as the Nobel Peace Prize photographer in 2017. Her work is in the collections of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Harvard Art Museums, M+ Hong Kong, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Singapore Art Museum and the National Museum Singapore. She was an artist fellow in the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program in New York (2022 – 2023) and is completing a PhD at King's College London.

Dr June Yap
Director, Curatorial & Collections
Singapore Art Museum

June Yap is Director of Curatorial & Collections at the Singapore Art Museum. Her prior roles include Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator (South and Southeast Asia), Deputy Director and Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and curator at the Singapore Art Museum.

Amongst exhibitions she has curated are: the Singapore Biennale 2022 named Natasha, The Gift as part of the curatorial collaboration Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories; Nam June Paik-The Future is Now at the National Gallery Singapore, They Do Not Understand Each Other co-curated with National Museum of Art, Osaka, at Tai Kwun Contemporary; No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia as part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative; The Cloud of Unknowing at the 54th Venice Biennale with artist Ho Tzu Nyen. She is the author of Retrospective: A Historiographical Aesthetic in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia (2016).