Associate Artist Programme (AAP)
(2020/21)
The Substation's Associate Artist Programme (AAP) is a year-long programme where artists and collectives are invited to engage in a process-driven development of existing or new works. This year's selection is based on artists who engage in collaborative and collective practices, with many of them being active organisers and key members in their community. Their work and methodologies highlights the different approaches to artistic practice.
Artists Caravan (AC)
Artists Caravan (AC) is an art collective that was established in 2008. AC invites creative individuals to travel with them, to momentarily be in a community, and respond to sites by creating works of art. Thus began the exciting period of residencies, collaboration opportunities, events and exhibitions for the collective. In 2011, AC undertook LTA's Art in Transit project and created works for King Albert Park Station.
AWKNDAFFR
Disentangling and deviating from complex contemporary conditions of capitalism and coloniality, AWKNDAFFR is an artistic operation which situates itself at the intersections of art, theory, and praxis. The operative logic of AWKNDAFFR revolves around relationality, agency, and cooperation between peoples and practices, as well as the notion of gathering/s through considerations of space and form. It has manifested in a string of whirlwind and long-term affairs, the first interpellation of which was A Weekend Affair, a clandestine two-day rendezvous in Changi in June 2019, and more recently, as part of The Substation’s Associate Artist Programme 2020.
AWKNDAFFR was initiated in 2018 by Wayne Lim & Soh Kay Min. Wayne is a visual art practitioner whose research focuses around the studies of aesthetics, economy and ideology. In his practice, it is important to find ways of connecting outside of hegemonic structures, whether to self-publish, self-organise, or work collectively. Working from a triangulation of theory and fiction, Kay Min’s practice is informed by the linguistic interplays between speculative tenses and historical tensions, taking a process-based approach to the organ/isation of objects, ontologies and organised networks.
AYER AYER PROJECT
AYER AYER PROJECT is an initiative of Singaporean artist Ernest Goh. An art practitioner and visual artist in natural history and wildlife, Ernest Goh’s interest in plastic pollution was sparked by his realisation that the ocean’s marine life is the first stakeholder to be severely affected by plastic trash. This prompted the artist to investigate the complex relationship between animals, human and plastic. Since 2009, Ernest has been involved in plastic pollution research when he was doing his Master of Arts programme at Goldsmiths College UK. Ernest’s work has been commissioned by and installed at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, Singapore, collected by the Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, and also resides in corporate, public and private collections. He is also the creative director of The Animal Book, which works with animal welfare groups through art and design.
BRACK
BRACK is a Singapore-based platform for socially engaged artists in Southeast Asia, interested in practices of gathering and dialogical exchanges across mediums, disciplines and communities. The team seeks to understand how socially engaged art can activate a space, community, or society, and experiments with those very activations—through audience engagement, writing, and working with artists. BRACK comprises a community of artists, writers, and artistic and social intermediaries who are well-placed in Southeast Asia to understand these processes on a deep level. Across our engagements, BRACK emphasises the inter-relational, and we seek to integrate critical self-reflexivity into all that we do. Aside from online gathering spaces, our works manifest as exhibitions, talks, workshops, dialogues, and collaborations with local and international practitioners, in our effort to forge an alternative praxis within artist-audience dynamics.
Chu Hao Pei
Chu Hao Pei is a visual artist based in Singapore. Formally trained in Interactive Media, Chu Hao Pei (b.1990) began his practice under the School of Art, Design & Media (ADM) in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His artistic practice is informed by the shifting ecological, urban and sociopolitical landscapes. By interweaving documentation and intervention as a strategy, he explores conflicts and tensions arising from state’s interventions. More critically, Hao Pei’s works examine loss, or potential loss, of nature and cultural heritage as a tactic to draw our attention to wider issues of environmental loss and and cultural amnesia. Most recently, his practice has shifted towards examining the connection between religions and environmentalism. Using the connection between religions and environmentalism as a starting point, Hao Pei’s continued research series explores the phenomenon of how certain groups are turning to the spiritual in an attempt to conserve nature in light of rising conflicts between modern development and nature conservation.
Farhan Idris
Farhan is the co-founder and convenor of the critical humanities collective Bras Basah Open. Farhan is a philosopher by training and has given talks in comparative philosophy internationally. Currently, Farhan is working on projects relating philosophical themes in Tantrism, and an edited volume on decolonial critique and art criticism in the region.
Fertile Art Refinery (FAR)
FAR is a celebration of women-centric organisation in the Singapore art scene. The collective supports art shows and projects that extend a long and wide reach of women's voices in the Singapore art. Participating artists: Agatha Lee, Eve Tan, Dorathy Lye, Eunice Ramos Lacaste, Isabelle Desjeux, Jennifer Teo, Nicole Phua, Teo Huey Ling, Veronyka Lau, Xin Xiao Chang, Ziwei Chen
Lai Yu Tong
Lai Yu Tong is a Singaporean artist who works primarily with images. He makes works about the things he sees, things he eats, things he buys, things he throws away, and other things. His practice currently looks at habits of consumption whilst living in a city.
Lee Sze-Chin
Lee Sze-Chin is an artist, art educator and art therapist whose art practice focuses on themes revolving around culture and nostalgia. His works often combine the use of video, photography and performance to recreate experiences that question concepts of memory and time.
Lina Yu 余 莉那
Lina Yu graduated from the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) in 2014 where she experienced asian traditional art forms together with contemporary and western theatre training. She is involved in theatre productions by various companies, and is currently exploring acting in film and TV. She also does translation work in English, Mandarin and Japanese. Under The Substation Associate Artist Programme, Lina hopes to explore more about form and culture, as well as diaspora in the region. She looks forward to collaborating with fellow practitioners from different disciplines, while continuing to hone her craft as an actor and creator.
Shaiful Risan
Shaiful Risan is involved in a lot of things; from subculture events to theater to crew work; from being an actor, a director and a host/emcee to a co-ordinator of many more things. He is also known to be an intermediary between various disciplines and a proxy advisory assistant to a few projects within the umbrella of arts and entertainment. He is a proud void deck Mat that doesn't shy away from intellectual confrontations and rigid arguments about how things are.
Straits Records
Straits Records has been a record label and distributor of local and regional music since 1995. It has also organised and co-organised gigs and music events locally and in the region. A regular feature at gigs setting up shop to sell local music releases, its music store has been selling different formats of music and genres since 2004. Straits is actively involved with the local music scene and has released albums for rock n' rollers The Pinholes, ska heroes Cesspit and humour-rock band The Zozi, among many others.
Stephanie Dogfoot
Stephanie Dogfoot (also known as Stephanie Chan) lives in Singapore and has been writing poetry ever since her first gerbil died when she was 11. The author of Roadkill for Beginners, a poetry collection published by Math Paper Press, she is both a Singapore (2010) and UK Slam (2012) champion and has represented both countries in international poetry slams. Her work has been featured at the Melbourne Spoken Word Festival, the George Town Literary Festival, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Glastonbury Festival and many others. She has toured Germany, Australia, Southeast Asia and most recently, North America with her poetry. She currently curates and hosts a monthly poetry night called Spoke & Bird which features local and international poets. As a stand up comedian, she has been performing and hosting regularly since 2015. She also runs a comedy and storytelling night called Siao Char Bors which aims to highlight female and LGBTQ comedians.
Zai Tang
Zai Tang is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is premised on the conditions, translations and representations of sound. He deploys both digital and analogue media – drawing, animation, projection and performance – to present sound in different contexts: from contemporary dance to film, and from architecture to visual art installations. His work, both solo and collaborative in nature, has been presented at the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale (China, 2018), Danspace Project (New York, 2018), THE O.P.E.N at Singapore International Festival of the Arts (2017) and National Gallery Singapore (2017), amongst others. He lives and works in Singapore.