Can you see that star to the left of Mars?
It's a whole new galaxy
Where you are the star, find out who you are
Or live out your fantasy...
Space Disco, Space Disco
You can dance all night
At the speed of light In your own private satellite
Space Disco, Space Disco
—Dick Lee, Space Disco

Exhibition Opening Hours:
19 July–4 August 2019 (Tuesday to Sunday)
12pm–8pm
The Substation

From Lee to Lefebvre, Bhabha to Soja, many have concerned themselves with the spatiality of human life, and the complex relations to which each environ is subject. Navigating the margins between power relations and cultural difference, Space Oddities gestures to the spaces known as alter, inter, or in-between, which exist—or persist—alongside what Bhabha refers to as ‘the spirit of alterity or otherness’, where their occupants contour themselves into shapes and postures—less easily definable than the discourse they may represent, or participate in.

Zhiyi Cao and Divaagar articulate such a contouring—of subcultures and minority communities, of being disavowed and disallowed. Negotiating how the need for space is, so very often, not met with permissiveness but deeper than that, denied legitimacy, their works enact the in-betweenness inherent within systems of encounter in posture and place.

Graphic design: @madebybeverley

Artist Talk with Zhiyi Cao and Divaagar
Moderated by Valerie-Ann Tan

27 July, 3pm
The Substation SAD Bar
Free admission

Zhiyi Cao and Divaagar, featured artists in our Space Oddities exhibition, will discuss their artistic processes and how their works enact the in-betweenness inherent within systems of encounter in posture and place.

The talk will be moderated by Valerie-Ann Tan, The Substation Programme Manager and curator of Space Oddities.

Zhiyi Cao is an artist based in Singapore. Through her multi-disciplinary practice with a focus in film, she reflects upon millennial expositions and exigencies, seeking to exercise strategic complicity with the narratives she creates. In doing so, she hopes to dissolve the distinction between fact and fiction, subject and object. The negotiation of critical reflection and ambivalence in her works forms the core of her methodology and format of production. Some of her research interests include the conditions of labour in the creative regime, the myth of co-working spaces, and youngsters' love stories.

Find out more about her work at zhiyicao.co

2272 Open Report

Divaagar is a visual artist whose practice explores the relationships between desires and spaces through installation, space-making, and performance. He works at the intersections of bodies, identities, and environments, proposing alternative economies and ecologies through engaging with localities, methods of display, and re-routing gazes.

Find out more about his work at divaagar.com

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