The Singapore Biennale, which marks its six edition, opened on Nov. 22 and will run until March 22 next year.

It is led by Philippine Patrick Flores, professor of art studies at the University of the Philippines and curator of Vargas Museum in Manila, together with Andrea Fam and John Tung, assistant curators at the Singapore Art Museum, Goh Sze Ying, assistant curator at the National Gallery Singapore; Renan Laru-an, a Manila-based independent curator, Anca Verona Mihulet, an art historian and Seoul-based curator, and Vipash Purichanont, a Bangkok-based curator.

Titled “Every Step in the Right Direction”, the 150 works by 77 artists and art collectives from 36 countries and territories are displayed across various locations, including the National Gallery Singapore (NGS), Gillman Barracks, Lasalle College of the Arts and other historic and public spaces.

The biennale’s title is inspired by Filipino revolutionary Salud Algabre, the central figure of a 1930 peasant movement that did not appear successful in its protests against large landowners. But when she was later asked about its perceived failure, she reasoned that no movement fails: “Each one is a step in the right direction.”

The same sentiment is expressed in Singapore’s preeminent performance artist Amanda Heng in her seminal performance Let’s Walk (1999) series, which she revisits and developed into her current work, Every Step Counts (2019).

Song of Indonesian Modern Art by Hafiz Rancajale (Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)

Interestingly, the title implies the curators’ wish for the artwork to inspire taking a step for the betterment of a “troubled world”.

The result, it seems, is what someone playfully called a cabinet of curiosities, with works by artists that this part of the world may have never heard of, and with works that sometimes engage with historical, and at other times are infused with the social and political, while in-between ethnographic, archaeological or anthropological notions fill in the gaps.

Geographically speaking, it seems the curators have not considered the countries from which the artists are selected but have rather looked at artists whose works have made efforts for change in any way.

In this sense, the works of Indonesian artist Hafiz Rancajale titled Social Organism fits well into the biennale’s train of thought.

Hafiz is a social and cultural facilitator, an artist who is also a curator, filmmaker, critic and  cofounder of the art collective Ruang Rupa, as well as the founder of Forum Lenteng for alternative education and development of audio visual media knowledge. 

Social Organism, featuring a display of books, drawings and objects, articulates Indonesia’s post-reform struggles with modernity, as well as the long arc of the colonial and postcolonial in the country and is displayed at Gilman Barracks.

Black — Hut, Black — Hut by Boedi Widjaja (Courtesy of Boedi Widjaja)

Other works include Buku/Book (2003), a single channel video installation, Song of Indonesian Modern Art (2012), a multichannel video installation with audio recordings in loop, presenting images and voiced opinions by senior artists of modern art, and The Old Men’s Club (2004) single-channel video with performance project documentation, at Lasalle College of the Arts.

Indonesian artist Elia Nurvista is involved in the biennale through The Bakudapan Food Study Group, which she established as an interdisciplinary all-female group focusing on food as a means to examine issues such as migration, displacement and the formation of cultural minorities, like the Moro people in Mindanao (the Philippines) and Morotai (Indonesia).  

Bakudapan in the Singapore Biennale is part of the MoroMoro, one of the three projects selected under the Mamitua Saber’s autobiographical field work. It studies the Indonesian island of Morotai’s food culture and curated by Renan LaRuan it explores issues of the colonial past of the Moro people in Mindanao and Morotai, regarding agriculture, food production and food consumption.

Surely, the work Black — Hut, Black — Hut by Boedi Widjaja is a major stand out. A fascinating combination of architecture, art, and a sense of melancholy, it is prominently displayed at NGS on the steps leading to the
basement in NGS’Coleman yard.

Boedi, who was only 9 years old when he was sent to Singapore amid the tumultuous anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia, has been forever yearning for home. “Wherever my work, it will always include notions of Indonesia,” he revealed.

Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, La Camera Insabbiata (The Chalkroom, 2017) (Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)

Naming the structure The Black Hut, after Heidegger’s hut in the Black Forest, his “cave” that visitors can walk into, is infused with a sonic composition of Javanese gamelan sounds, a form of his all-time yearning for his hometown of Surakarta in Central Java, as are also the beautiful salt blooms on the cement whose aesthetics were purposely evoked by adding more salt to the cement.

Other interesting works are Malaysian artist Sharon Chin’s large-scale fabric installation of multicolor banners titled In the Skin of a Tiger: Monument to What We Want (Tugu Kita) made from discarded political flags denoting the various political parties in Malaysia striving for power and British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong’s Pan African flag with 54 stars representing 54 countries of Africa revisiting the history of colonization using science fiction.

Papua New Guinean Mathias Kauage OBE’s (1944–2003) drawings feature fantastical looking chimerical creatures and a host of Filipino artists’ works included the late Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990) using ornaments, fantastic objects from driftwood to rhinestone and glimpses of otherworldly references, Carlos Villa (1936-2013) creating multimedia projects and Lani Maestro with a multimedia installation. 

Other works include async — volume by New York-based artist duo Zakkubalan with Japanese pioneer of electronic music Ryuichi Sakamoto, the scribbled giant blackboards by American multimedia artist Laurie Anderson with Taiwanese new media practitioner Hsin Chien,   South African Tracey Rose on cultural stereotypes, identity, gender and racial issues, Thai artist Arnont Nongyao with Opera of Kard (Market) —  an immersive multiscreen installation’ and Singaporean Nabilah Nordin with her multimedia installation An Obstacle in Every Direction.