Under the Skin

1 December 2020 – 31 January 2021, Online

Curated by artist Cheong Kah Kit for Free Jazz III and as part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, Under the Skin showcases commissioned performances, cinematically rendered and available for viewing online, each engaging with sound, movement, and psychological precarity.

Activation: Melting Gallery by Diana Lelonek in collaboration with Denim Szram

22 January – 28 March 2021, 12pm – 7pm (extended till 10pm on 22 – 24, 29 – 31 January 2021), Blk 43 Malan Road 

The recordings created by the artist on three melting Alpine glaciers: du Rhone, Aletsch and Morteratsch composed into a song by Denim Szram are a symphony of disappearing glaciers. The sound of a slowly trickling catastrophe, whose arrival is hardly spectacular, is blurred, present everywhere and nowhere.

Film Screening: Reetu Sattar, HARANO SUR (Lost Tune)

22 January 2021, 8pm – 9pm, The Single Screen, Blk 43 Malan Road

The sound of the harmonium is tightly woven into the history and culture of Bangladesh, but for artist Reetu Sattar, it is not just an instrument. In her performance piece HARANO SUR (lost tune), she uses it as a way to explore the violence and social upheaval which has affected her home country in recent years. 

Activation: Mouthful (Masked Duet) by Ana Prvački in collaboration with  Galina Mihaleva  and Joyce Bee Tuan Koh

23 January 2021, 5pm – 7pm, Blk 43 Malan Road
24 January 2021, 5pm – 7pm, Blk 43 Malan Road

Let us return power and agency to the mouth and voice while still protecting ourselves and others. Let us express our emotions freely into the air that we all share. The Mouthful mask is both conceptual and practical. It exposes the breath and gives us an earful and eyeful of air. Mouthful projects a new sound which follows the guidelines of our time while it overcomes and embraces the obstacles we face with poetry and humor.

Activation: Trouble with Harmony, 2020 by bani haykal in collaboration with Lee Weng Choy

20 February 2021, 4pm – 6pm, Blk 43 Malan Road
13 March 2021, 7.30pm – 9pm, Blk 43 Malan Road

We’re interested in thinking about trouble alongside thinking about harmony. We’re interested in shifting the shapes of our thinking, and our listening. We’re interested in a polyphony of themes, topics and tropes. But perhaps this is saying both too much and not enough.

Activation: Sollum Swaramum by Ramesh Krishnan in collaboration with Munir Alsagoff; Bharathi Moorthiappan; Mohamed Noor; Sivakumar Palakrishnan; Ashwinii Selvarai; and Harini V

26 February 2021, 7.30pm – 9pm, Blk 43 Malan Road

Presented in collaboration with The Arts House's Poetry with Music series, the 4th edition of Sollum Swaramum, brings together musicians Ramesh Krishnan, Md Noor and Munir Alsagoff in exploration of the synergies between music and text, with devised and improvised texts based on the work of Tamil literary stalwarts P Krishnan, Ma Ilangkannnan and Rama Kannabiran.

13 March 2021, 3pm – 6pm, Online

Machine listening is much more than just a new scientific discipline or vein of technical innovation. It is also an emergent field of knowledge-power, of data extraction and colonialism, capital accumulation, automation and the management of desire. It demands critical and artistic attention.