We consider how they navigate three basic human activities — caring, playing, and working — and seek to rethink art practices of the future. If the pandemic has forced humans and societies to “slow down” and recalibrate our ways of living, does it count as a kind of gestation period? How have these artists dealt with gestation in their artistic practices and lives? What are the emotional states in a gestational period? What are we sensing could be birthed at the end of all this time, co-existing with a highly-transmissable virus? 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
The intimate works of visual and performance artist ila (b.1985, Singapore) incorporate objects, moving images and live performance. Through weaving imagined narratives into existing realities, she seeks to create alternative nodes of experience and entry points into the peripheries of the unspoken, the tacit and the silenced. Using her body as a space of tension, negotiation and confrontation, her works generate discussion about gender, history and identity in relation to pressing contemporary issues. She has shown at DECK (2021), National Gallery Singapore (2020), The Substation; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art among others.

bani haykal experiments with text + music. As an artist, composer and musician, bani considers music (making / processes) as material and his projects investigate modes of interfacing and interaction with feedback / feedforward mechanisms. He is a member of b-quartet.
Manifestations of his research culminate into works of various forms encompassing installation, poetry and performance. In his capacity as a collaborator and a soloist, bani has participated in festivals including MeCA Festival (Japan), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Media/Art Kitchen (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Japan), Liquid Architecture and Singapore International Festival of Arts (Singapore) among others. His current work frames encryption as a process and basis for human-machine intimacy by navigating interfaces such as a QWERTY keyboard as mediums of interactivity.

Chen Sai Hua Kuan graduated from the LASALLE College of the Arts in 1997. In 2007, he received a Master in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. He has received numerous awards including Artist-in-residency Award at Yale-NUS (2020), Knstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin Germany (2015-2016), and Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan (2013); The People’s Choice Award, ‘Mostyn Open 18’, Wales, United Kingdom (2013); The Visiting Artist Program of Earth Observatory Singapore, Singapore (2012); Best of WRO, 14th Media Art Biennale WRO 2011 - Alternative Now, Wroclaw, Poland (2011); Ar1st-in-residency Award, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom (2011); Best film of FAFF2010, Fundada Ar1sts’ Film Fes1val, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2010); Winner of International Compe11on, “Tower Kronprinz: Second Advent”, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad, Russia (2009).   

Sai’s artworks have been widely collected by institutions in Singapore and abroad, including  Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), He Xiangning Art Museum (China), Chengdu EcoGarden (China), VehbiKoc Foundation (Turkey) and Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (South Korea).

Wang Ruobing is an artist, independent curator and academic based in Singapore. She received her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. She was previously a curator at the National Gallery Singapore. At present, she works as a lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts. As an independent curator, her recent curated exhibitions include "Artist as Collector" (2021), “12 SOLO” (2020 -2021); “Arts in Your Neighbourhood” (Public Art Trust 2018 and 2019); “Happens When Nothing Happens” (The Esplanade, 2019); “Of Other Places” (The Substation, 2019); and “Beneath Tide, Running Forest” (Singapore Botanic Gardens, 2018).

As an academic, her research concentrates on identity, hybridity and transcultural discourses, particularly on contemporary art in China and Southeast Asia. Her writings have appeared in publications such as Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (JCCA), Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Nanyang Art and a range of exhibition catalogues. Wang’s artistic work spans across a variety of methods and approaches, including drawing, film, photography, sculpture and installation. Concerned with challenging and exploring different ways of seeing everyday objects and urban landscapes in relation to the rapidly changing world of today, Wang creates artworks that actively disrupt perception and spotlight on the anthropological nature of objects. Wang has exhibited extensively, with solo and group shows showcased both locally and abroad.

Chan Sze-Wei is a dance maker, filmmaker, troublemaker, arts journalist and parent. Their practice for the stage and screen is focused on perception, sensation and the politics of the body. Since 2016 their films have screened internationally at festivals including the Singapore International Festival of the Arts, Screen.dance Scotland, the London International Screendance Festival, Danca em Foco (Rio de Janeiro), and Signes de Nuit (Paris). Currently a member of the Cinemovement collective and an Associate Member of Dance Nucleus (Singapore) from 2017-2020. 

ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Bernice Lee is an artist, performer, writer, and dance practitioner. She delves into the entanglements between making art and living life, playing between thought, feeling, and movement. The work is driven by moving and performing - unfixing how the seer and the seen might relate, and practise, multiple ways of seeing and experiencing. With a digital presence (@bleelly) in dialogue with the live work, her current research zooms in on Mother as a malleable archetype.

Bernice cares about expanding our imagination of and for the future. She is co-director of Derring-Do Dance with Faye Lim (@rolypolyfamilysg), and has a joint practice with theatre practitioner Chong Gua Khee (@tactilitystudies). Their work Tactility Studies: Hold to Reset, was shown at Singapore International Festival of Arts 2021. An Associate Member of Dance Nucleus (2018-2021), Dance Artist with Maya Dance Theatre and Frontier Danceland (2011-2017), Bernice holds a BFA (Hons) in Dance from The Ohio State University.

Presented by H0thouse, as part of their 3-day virtual symposium titled In Suspension from 21-23 January 2022. Visit their website for the full programme.