December 2015 | Unseen: Shift Lab: Artist Alecia Neo brings the Unseen project to KL, in partnership with the lovely folks of Dialogue In The Dark Malaysia, and in collaboration with sound artist / musician Ng Chor Guan from Toccata Studio and theatre-makers Christopher Ling, Nandang Abdul Rahman, and Nicole-Ann Thomas from theatrethreesixty.
The artists will be running a series of workshops in sound, performance, movement, narrative, and photography with a group of visually-impaired youths from Dialogue in the Dark, who will then be collaborating as a group to create a piece of work or performance that will be presented at the end of the workshop period.
This project is supported by the Singapore International Foundation.
UNSEEN:SHIFT LAB ARTISTS COLLABORATORS
ALECIA NEO | UNSEEN ART LTD.
Alecia Neo is a practising artist and the director of Unseen Art Ltd. Since 2012, she has been developing projects centering on sight-impaired communities. Working together with project participants and collaborators, she invites them to collectively explore how meaning and narratives are translated in the absence of sight.
She has been commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum, M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, the National Library Board (Singapore) and the National Arts Council (Singapore) for several art projects. Her art works have been exhibited in various international festivals and galleries such as Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), Valentine Willie Fine Art (Singapore), Singapore International Photography Festival, the International Orange Festival (China), University of Bangkok (Thailand), Cittadellarte (Italy) and Noordelicht International Photo Festival (Netherlands).
She is also co-founder and Artist Lead with Brack, a trans-border arts platform for socially engaged artists.
CHRISTOPHER LING | THEATRETHREESIXTY
Christopher Ling is the artistic director of Theatrethreesixty. Christopher’s most recent directing credits include: Ariff Kamil’s HOW I LEARNT TO ACCEPT REALITY BY SLEEPING THROUGH IT (KL 2015), Caryl Churchill’s LOVE AND INFORMATION (KL 2015), Edward Albee's AT HOME AT THE ZOO (KL and George Town Festival 2014), Nandang Abdul Rahman's POST TRAUMATIC SHOPPING + Desmond Sim's NOT EVEN THE NIGHT HAS SUCH GENTLE HANDS (KL and The Causeway Exchange Festival 2014 Singapore), LENTERASENI (Festival Belia Putrajaya), the Malaysian premiere of Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART 1 - MILLENNIUM APPROACHES and Donizetti's opera L'ELISIR D'AMORE presented by the Eat Sing and Travel People.
He was awarded the Boh Cameronian Arts Award for Best Direction (Musical Theatre) in 2012. He also received the Anugerah Seni Negara (National Arts Awards) Young Talent Award for Theatre Directing in 2009. He trained in Drama and Theatre Arts at Middlesex University, UK and with the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.
NG CHOR GUAN | TOCCATA STUDIO
Ng Chor Guan is a Malaysian composer, active thereminist and co-founder of the singular contemporary arts collective, Toccata Studio. A familiar face in many international arts festivals across the continents, Guan is a prolific artist whose diverse body of work is rooted in the contemporaneous currents of technology and yet proves to transcend categories in the performing arts.
The arts collective Toccata Studio is his dedication to creating collaborative and multidisciplinary works: they are responsible for a new, progressive wave of contemporary arts in Malaysia that aims to reach and cross global boundaries of culture and tradition. An advocate of research and development in the arts, Toccata Studio produces ground-breaking, poignant work and also runs regular improvisational sessions within music and between music and dance.
Ng Chor Guan is demonstrative in his belief of the arts as a world-changing force: his work is often interactive and engages his audience in participation via literal means and artistic renditions. His most recent project with Toccata Studio, titled ‘2020’, is a project five years long: a multidisciplinary performance powered by the concepts of multiple futures and time travel, 2020 is both a meditation on the future and an active progression into the future.
MOK CUI YIN | CREATIVE PRODUCER
Cui is an independent creative producer. Since 2008, she has produced a wide range of projects in UK and in Singapore, including fringe theatre, live art projects, literary events, and multidisciplinary arts festivals and events such as Pop-Up Singapore House (2012-2014), SEA ArtsFest (2013 & 2014), and Singapore: Inside Out (2015). She likes exploring the intersection(s) between anthropology, art, and social action, and enjoys developing work that investigates space, memory, and sensorium. She is interested in ethnographic approaches to socially-engaged art practice, arts and cultural policy, and the conditions of production and art-making in Singapore.
JAY KOH | INVITED OBSERVER
Jay Koh (Doctor of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki) is an artist-curator, trained in cross-disciplinary artistic research and active as an independent consultant and evaluator. Prior to this, he was an activist advocating critical knowledge on the outcomes of genetic and reproduction technology with the health activist group Gesundheitsladen Koeln, Germany.
Jay initiated and managed the art space ‘arting’ in Cologne’s Belgium quarter in 1993 to 1999 that showcased artists from various countries and initiated various public art projects such as ‘Genopoly’ and ‘Auszeit-der-Demokratie’ in cities and public spaces in Germany including the Halle Kalke.
Under iFIMA (international-Forum-for-InterMedia-Arts), Jay initiated public participative art projects and site-specific residencies across Europe and Asia. These included the management of the independent art space NICA (Networking-and-Initiatives-for-Culture-and-the-Arts) in Yangon from 2003 to 2007 and the resources-development programmes, Open Academy, in Hanoi, Hue, Yangon and Ulaanbaator, with Malaysian artist Chu Yuan. His engagements included speaking on Public Arts in the Scottish Parliament, in Barcelona with ACADE (Awareness-Raising-on-Culture-and-Development-in-Europe) and ACTED (Agency-for-Technical-Cooperation-and-Development), 2007 and OpenHere, Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, 2012.
In the last years, he was awarded the cultural diversity fellowship in Northeast Scotland by Creative Scotland and a research grant for the Asian Art and Performances Consortium. His recent presentations was for the CARE (Centre for Art Research in Education) programme of UNESCO – NIE, Singapore, Philosophy Section and School of the Arts, USM Penang, School of Communication Arts, Bangkok University and various art related events in Southeast Asia.
Jay’s book Art-Led Participative Processes: Dialogue & Subjectivity within Performances in the Everyday(University of the Arts Helsinki, 2015) discusses holistic and ethical art processes in working relationship and seeks validation across sectors and disciplines. His present collaborations are in projects on Art & Health, Art & Pedagogic and in researching a forthcoming book Performing Politics: Arts & Society.
PUBLIC PROGRAMMES
Unseen: Conversations Across The Constellation (Public Discussion)
Closed-Door Artist Workshop (By invite only)
10.00am – 12.30pm
Venue: Objectifs, Workshop Lab
Artist collaborators of Unseen: Shift Lab discusses issues and reflections from the workshop with Dialogue in the Dark, Malaysia.
Unseen: Conversations Across The Constellation (Open to Public)
2.00pm – 4.30pm
Venue: Objectifs, Lower Gallery
Moderated by socially-engaged art platform Brack, this panel discussion coalesces themes explored in the publication including:
- how persons with disability experience their public and private spaces and selves
- the social engagement of art projects such as Unseen: Constellations andUnseen: Shift Lab
- Alternative education systems that inspire learning and reflexivity
Speakers:
Ms Penny Chong: Teacher at Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School (Singapore)
Mr Allen Lim: Founder of ConversationCircles (Singapore)
Mr Christopher Ling: Founder of theatrethreesixty (Kuala Lumpur)
Ms Alecia Neo: Founder of Unseen Art Ltd. (Singapore)
Mr Ng Chor Guan: Founder of Toccata Studio (Kuala Lumpur)
Mr Tay Lai Hock: Founder of Ground-Up Initiative (GUI) Kampung Kampus(Singapore)
Sign up here: http://unseenconversations.peatix.com/
Closed-Door Artist Workshop (By invite only)
10.00am – 12.30pm
Venue: Objectifs, Workshop Lab
Artist collaborators of Unseen: Shift Lab discusses issues and reflections from the workshop with Dialogue in the Dark, Malaysia.
Unseen: Conversations Across The Constellation (Open to Public)
2.00pm – 4.30pm
Venue: Objectifs, Lower Gallery
Moderated by socially-engaged art platform Brack, this panel discussion coalesces themes explored in the publication including:
- how persons with disability experience their public and private spaces and selves
- the social engagement of art projects such as Unseen: Constellations andUnseen: Shift Lab
- Alternative education systems that inspire learning and reflexivity
Speakers:
Ms Penny Chong: Teacher at Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School (Singapore)
Mr Allen Lim: Founder of ConversationCircles (Singapore)
Mr Christopher Ling: Founder of theatrethreesixty (Kuala Lumpur)
Ms Alecia Neo: Founder of Unseen Art Ltd. (Singapore)
Mr Ng Chor Guan: Founder of Toccata Studio (Kuala Lumpur)
Mr Tay Lai Hock: Founder of Ground-Up Initiative (GUI) Kampung Kampus(Singapore)
Sign up here: http://unseenconversations.peatix.com/