Check out the Photo Gallery of Panel discussion: Art & Identity Making @ BABA House

Publication: Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya

Contents

A University Museum: Contexts and Practice | Ahmad Mashadi

The 'Museum' in Malaya | Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

Of Birds and Beasties: A Lost Transcript from the Raffles Museum | Fiona Tan

Account of a Collecting Trip in the Malayan Jungles (circa 1900s) | Janice Loo

A Letter from My Friend William Willets | Eddie Koh

A Diary of the Archiver | Christina Chua

Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya

[Gallery impression, Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya, NUS Museum, 2010]
Please click on the image to view more Gallery Impressions.

Date: 13 January 2011 – 2 December 2012

Venue: South-Southeast Asia Gallery, NUS Museum

 The term Camping and Tramping is inspired by a lesser known 19th century document compiled by a British officer describing the field work and travails of his time with the colonial office in Malaya. This exhibition traces the rise of the Museum in British Malaya not just as an indicator of power over what was gazed upon as the exotic but by acknowledging that the very advent of the Museum resulted in a staging ground for a project of accumulation and the ordering of knowledge. Writings and artefacts have been mobilized from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (NUS), Asian Civilizations Museum, National Museum of Singapore, National Library Board Singapore, Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore National Archives, NUS Museum, and the Ivan Polunin and Mohammad Din Mohammad collections.


Curator: Ahmad Mashadi, Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

The Sufi and the Bearded Man: Re-membering a Keramat in Contemporary Singapore

[Image credit: Nurul Huda B. A. Rashid, Singapore, 2010]

                                                           Please click on the image to view more Gallery Impressions.

 

Date: 13 January - 2 December 2011
Venue: Visiting Exhibition Gallery, NUS Museum

This exhibition re-members the keramat of a 19th century Sufi traveler from the Middle East who lives on in contemporary Singapore through her miracles and her shrine which was recently removed. Re-membering the keramat has involved a two-year long project of collaborating with Ali, an intermediary of the Sufi and custodian of the masoleum referred to by fellow devotees as "the bearded man". These conversations culminated in the keramat and its life-worlds entering a museum, a transition animated by the display of photographic evidence, material remains or artifacts, anecdotal histories and related documents. Considering alternative ways to recount and understand heritage, The Sufi and the Bearded Man, calls attention to devotional culture, lesser-heard narratives and esotericism in Singapore.

Research: Terenjit Sevea, Wak Ali Janggut

Curator: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa
Photography: Nurul Huda B.A. Rashid

Click here for the exhibition brochure in PDF format.

Basic manga Drawing Workshop

Related Link: http://singaporecomix.blogspot.com/2011/01/basic-manga-drawing-nus-museum-jan-29.html

Panel discussion: Art & Identity Making

Close Door Discussion: Camping and Tramping Through The Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya

Discordant Symmetries l Wei Leng Tay

[Image credit:  Wei Leng Tay, “Eldest Aunt’s Bedroom” Penang, Malaysia, 2010]
Please click on the image to view more Gallery Impressions.

Date: Till 11 July 2011

Venue: Baba House,157 Neil Road

Visits to the exhibition are by appointment only.

Please contact 6227 5731 or email babahouse@nus.edu.sg. 

Discordant Symmetries is a culmination of a year-long study by artist Wei Leng Tay questioning what it means to be Chinese in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia. Through still-life, portraiture photography and audio interviews, the exhibition aims to capture the tenuous relationship between the greater discourses of diaspora, identity, and the nuanced limits of these discourses in light of the growing globalization of culture and other socio-political influences. While these greater discourses do provide historical context to broader issues, the exhibition seeks to question the relevance of these much-discussed and increasingly politicized discourses and their effects on the ethnic Chinese communities. This exhibition was developed under the auspice of the National Arts Council’s Arts Creation Fund.


Curator: Lim Qinyi
Artist:  Wei Leng Tay

Click here for the exhibition brochure in PDF format.

Camping and Tramping reviewed by Marshall Cavendish:Business Information 19 Nov 2010

19 November 10  The Business Times 

by Cheah Ui-Hoon

Art of museum curating

FOR museum-goers, the tendency - once there are many imported 'blockbuster' museum exhibitions in town - is to go with a view to be wowed by the 'rare' or unique artefacts themselves. When it comes to never-before-seen photographs, we're often interested in what information it contains in there, as it represents a visually historical snapshot; or with artefacts, it's either the beauty or its rarity that we esteem.

How often do we judge an exhibition by the way it's curated and the questions it poses, which is where the real value-add lies? Perhaps the questions we should be asking is....read entire article in Marshall Cavendish