During Open Studios, the public was invited to meet our residents and gain an insight into their modes of working as they explore a range of topics and artistic interests. From South African sonic histories to Korean consumer and pop culture to various facets of books and publishing, they had experienced the diversity of contemporary art through screenings, presentations and drop-in activities all day long! 

 

Filmmaker Adrian Van Wyk will screen a collection of short films and music videos that draw citations from sound, music and language to explore historical consciousness and collective remembrance in Cape Town and beyond. While in-residence, Adrian advances historical research on diasporic movements between port cities in Southeast Asia and Cape Town, and will present notes, research, and concept proofs from several in-progress films. They include his debut feature Bedrock, which he is currently developing and scripting, Notes from the Underground: A Cape Town Hip Hop Story, a feature documentary that he is co-directing, and Apetown, a co-written feature. 

PG Lee is exploring the history of horticulture, environmental planning, and landscaping in Singapore during his residency at SAM. In this role, PG has taken on the persona of a traveling gardener on a mission to locate lalang, the stubborn and invasive weed Imperata Cylindrica, all around the city. His goal is to eliminate it from the landscape while simultaneously discovering methods to transform this weed into a more acceptable and useful form. During Open Studios, PG invited visitors to join him on this quest for repurposing through experimental lalang paper-making sessions throughout the day. 

 

Presenting hati--hati, ila will continue to develop her research on care frameworks through this two-part activation. Co-curated with Aditi Sivaramakrishanan, hati--hati features a compilation of clips from ila’s past moving image works, remixed and re-presented to centre on gestures, language, and intimacy to explore tenderness. Viewers were invited to contemplate and delve deeper into the layers of care and share their responses through an online channel, responses were then used as prompts to guide part two of the programme, slated for later in September.  

 

Sungsil Ryu presented her long-term multimedia project Cherry Jang (2018-2020), a series of six videos produced and performed by the artist over two years. Developed as a satirical commentary on the visual grammar of contemporary Korean consumer culture and its marketing industry, the project is a performative biography of online personality Cherry Jang: from her flashy lifestyle to her tragic death and her second life immortalised as an angel.  

 

Heterotopia Library functions as a nomadic artistic research station and operates as a temporary satellite of the independent art space Jalan Besar Salon convened by Winnie Li. It represents the second iteration of the Heterotopia Series, a curatorial project that explores and evolves through interconnections of space, reading, and writing. Heterotopia Library is inhabited by artist-publisher Chong Lingying and contains her solo and collaborative artworks, publications, and programmes. During Open Studios, Lingying invited visitors to observe and participate as she makes books in the library throughout the day.

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