In our era of global displacement, this exhibition – co-presented by The Substation and Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), and venue partnered with Goethe-Institut Singapore – brings together seven distinctive voices from Southeast Asia to explore the lived collective realities and personal landscapes that emerge through experiences of migration. Through storytelling, audience activation and a call to critical awareness, each artist engages viewers to interrogate facets of the experiences of diaspora or cultural displacement, shaped by geopolitical turmoil and climate disruption.
- Bui Cong Khanh presents recent work on the assimilation of Vietnamese labourers displaced to France during the colonial era.
- Justin Loke produces new work about notions of human physiognomic classification, a pseudo-scientific method of othering, weaving stories around European diasporas in Asia.
- Jakkai Siributr explores traumatic memory and statelessness through audience-engaging needlework.
- Jason Lim interrogates East/West ideological differences through transnational performance.
- The three Myanmar artists Yadanar Win, Nge Lay, and Aung Ko explore the experiences of migrant workers internationally.
They collectively testify that migration is more than an individual plight, but rather a fundamental collective phenomenon that emerges from feelings of alienation and loss while drawing on our innate capacity for adaptation, home building, and connection across differences.
Between Lands: Migration as Transformation gives rise to new hybrid identities from which emerge new artistic languages and shared narratives that are respectful of diversity. Can these artistic practices help us think through prevailing feelings of uprootedness, dissolution of cultural bonds, loss of a shared world? In an era of global mobility and amid unprecedented interconnection, can these artists’ perspectives elicit our more thoughtful and compassionate action?
All seven artists are alumni of the artist-in-residence programme of Fondation la Roche Jacquelin of Southeast Asian Contemporary Art in France, which is The Substation’s residency partner for
Sub+ Residencies 2024/2025.
