The Padang Sessions

Welcome to Padang Spotlights, a series of special episodes uncovering the rich histories of Southeast Asian artists and art spaces through archives and exclusive interviews.

In this spotlight, a quiet encounter with "Crossing" (1964) at the National Gallery Singapore leads curator Teo Hui Min into a years-long search into the life of Lai Foong Moi (b. 1931, d. 1994) — the first Malayan-born woman to hold solo exhibitions in Singapore and the Federation of Malaya. Celebrated in her time yet little remembered today, Lai’s story reveals the delicate interplay of forces that shape an artist’s journey.

Accompanied by conversations with her former student, artist Salleh bin Japar, and her contemporary, artist Yeo Hoe Koon, we trace Lai’s path from her promising return from art training in France to her later years on the margins of public memory. We invite you to consider her story not just in terms of artistic innovation or acclaim but as a reflection on the ambition, negotiation, and uncertainties that define an artist’s life and legacy.

Researcher, Host & Co-editor: Teo Hui Min

Co-editors & Producers: Adele Tan, Kelysha Cheah Kassim

Audio production, Music & Sound design: Chong Li-Chuan

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Artist Haryadi Suadi grew up in Cirebon on the northern coast of Java. The port city was famous for its long history of oceanic trade and rich material culture, including glass painting, a medium that Suadi worked with throughout his artistic career. In 1959, Suadi enrolled at the art school in Bandung, joining Ahmad Sadali and A.D. Pirous. He worked intensively with printmaking before working with glass painting from the mid-1970s onwards. Today, Suadi is known for his substantial contribution to the development of modern printmaking and glass painting in Indonesia.

This conversation with Haryadi Suadi’s son and collaborator Radi Arwinda, scholar Jérôme Samuel and curator Anissa Rahadiningtyas delves into Haryadi Suadi’s experimentations with printmaking and reverse glass paintings in Indonesia.

This programme took place at National Gallery Singapore on 19 July 2023 and was held in conjunction with the exhibition “The Neglected Dimension”.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Written by Kenneth M. George and Mamannoor in 2002, ‘A.D. Pirous: Vision, Faith, and A Journey in Indonesian Art, 1955-2002’ is a thorough survey of artist A.D. Pirous’s life, works and artistic practice that was born out of the long-term collaboration and friendship between A.D. Pirous and George.

The book details A.D. Pirous’s stories on aspects of his life and artistic journey, highlighting his explorations of calligraphic forms and expressions and his critical position in developing the practice and discourse of modern and modern Islamic art in Indonesia.

This conversation between A.D. Pirous, Kenneth M. George and exhibition curator Anissa Rahadiningtyas explores Pirous’s works in the exhibition ‘The Neglected Dimension’ while delving deeper into the process of making his prints and paintings and the stories behind them.

This programme was livestreamed on 26th August 2023 in conjunction with the exhibition “The Neglected Dimension”. It was supported by Serambi Pirous and CIVAS | Centre for Indonesian Visual Art Studies, Bandung Institute of Technology.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Welcome to Padang Spotlights! These special episodes are dedicated to unearthing our archives to bring to life the rich narratives of Southeast Asian artists and art spaces. 

In this spotlight, our researcher and host Tan Yen Peng traces the legacy of female artist and educator Sun Yee (b. 1919, d. 2010), a pivotal but lesser-known figure in Singapore’s early art scene. As the former head of the Singapore Academy of Arts, and an artist with nearly 100 exhibitions to her name, Sun Yee played a vital role in shaping art education in Singapore but over time, her contributions have quietly faded from public memory. 

Through heartfelt conversations with her former student, artist-designer Eng Siak Loy, and long-time friend and gallerist Johnny Yu Ching Chung, Yen Peng pieces together Sun Yee’s contributions to Singapore’s artistic landscape and reflects on the importance of remembering those who laid the groundwork for today’s creative communities. 

Researcher, Host & Co-editor: Tan Yen Peng 

Co-editors & Producers: Adele Tan, Kelysha Cheah Kassim, Ng Zheng Hong 

Audio production, Music & Sound design: Chong Li-Chuan 

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If you’ve enjoyed Padang Spotlights, please take a moment to leave us a review. 

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook. 

Go to www.nationalgallery.sg for more podcasts and Southeast Asian art! 

Can we conceive of exhibitions as a medium? Are exhibitions only neutral spaces for the display of artworks, or do they have agency as an aesthetic, contested and epistemic site Can we conceptualise the exhibition as a medium that generates new ways of thinking about and making art? 

When talking about methodology, there is a dilemma in terms of how we can develop approaches to study exhibitions that extend beyond just art history. As part of October Gathering, “Towards a Mystical Reality: A Documentation of Jointly Initiated Experiences by Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa” (Malaysia, 1974) was restaged. It was used as a case study that could be reconstructed, reconsidered and propositioned as an exhibitionary medium, method, and “conceptual performance” that is participatory, critical and reflexive all at once. Reconstructing such exhibitions proposes a way of thinking that sees the exhibition as method and the exhibition as medium approaches as ways to demystify the original exhibition.

This discussion was part of a workshop that accompanied the restaging of “Towards a Mystical Reality: A Documentation of Jointly Initiated Experiences by Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa”. Art historian Simon Soon and independent curator Biljana Ciric explored how we could develop approaches to studying exhibitions that extended beyond what we have from art history. This conversation was moderated by then Senior Curator Seng Yu Jin.

This discussion took place at National Gallery Singapore on 7 October 2022, as part of October Gathering.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Bringing together Malaysia-based American artist Ray Lagenbach, Filipino artist and musician Kaloy Olavides and the Indonesian film historian David Hanan, this panel sought to explore the intersections between performance and time-based media which emerged during the 1970s which have largely been left outside the ambit of current art histories in Southeast Asia.

Through the diverse perspectives and experiences of the invited speakers, the panel sought to locate early collaborative and interdisciplinary instances of art-making from the 1970s to the 1990s in order to search for a more multi-modal approach to reading art in relation to the moving image in the region.

The programme opened with a screening of ‘Meta Ekologi’, an experimental film by artist-filmmaker Gotot Prakosa which captures a performance choreographed by Sardono Kusomo, and which was held at the Taman Ismail Marzuki in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1979. This programme was moderated by Clarissa Chikiamco and Cheng Jia Yu, Curators at National Gallery Singapore.

Due to copyright restrictions, we are unable to publish the film online.

This film screening and discussion took place at National Gallery Singapore on 16 Oct 2022, as part of October Gathering.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Digital access to collections is an important function of many Southeast Asian art archives. As digital resources and nodes for peer-to-peer sharing, these archives play an important role in seeding new research and cultivating a regional historical consciousness.

Focusing on the Southeast Asia Performance Collection and Indonesia Visual Art Archive as case studies, curators Annie Jael Kwan and Farah Wardani examined how these archives have used digital tools to grow their discursive communities, collaborating with organisations and navigating intellectual property regimes in this conversation moderated by gallery curator Kathleen Ditzig.

This discussion was part of an online workshop, “Archival Intelligence,” that brought together artists, researchers and archivists from the region alongside lawyers and Arweave, a blockchain seeking to create a ‘permanent Internet’. Together, they discussed about sustainable Web3 solutions that could serve marginalised artists, independent spaces and cultural histories which are at risk of being lost.

This programme took place at National Gallery Singapore on 9 Oct 2022, as part of October Gathering.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Join Joel Sherwood-Spring, Simon Soon and Tammy Nguyen as they advocate for open-access knowledge. This session explored different strategies for reclaiming and granting greater access to knowledge. From institutional partnerships, to leveraging the public domains of specific nations, and to the individual labour involved in creating resource guides and artworks, this panel delved into the techniques and urgencies that have empowered individuals and collectives to resist the legacies of neocolonialism. The conversation also touched on the increasing levels of exclusivity when it comes to who gets to study, write and speak about our cultural histories. This discussion was moderated by Gallery Curator Kathleen Ditzig.

This discussion was part of an online workshop, “Archival Intelligence,” that brought together artists, researchers and archivists from the region alongside lawyers and Arweave, a blockchain seeking to create a ‘permanent Internet’. Together, they discussed about sustainable Web3 solutions that could serve marginalised artists, independent spaces and cultural histories which are at risk of being lost.

This programme took place at National Gallery Singapore on 9 October 2022, as part of October Gathering.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

“SEMBUH” is an expanded version of Kamal Sabran’s Ssegar Angin performance, presented at the Venice Biennale in April 2022. Based on Kamal’s sound therapy research on performance as a method for Malay traditional healing, the project offered an alternative take on the revitalisation of the angin (wind) transpiring within the panggung (physical space) through an immersive sound and dance experience. Anchoring the panggung and charging the space with aural energy, the performance moves the public towards healing and recovery.

About Concert for the Haunted

As the sonic programme accompanying October Gathering, Concert for the Haunted invited sound artists, musicians and movement artists to respond to the thematic threads and inquiries arising across its sister programmes. How do binaries of self/other, nature/culture, body/mind continue to haunt us even in the present? Through encouraging deep listening, sound becomes a seeding moment for healing, cross-pollination and the unearthing of neglected but deep connections between the human and non-human. Concert for the Haunted proposed a re-alliance with intuitive and embodied ways of knowing and encouraged expanded imaginings of togetherness through modes of listening.

This performance took place at National Gallery Singapore on 15 October 2022, as part of October Gathering.

Disclaimer: The comments and opinions expressed are those of the speaker/s, and do not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore.

All copyright within this recording, without limitation, are retained by their respective owners.

Welcome to Padang Spotlights! These special episodes are dedicated to unearthing our archives to bring to life the rich narratives of Southeast Asian artists and art spaces.

In this spotlight, Gallery curator Cheng Jia Yun continues her research journey following her curation of well-loved Singaporean artist Chng Seok Tin’s exhibition Drawn Through a Press (2021). Through intimate conversations with artists Tan Sock Fong, Dahlia Osman, Chen Shitong, and archivist Koh Nguang How, Jia Yun delves deeper into the impact of Chng’s work and how her collaborative spirit has allowed the printmaking community in Singapore to thrive.

As an added bonus, listen out for the harmonica melodies by the artist, which she performed for her student Dahlia Osman’s birthday celebration!

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Researcher, Host & Co-editor: Cheng Jia Yun

Co-editors & Producers: Erica Lai, Joleen Loh, Kelysha Cheah Kassim

Audio production, Music & Sound design: Chong Li-Chuan

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If you’ve enjoyed Padang Spotlights, please take a moment to leave us a review.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

Go to www.nationalgallery.sg for more podcasts and Southeast Asian art!