SEP 2015
SILVER FILMS SCREENINGS
Silver Films presents a curated selection of local short films that explore and engage with seniors. Includes a new commissioned film by Raihan Halim, alongside films by Leon Cheo, Kirsten Tan and Kenny Tan. The participants from the “Recording Reality” Community Arts Project (CAP) will also debut their short documentary films which are produced and edited by filmmaker Jasmine Ng. Part of Silver Arts, a national platform that advocates the meaningful possibilities seniors have in the arts and is organised by the National Arts Council (NAC).

AUG 2015
FILM/MUSIC NIGHT
Courtyard
Join us for an exciting Singapore Night Festival 2015, as we explore the synergy between both mediums through screenings of music videos by Singapore musicians, video projections and music performances. Curated by Objectifs and Electric Milk, featuring an audio/visual collaborative showcase between filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua and musicians, .gif and Intriguant.

Weeded @ Hester Tan

AUG-SEP 2015
ANY OTHER CITY
Artistry Cafe 
Any Other City by the Shooting Home Class of 2014 is a photographic exploration of place in the form of the inescapable city. With the unraveling of migratory threads and its accompanying transience, contemporary cities offer a confluence of greetings for the visitor: anonymity, boredom, secrets, space, among others. The works interpret life in concrete, from architectural renderings of a physical landscape to emotional responses to our urban psyche. Participating artists include: Charmaine Poh, Hester Tan, John YM Tan, Kwok Jia-Xin, Nadir Mehadji, Ng Hui Hsien, Saifuddin Jalil and Shyue Woon.

©Sajeev Digital Studio

JUL-AUG 2015
SAJEEV PHOTO STUDIO
Chapel Gallery
Sajeev Photo Studio: A Decade of Portraiture in Little India is a photographic installation that at first glance, presents the story of one traditional photo studio. Through it, we examine the changing roles of the photographic portrait and photo studios, and some of the facets of the Singaporean, Singapore immigrant and migrant worker story. Co-presented by Invisible Photographer Asia and Objectifs, curated by Kevin WY Lee.

On a little street called Kerbau Road in Little India, stands Sajeev Digital Photo Studio, a quaint little photo studio run by 49 year old photographer K. Sajeev Lal with his wife Sheeja Shaj. For the past 13 years, young male foreign workers from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, one or two years into their labour contracts in Singapore, flock here to get their portraits taken by Sajeev. They have a choice of traditional scenic backdrops or new digital backdrops of Singapore and its icons montaged by Sajeev. Once dressed, posed and photographed, the portraits are then sent, in the old days in 4R/5R prints costing $15–20, to the young men’s parents back home in South Asia to look for brides. The studio went digital in 2006.

When asked how many of the young men he photographed found wives, Sajeev replies, “100 % success rate. They all find wives. They go back for their weddings and sometimes come back with their new wives for a couple portrait again at my studio.”

Huat Ah! © Zinkie Aw

AUG-SEP 2015
SINGAPORELANG – WHAT THE SINGLISH?
Lower Gallery
A photography series by Singaporean photographer Zinkie Aw, that functions like a Visual Singlish Dictionary. At this interactive exhibition, viewers get to ‘Guess the Singlish’ and give meaning to each scene photographed. Accompanying these photographs is an attempt to piece together some dictionary terms of this peculiar Singapore English dialect, thereby questioning the idea of what, or who really makes a dictionary.

SEP 2015
THE APPRENTICESHIP PRGRAOMME EXHIBITION: c. 2015 –
Chapel Gallery
Following four months of guidance from creative industry professionals, 34 young artists from Noise Singapore’s The Apprenticeship Programme come together for a group exhibition, c. 2015 –. Curated by OH! Open House, these works interrogate the self in relation to time.

©Ernest Goh

JUNE 2015
BREAKFAST AT 8 JUNGLE AT 9
Objectifs Chapel Gallery 

Breakfast at 8 Jungle at 9 presents photographer Ernest Goh’s latest works, which utilize repetitive motifs from the natural environment to propagate the his eco-utopian vision of the world. While at first glance a nod to scientific photography and the detailed study of specimens, Ernest encourages the viewer to appreciate these insects, butterflies, flowers and birds through a lens of wonderment and fascination.

The show draws its title from a letter written by famed naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace spent eight years in the Malay Archipelago studying its flora and fauna, and collected more than 125,000 specimens of insects, birds and mammals including hundreds of new species. His persistence led him to realize the theory of natural selection, for which Charles Darwin and him are jointly credited with discovering.

The rigour of his daily schedule and the tropical jungle teeming with animal life resonated with Ernest, particularly with his own ongoing work photographing animals. He has photographed more than 1,000 individual animals, most recently shooting specimens archived by the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (Singapore) that were as old as 1909. Several of the specimens included in this exhibition were also created for an earlier body of work, The Gift Book.

Breakfast at 8 Jungle at 9 is the first exhibition at Objectifs’ new space at 155 Middle Road. Apart from the photographic prints, there will also be an installation of everyday objects and visitors are invited to ‘wrap’ them with nature by applying the photo stickers of insects and animals made by the artist.

JUNE 2015
LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK
Objectifs Arab St Gallery
For our final exhibition at Arab Street, Chris Yap takes you through a forest to look for the glittery city.  Where there was once a lush swampy mangrove, it is now a ship that seems to float in the air. Where there were primary rainforests, they are now filled with condos and HDB flats. This imagined forest was never given a voice to state its importance, only to be swept away for the progress of society.

©Lynn Lu

MAR 2015
MYSTERIOUS OBJECTS AT NOON
Objectifs Arab St Gallery
Ten artists, five from Singapore and five from the UK have joined together to collaborate and create projects in a 21st Century remake of the Surrealists’ game of the ‘Exquisite Corpse’. The exhibition examines the nature of artistic collaboration and revels in the creative mayhem that can be released through the unexpected twists ands turns of a to-and-fro of processes during which the artists have been asked to respond to their collaborative partner’s aesthetic sensibilities and working methodologies – perhaps suggesting new possibilities for their own practice. Featuring: (SG) Lynn Lu, Tania De Rozario, Shubigi Rao, Min-Wei Ting, Debbie Ding / (UK) Birgitta Hosea, Suzanne de Emmony, Katriona Beales, Gavin Maughfling, Christopher Lutterodt-Quarcoo.

© Fiona Amundsen

FEB 2015
IMPERIAL DOUBLE-TAKE
Objectifs Arab St Gallery
This exhibition by Objectifs Artist-in-Residence Fiona Amundsen questions how images may provoke counter experiences of historicised narratives that both pay homage to the traumas and suffering of, in this case, imperial warfare, while also unsticking these histories that have become preserved through memorial.  Imperial Double-take asks its viewers to to look again, and in doing so to seek out “what’s living and breathing in the place hidden from view: people, places, histories, knowledge, memories, ways of life, ideas.

Imelda Goes to Singapore © Brian Gothong Tan

JAN-FEB 2015
ALONG THE GOLDEN MILE
Objectifs Arab St Gallery

The Golden Mile and Beach Road district is an area rich in architectural heritage and flavour, with structures that range from pre-war buildings to buildings from the modernist era of newly independent Singapore, to newer ‘starchitect’ designed pieces. With the rapidly changing local skyline, there has been a greater interest in discovering our heritage, manifested especially in discussions about the preservation of buildings and spaces.

Photographer Darren Soh, who is most recognised for his documentation of vernacular local architecture, aims to blur the lines between art and architecture as he explores the district in this photographic exhibition. Details, façade designs and even explicit/implicit signs of human inhabitation and intervention in the built landscape are revealed to viewers as they immerse themselves in the floor-to-ceiling sized prints.

A second part of the show takes place on the floor of the open air roof-top of Objectifs. Here, images are made in a top down manner to show the landscaping, layout and public spaces, giving an aerial perspective to the viewer and the opportunity to continue a virtual exploration of the district. Darren shares his thoughts about the work in this trailer.

Imelda Goes to Singapore © Brian Gothong Tan

JAN 2015
COLLECTIVE FORM FILM SCREENING
Objectifs Arab St Gallery
Collective Form is a screening of short films that explore themes of space and identity. Curated by Objectifs, the event will showcase films by well-known Singaporean visual artists including Ang Soo Koon, Joo Choon Lin, Brian Gothong Tan, Ho Tzu Nyen and vertical submarine. Held in conjunction with Singapore Art Week.