Artists-In-Residence 2019
Artists-in-Residence: Kris Ong and Rei Hayama (Reciprocal Residency with Documentary Dream Center), See Kian Wee and Thao Hoang (Lac Hoang) (Reciprocal Residency with Matca), SINdie, Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen
Reciprocal Film Residency
Objectifs and our International Partner Documentary Dream Center (Yamagata, Japan) for the Objectifs Artist Residency 2019 co-hosted Singapore- and Japan-based visual artists. This reciprocal residency is dedicated to providing artists working in the medium of film with valuable space, resources and networks to help them develop their visual arts projects. The residency programme aims to facilitate the research and creation of films and regional networking between artists.
Kris Ong is the Singaporean writer/director of several short films and music videos that have collectively screened at international film festivals and platforms such as MTV Asia. Her latest short film ‘Sunday‘, had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International ShortFest 2019. She is the co-writer of the feature film Ajoomma, to be directed by He Shuming (SEAFIC Award Winner 2018.) Kris was the youngest participant at the Singapore International Film Festival’s Southeast Asian Film Lab in 2014, and has written script coverage for an international variety of scripts, short stories and novels since 2016. In 2019 she joined HBO Asia as a script consultant.
As part of Kris’ Reciprocal Residency, she spent her time with the Yamagata Documentary Dojo 2019 (presented by the Documentary Dream Centre), developing her personal project and networking with filmmakers from the region.
Reciprocal Residency
Objectifs and our International Partner Matca (Hanoi, Vietnam) for the Objectifs Artist Residency 2019 co-hosted Singapore- and Vietnam-based visual artists. This reciprocal residency is dedicated to providing artists working in the medium of film and/or photography with valuable space, resources and networks to help them develop their visual arts projects. The residency programme aims to facilitate the research and creation of visual art works and regional networking between artists.
See Kian Wee (b.1989) uses art making as a method of investigation of the world around him. Fascinated by humanity’s need for storytelling, Kian Wee’s current art practice explores the relationship between the society, its myth-making mechanisms, and the narratives brought about by it. Working primarily with photography, he looks into its efficacy as a form of myth-making tool, often bridging into other visual and sensory media as well.
Kian Wee spent 4 weeks in June 2019, in Hanoi, Vietnam, hosted by Matca, working on a short film Finding Cụ Rùa. Through an imagined perspective of the iconic turtle, the artwork reflects his views on the relationship between the now deceased turtle, and Hanoians.
Thao Hoang (Lac Hoang) (b.1995) is a visual artist from Hanoi, Viet Nam. Her work consists of photography, video and drawings that often depart from found footage, elaborating on the elusive nature of memory and photographic records. She’s also interested in domestic space and its significance in the modern age, as the boundary between the private and the public is blurring virtually and physically. Deploying the language of intimate storytelling, Lac has used past work to reconstruct memory from images, investigate Internet voyeurism and social performance for the camera. She has exhibited at Mint Collective (Columbus, Ohio), Wedeman Gallery (Newton, Massachusetts), Penland School of Crafts (North Carolina), Six Space (Hanoi, Viet Nam) among others.
Lac spent Mar 2019 in Singapore for her residency and worked on Postcards from Singapore, a project about foreign domestic workers in Singapore and their relationship with public spaces.
Mark Chua & Lam Li Shuen – Feb-Mar 2019
Filmmakers and musicians Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen’s work explores the possibilities of resistance in the presentation and production of narrativity. Their directorial work with Emoumie includes independent narrative and documentary films, shot in Asia, Australasia and Europe. As part of their work with the moving image and sonic art, the duo has also presented works and performances in sound and film in Iceland, Japan, Australia and Singapore. In 2018, their experimental feature Cannonball (2018) was an Official Selection of the Singapore International Film Festival. It was also awarded Honorable Mention at the LA Underground Film Forum 2018.
During their studio residency at Objectifs, Mark and Li Shuen explored ways to construct an alternative practice in filmmaking as a mode of creation. Streams was one of the moving images broadcast live that they worked on, in a series that considers the directness of recording technology today and inventing interruption as a reflection on agency, historicity, filmmaking and their sequences.
SINdie – Aug-Sep 2019
Founded in 2008 by filmmaker and writer Jeremy Sing as a blog documenting the film community from the grassroots level, SINdie is an editorial platform and collective for both Singaporean and Southeast Asian cinema. They were part of Objectifs’ Creatives Residency that aims to give artist collectives or organisations working in film and / or photography space and opportunity to work outside their usual environment, to research or produce work.
During their residency led by SINdie’s creative director and editor-at-large Alfonse Chiu, SINdie launched their first ever durational research project investigating the histories and operation of independent film theatres, micro-cinemas, and independent screening programmes in Southeast Asia.
Originating from SINdie’s dedication to providing quality journalistic coverage and critical reviews of both independent and commercial Southeast Asian cinema, this project is an extension of this approach into examining film distribution and exhibition, and how independent film theatres and programmes act as important repositories of film knowledge and literacy in their localities, and a form of cultural heritage and sites of social memories. The work-in-progress was shared at Zine Launch: ‘Cinemapura 01’ during the 2019 Singapore International Film Festival.