DEC 2022
A YEAR MADE OBJECT
Lower Gallery
“If time were an object, what would it be? Amidst one of the many COVID waves, there was a moment I forgot what year we were in. I sat at my desk and wrote a note to try and locate time. The note became an invitation to artists and designers to play a game with me and imagine, remember, capture, recreate time as an object; time that one could see, touch, hear, feel, wear and hold. The objects later became photography, a book, and an exhibition.” – A project by Yvonne Tham/ampulets. Featuring Adeline Tan/Mightyellow, Chloe Tan/Usuallyusual, Daisy Toh, Jeanette Adrienne Wee, Kim Choy/Shibui Furniture, Larry Seow, Liang Han Yun, Mabel Annabelle Tan, Mary Bernadette Lee, Nabwong Chuachuwong, Natta Wannapago, Ng Siying/atinymaker, Shing Lee/Argentum, Tan Zi Xi/MessyMsxi, Xinnie Ng and Lim Chiyong/Issho Labo.

NOV 2022
TRUE TRUTH
Lower Gallery
True Truth by artist Sookoon Ang explores transcendental experiences through abstractions and minimalism. The center of the show is a triptych video installation which breaks down a landscape of sky, forest and lake into 3 disjointed textures. Also within the same space is a series of ceramic sculptures passing off as abstract colour field paintings; each devoid of obvious subject matter. This new collection of artworks produced in different mediums seeks to represent enigmatic forms. The exhibition shifts between two and three dimensional forms with objects passing from light to obscurity, opacity to translucency, suggests ideas of the instability of existence, variable perceptions as well as space within space. It also acts as an antinomy to a time-obsessed culture by offering a decelerated space, almost to a stand-still.

AUG 2022
MEMORY IS MY SIXTH SENSE
Lower Gallery
Lens based artist Aparna Nori presents two bodies of work, both created using the salted paper process. In Nalla Pilla, the mosaic of her skin and its many folds that hang heavily with the burden of years of slow trauma seem fragile and translucent, yet taut in its tenacity. If one lingers, the mosaic turns into a quiet celebration of the diversity of the tones – not just of the medium, but of her skin that held her together through those times. In the second work that shares the title of the exhibition, the prints depicting the couplet of Rajnigandha flowers, harbour in its visible brush strokes the many shades of emotions that are associated with the memories of her mother. The lines, like tree rings – a visible testimony to the passage of time.

© Azrizal Abu Che’

AUG 2022
WHY YOU TAKE MY PHOTO?
Lower Gallery
“Why You Take My Photo?” are words commonly heard by many street photographers. Though usually meant as a challenge, it also invites us to question ourselves as well as our own motivations in this form of photography. Featuring the works of 6 Singapore-based street photographers (Danial Jailani, Azrizal Abu Che’, Sean Tan, MoodyDen (Dennis Chan), David Cheng, Caleb Thien), from the Singapore Street Photography Collective or SGSPC. Formed in the midst of the pandemic, the collective comprises a mix of up-and-coming and experienced photographers from varying backgrounds.

JUN 2022
LIKE OPENING ONE’S EYES FOR THE FIRST TIME
Chapel Gallery
In Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography, Geoffrey Batchen discusses the origins of photography in terms of how proto-photographers did not possess the concept of a transparent reality that can be represented through photography. Like opening one’s eyes for the first time, these proto-photographers were divided on what exactly a photograph should look like and what aspects of reality are to be captured. Invoking such troubled origins of photography, this exhibition expands the idea of what photography can be, by proposing photography as a node in creative thinking endeavours of various disciplines. Curated by Ang Siew Ching, featuring Creative Authors: Lee Wen (via Bruce Quek), Chua Ek Kay, (via estate of Chua Ek Kay), Debbie Ding, Marc Nair, Rachel Bok, Randy Chan, ila, Tang Da Wu

© Muhammad Rusydan bin Md Norr

FEB-MAR 2022
SHOOTING HOME YOUTH AWARDS CLASS OF 2021 EXHIBITION
Lower Gallery & Courtyard
Featuring works by the 13 photographers from Objectifs’ young photographers developmental programme. Includes Elisa Tan, Janel Teo, Joseph Tasman, Kevia Tan, Luke Seow, Marc Chu, Michael Heng, Muhammad Rusydan bin Md Norr, Ng Xin Lui, Lee Tze Yee, Sarah, Tan Yan Sheng Shawnn, Tay Yiling, Xu MeiCheng. Mentored by Ng Hui Hsien, Juria Toramae, Lenne Chai and Marvin Tang.
Press Coverage
– Female Magazine: Things To Do In Singapore

Still from “Production of Desire” by Kanchana Gupta

FEB-MAR 2022
SPACE DRAWING NO. 12 – 155 MIDDLE ROAD
Chapel Gallery 
While She Quivers bridges the converging practices of visual artists Kanchana Gupta and Yanyun Chen, interrogating the socially and culturally defined frameworks of femininity in a quiet provocation of desire, power, intimacy, and personal agency. The exhibition presents rich and embodied extensions of their long-term explorations – Kanchana’s Production of Desire and Yanyun’s Stories of a woman and her dowry. Both works navigate the precarities of the cultural tropes and expectations of Asian women, in a palpable reclamation of tenderness and strength embedded in the feminine narrative and identity.

Quivering, as a gesture, denotes a restlessness, tension, and uncertainty that is also fuelled by emotive power and potency. It requires vulnerability in strength, resists subjugation, and demands a bold incitement of power. Kanchana and Yanyun’s incisive installations transform the Objectifs Chapel Gallery into a space that is visceral and contemplative; employing symbolic gestures, rituals and objects in ways that are equally autonarrative and somatic to unpack the underlying performativity of being a woman. Curated by Kimberly Shen.

JAN 2022
SPACE DRAWING NO. 12 – 155 MIDDLE ROAD
Chapel Gallery 
Space Drawing No.12 – 155 Middle Road is the latest edition of the Space Drawing series by artist Sai (aka Chen Sai Hua Kuan) created at the historical site 155 Middle Road (Singapore). Built in the 19th century, 155 Middle Road is one of the few remaining examples of gothic architecture in Singapore, and has served various purposes and communities during different historical eras. It was first known as Christian Institute, and later became the Methodist Girls’ School and the Straits Chinese’s first Methodist Church. It subsequently was the May Blossom Restaurant, a car workshop, Sculpture Square, and is now Objectifs – an independent visual arts space.

The site currently consists of two main buildings: the Chapel Gallery and Lower Gallery.  Like many repurposed buildings in urban spaces, these buildings bear witness to the changes in Singapore over time. They are reflections of the economic, political and cultural conditions of Singapore, providing tangible links to our roots and people. Playing with the energy released by bungee ropes pulled from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, from inside to outside of the buildings, Space Drawing No.12 is a drawing, film, performance, and spatial sculpture that offers a slice of suspended time, exploring the idea of the simplest but the most fundamental function of a line – to divide, subtract and define a space. Presented by Comma Space, co-presented by Objectifs for Singapore Art Week 2022.

Press
:: The Straits Times: Singapore Art Week 2022: So much to see, too little time
:: Lianhe Zaobao: 陈赛华灌用蹦极跳绳作画 动态方式诠释空间

JAN 2022
PROXIMITIES
Lower Gallery 
Part of Singapore Art Week, Proximities is the first solo exhibition by Singaporean artist-curator Zulkhairi Zulkiflee. This exhibition at Objectifs presents a new video work surrounding Malay masculinities and their plural representations.

At the beginning of 2020, artist-curator Zulkhairi Zulkiflee focused on the trope of the Malay Boy found in the works of Singaporean artist Cheong Soo Pieng. An indirect extension that included a visual study of colonial postcards depicting the implicit relationship of boy and crocodile, and personal photographs of his father in the eighties, Zulkhairi’s consistent interest in images and visuality is rigorously anchored by the Malay male body. Here, his works circulate key themes like representation, racialized masculinities, and Malay male identity formations.

In the many Malay boy(s) of Cheong’s multiple yet elusive renditions, Zulkhairi attempts to locate the Malay male in art history while unpacking underlying systems of power that have shaped and naturalized understanding of difference. When exorcised from the framings of art history – one informed by overlapping lenses of pioneer artists and their Western predecessors, the Malay boy now stands as a figure (re)molded by contemporary currents and various intercessors.

Against such discourses, the exhibition primarily focuses on a video that foregrounds Malay masculinities and their plural representations — intersecting wide-ranging sources from art history to personal meditations.