OPEN END PROJECTS

OPEN END: Resonate, Re-Read and Re-Trace The Substation Archive is a critical curatorial project through which I engage with the archival legacy of The Substation, Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts space (1990–2021).

Rotunda Library & Archive

National Gallery Singapore, 2024.

October to December 2024

The City Wears You Out (2024)

Adrian Tan. Text Installation.

Interstitial Space (2024)

Chong Li-Chuan, Sound Installation.

Curator’s Talk

October, 2024

Adrian’s Reading Performance

November, 2024

Urich Lau & Chong Li-Chuan

Collaborative Performance

This exhibition re-examines and activates archival materials housed at the National Gallery Singapore’s Rotunda Library & Archive, responding to The Substation’s history of artistic experimentation, institutional challenges, and public engagement.

Featuring artists Chong Li-Chuan and Urich Lau, the project employs sound, media, and installation to explore memory, authorship, and institutional critique. As the curator, I have developed this exhibition with the support of the Platform Projects Curatorial Award, overseen by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and The Substation.

CURATORIAL DIRECTION

Rather than presenting the archive as static, OPEN END enacts an ongoing intervention, with works evolving, being added, or removed throughout the exhibition period. Public programs, including a curator’s conversation and a live performance, further deepen engagement with the archive’s fragmented yet resonant histories.

Through this exhibition, I critically reflect on how archives shape collective memory, questioning how artistic practices and institutions are remembered, reinterpreted, and reactivated over time. In response to the project, designer David Lee collaborated with me to produce the exhibition catalogue, which is available [BELOW].