Manifesting Singapore: On City as Hope and City as Trope
In conjunction with Singapore Biennale 2025
The panel examines diverse perspectives on the city of Singapore, moving beyond its aspirational narrative. It brings together practitioners from academia, film programming, and curatorial practice to explore how Singapore as a site of cultural production has been conceptualised and manifested, and to discuss approaches to recontextualise lived experience in the city through decentralising, rewinding, and unearthing.
Speakers:
Dr Hsu Fang-Tze – Curator, Singapore Art Museum
Dr Imran bin Tajudeen – Senior Lecturer, Department of Malay Studies and Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Natalie Khoo – Programmes & Outreach Executive, Asian Film Archive
Teow Yue Han – Co-founder, Hothouse
Moderated by:
Mok Cui Yin – Head, Biennale, Singapore Art Museum
Dr Hsu Fang-Tze – Curator, Singapore Art Museum
Dr Hsu Fang-Tze is a Curator at SAM. Hsu has previous experience as a lecturer in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore (NUS). In the past decade, she has broadened her expertise by actively participating in various artistic endeavours as a curator, film programmer, and archivist. She is interested in investigating the historical context surrounding art in public spaces by examining the interplay between urban development experiences, community aspirations, and both official and non-official placemaking initiatives.
Dr Imran bin Tajudeen – Senior Lecturer, Department of Malay Studies and Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Dr Imran bin Tajudeen is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Malay Studies and the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore where he teaches topics on identity and representation through the arts, urban history, and built cultural heritage in Singapore and maritime Southeast Asia. His publications and research focus on cultural encounters through architecture across the longue durée, and examine the vernacular city and its heritage tropes. His doctoral dissertation (NUS, 2009) won the ICAS Book Prize in 2011. He is co-editor of Southeast Asia’s Modern Architecture (2018). He was postdoctoral fellow at MIT’s Aga Khan Program (2009–10) and the IIAS in Leiden (2010–11), and Mutawa Visiting Fellow at OXCIS (Oxford, 2019-2020; 2022).
Natalie Khoo – Programmes & Outreach Executive, Asian Film Archive
Natalie Khoo is a film programmer at the Asian Film Archive (AFA), with a background in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She has curated the programmes and exhibitions Retrospective: Edward Yang, Monographs 2023: sinking, shifting, stirring, Y2K DreamZ among others. She recently served on the jury of Forum Film Dokumenter and Singapore Shorts, and was previously a film programmer at National Gallery Singapore. Natalie is also a filmmaker whose work has screened at Objectifs, Queer East Film Festival, Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Yamagata IDF among others.
Teow Yue Han – Co-founder, Hothouse
Teow Yue Han is an artist and educator exploring the interface between performance and technology, via situations where gestures and social interactions can be interrogated, rehearsed and renewed. Yue Han is a founding member of Hothouse – a transdisciplinary project space that supports and prototypes artistic practices.
Mok Cui Yin – Head, Biennale, Singapore Art Museum
Mok Cui Yin is an interdependent arts producer and facilitator. Since 2008, she has produced and managed projects for independent artists from contemporary art, dance, music, and theatre, as well as organisations including Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, The Substation, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Asian Film Archive, Arts House Limited, DesignSingapore Council, and the National Arts Council. She joined the Singapore Art Museum in 2024 as Head, Biennale.