Singapore Biennale 2016 - An Atlas of Mirrors Tour for Educators
Date and time
Location
Singapore Art Museum
71 Bras Basah Road Singapore, Singapore 189555 SingaporeDescription
About the event
Singapore Biennale 2016 - An Atlas of Mirrors Educators' Tour
SAM offers specially-tailored tours to prepare educators bringing students for a visit to the Singapore Biennale 2016. Join curator Louis Ho as he shares ideas and concepts behind the artworks in the Singapore Biennale 2016 - An Atlas of Mirrors exhibition. SAM education manager Shirley Khng will also introduce various education resources during these sessions.
Dates: 20 January 2016, Friday
Time: 4pm – 5.30pm
Venue: SAM
Registration fee: Free upon purchase of a Singapore Biennale 2016 entry ticket; registration required.
*Note: Tour will not proceed if total sign-up rate is below minimum number of of participants. This event is exclusive to teachers. Educators should sign up for one tour only. Registration opens till one day before the event.
About the exhibition
Singapore Biennale 2016 - An Atlas of Mirrors
27 October 2016 to 26 February 2017
Bras Basah.Bugis Precinct
From where we are, how do we picture the world – ?and ourselves?
In charting our way around the world, humankind has relied on instruments of vision as well as navigation. Atlases map and mirror our journeys of discovery and often make visible more than just physical terrains; driven by our needs and desires, they embolden us to venture into the unknown.
From our coordinates in Southeast Asia, the arc of our shared histories encompasses East and South Asia. These regions bear the imprints of one another’s diverse cultures, even as boundaries are also constantly reimagined. Fraught and unstable, these borders are characterised by fluid movement and migration which also reflect pre-state national entities, and highlight the challenges that beset contemporary conditions.
Where navigational tools like the atlas – a compendium of maps – enable us to set our sights further afield, one instrument in particular – the mirror – brings us into that which is still so mysterious: the self. While we depend on mirrors to show us to ourselves, their reflective surfaces are not always reliable for they echo, skew, magnify and invert.
How will a coupling of an atlas and the curiosities of the mirror shift our perception of the world? Through combining the divergent literal and metaphorical characteristics of these devices, a new instrument of vision and thought is imagined, giving rise to a constellation of artistic perspectives which trace our migratory, intertwining histories and cultures.
An Atlas of Mirrors positions Southeast Asia as a vantage point through which we recognise our world anew.
Organised by
Singapore Art Museum opened in 1996 as the first art museum in Singapore. Also known as SAM, we present contemporary art from a Southeast Asian perspective for artists, art lovers and the art curious.
SAM is building one of the world's most important public collections of Southeast Asian contemporary art, and as a non-profit arts institution – it is our responsibility to preserve, research, exhibit and connect the art and the artists to the public and future generations through thought-provoking exhibitions and meaningful programmes.
SAM is redefining the idea of the museum by presenting art in multiple spaces, including Tanjong Pagar Distripark and our two heritage buildings: the former St Joseph’s Institution on Bras Basah Road, built in 1855 and now a National Monument; and the former Catholic High School across the road on Queen Street. The heritage buildings are currently closed for redevelopment and will re-open in 2026.
SAM is proud to be the organiser of the Singapore Biennale, a festival that celebrates contemporary art from all over the world across the island-city of Singapore.