Imagining New Futures is a collaboration between the Fine Art Programme at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Amsterdam-based multimedia artist Margret Wibmer which contemplates the social, cultural, and political shifts as well as the deep uncertainty that shrouds the current pandemic. Presented in this showcase are 10 selected projects by second year students from the Diploma in Fine Art that are diverse in form and expression, but more importantly, shed light on their individual preoccupations and collective concerns, whilst looking towards new futures. This online conversation is an expansion of the thoughts, ideas and creative processes behind the showcase, featuring a discourse between Margret Wibmer, and participating artists Kenenza Michiko Hasan, Nathan Tan Yew Wai, and Vaidya Riddhi Abhijit.

Margret Wibmer was born in Austria. After her studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, she spent a large part of the 1980s in New York, a period that significantly formed her life and artistic practice. In 1990 she moved to Amsterdam where she is based since. Using various media such as photography, performance, video, interactive media and sculpture, she explores the human body and its situatedness within a social, cultural, historic, physical and digital context. An integral part of her work is the use of objects and handmade garments as props and tools for creating relations.

In principle, the artist is always concerned with negotiating and instrumentalising “interfaces between bodies, their surfaces and their entanglements with spaces, with gazes and sound, and not least with cultural sign systems,” as Reinhard Braun (Camera Austria) once very aptly formulated Margret Wibmer’s basic intention. Beyond that and in particular, the thematic and content-related aspects of such settings and interventions concretize themselves in each case in the context of their place and time. There, the artist expresses the relationship of the individual (as physical, spiritual and “political” subject) to respective supra-individual (ethical, normative, formal …) circumstances (such as fashion, environment, economy, religion, politics, culture/history …) in a “multilingual” way, i.e. also interpretable in an ambiguous way. She succeeds in this by liquefying the boundary between producer and recipient, making the latter potential co-generators of her “work”. The “work” is thus conceptually fixed in its core, but open and flexible in its external formulation, because it is open to the outside.

Wibmer has exhibited and performed at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2016); RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, Australia (2015); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2015); Ishikawa Nishida Kitaro Museum of Philosophy, Japan (2013;) / KAI 10 – Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany (2012); Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy (2006); Fashion Moda Gallery, South Bronx, USA (1988).

Kenenza Michiko Hasan is an aspiring artist currently pursuing a Diploma in Fine Art from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She uses installation and mixed media.

Kenenza's art practice is concerned with cultural backgrounds, traditions, and exploring the idea of femininity around the South-East Asian region, especially in Indonesia. Her artworks are chaotic in nature, using different expressive methods to transfer and create energy. Her processes involve deconstructing and reconstructing, as well as growing and decaying, to draw attention to current issues and diverse perceptions. Kenenza hopes for her works to be highly visceral, evoke critical thinking and create conversations when experiencing the piece.

Nathan Tan Yew Wai is a Singapore-based artist and printmaker. He is currently pursuing a Diploma in Fine Art at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Nathan specialises in printmaking using techniques such as relief printing, intaglio printing and screen printing. His works are influenced by Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, often utilising geometry and symmetry. He is looking to further deepen his interests in the readymade object.

Vaidya Riddhi Abhijit is a Fine Art student at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore. She has over six years of experience in art-making, and she specialises in acrylic and oil painting while exploring 3D and installation art. As an aspiring artist and writer, Riddhi is inclined towards pursuing socially engaged art and text-based work. Her interest is based on incorporating other people's stories and experiences along with her own. Her subject matters revolve mainly around the people she meets that have a significant impact on her, as well as her idealism for the future. Her work focuses on the creation of metaphors and symbolism, and providing a space where people can find something to relate to.