Project Categories: Print

This print is an Hors Commerce edition of Still Building, a text work developed for the National Gallery Singapore’s National Day Light Up and projected onto the Gallery’s Padang Atrium Canopy between 24 July and 30 August 2020.

Still Building speaks to the ideals of the National Pledge, to the site (of the Padang, and of the former Supreme Court and City Hall which now houses the National Gallery) and to National Day itself. Its ‘prismatic’ form reminds us that the ongoing work towards justice and equality needs to include diverse voices and perspectives.

The work responds to Bumi Hangus (1987), a painting in the National Collection by artist Wong Hoy Cheong who in turn was inspired by W.S Rendra’s poem of the same title. We see the painting and the poem it references as a meditation on loss and sacrifice amidst the search for justice and belonging. Our work adapts Wong’s prismatic palette to reflect the facets and complexities of building a democratic society.

— Artist statement of Still Building (2020)

This work examines the notion of a pause – its nature, purpose and effect. Here, text and image relay a sense of rest as well as anticipation; a moment between ‘nothing is happening’ and ‘anything can’.

This set of photo and text prints examines the various distances and proximities we experience and navigate — from the physical, to metaphysical, to the emotional. Entwined in this sense-making is our reading of time, and how we perceive, and are shaped by its flow.