Curator: Wang Jiang
Appointed Executive: Chen Lingjie (Xiao Qi Zu)
Project Coordinator: Gao Xiaowei (Mo Shang Experiment)
Joint Production: Mo Shang Experiment, Xiao Qi Zu
Exhibition opening:: 12 November 2016, 4pm
Exhibition duration: 12 – 25 November 2016
Organiser location: Mo Shang Experiment , 313 Qixingxi Street, 798 Art District, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
Mo Shang Experiment is proud to announce, in conjunction with Xiao Qi Zu, on 12th November 2016, we will be jointly introducing Singapore artist Anthony Chin’s first solo exhibition
Introduction to the exhibition:
The name Pacific Ocean originates from the Latin word “Mare Pacificum”, which means the peaceful ocean. However, beneath this calm water, due to its unique geographical structure, countries and its people in this region struggles over complex geopolitical issues. Singapore is one of the important island state on the Western Pacific region. In recent years, the country has caught the attention of the contemporary art world with its sudden surge in number of experimental and avant-garde artists – Anthony Chin is one of them. As part of Mo Shang Experiment independent art IAMPS project, jointly produced by Xiao Qi Zu, we present Anthony Chin’s first solo exhibition in China –
In our globalized world, new walls are forming due to xenophobic ideas & nationalistic protectionism. In this show, the artist Anthony Chin attempts to scale over these walls erected around us by presenting the works as gifts to the friends in Beijing and the works are based on two precious resources that Singapore does not posses. The tiny island state, struggles with a lack of natural resources and imports them for its survival and growth. As a resource, both water and sand is politicised and has seen its fair share of straining bilateral ties between the city state and the region. That sense of vulnerability due to the uncertainty surrounding the basic resources motivated the works.
The exhibition presents two pieces of work:
The first work deals with the subject of water and is titled: >H20 (Greater than H20). Originally, Singapore’s sole source of water supply was purchased from Malaysia. Malaysia’s officials’ thread of cutting water supply to Singaproe has cropped up through the years, especially when political differences and tensions surfaced. For example, Malaysia’s Information Minister Mr Mohamed Rahmat held out the threat of turning off waters supply to Singapore in 1998. Through technology, political will and determination, the tropical island state now relies on Malaysia for 30% of its water supply. The other 70% comes from massive rain collection infratstructure, renewing used water and sea water desalination – making a remarkable resource management achievement.Even with a reduction in realiance on Malaysia for water, Singapore’s Prime Minister recently warned that water levels in Malaysia’s Linggiu reservoir that supplies to the island state has depleted to an alarmingly low level.
The second piece of work deals with the subject of sand and is titled: The merchant. Singapore relies heavily on sand for it’s building of infrasturcture and public housing programs. United Nation Environment Program reported that Singapore is by far the largest importer of sand worldwide.With political tensions, legal sand import options are limited. In 2010, Singapore was accused of hurting Cambodia’s environment with its demands for sand, through illegal trade by smugglers. Global Withness, an international non-governmental organisation for the entironment, said Singapore’s failure “to mitigate the social and ecological cost of sand dredging represents hypocrisy on a grand scale.”Local fishermen, meanwhile, complain that their livelihoods have been destroved as fish stocks and crab harvests have plummeted since the dredging vessels arrived… Communities explained that they had not benefited from the sand dredging in any way.The Singapore authorities promptly issued a statement to deny the accusations. It said that the country is “commited to the protection of the global environment.” It claimed that “it does not condone the illegal export or smuggling of snad, or any extraction of sand that is in breach of the source country’s laws and rules on environmental protection.” Singapore government contineus to take the position that it has done what it can to adhere to interantional law and practices, and insists thtat is it’s the source countries which have the bigger responsibility that things are done legally.
About t artist：
Anthony Chin, contemporary artist, graduated from United Kingdom’s Royal College of Art and has been exploring the field of conceptual art. He is focused on issues that pertains humanity. He also seeks unique ways of crystalizing observations found in the highly complex flow of information around the world, learning widely from it to generate cross-platform and cross-media works. They range from public art, installation, sculpture, drawing, paintings etc. He works and lives in Singapore.
About curator
Wang Jiang. Independent curator & conceptual artist. Chief planner of Moshang Experiment. Planner of on space. His own clue of art centers around skepticism as a thinking tool, posing questions to art system by a variety of art media and forms, including curation criticism and art history criticism.
About MoShang Experiment
Located in 798 art district, MoShang Experiment is a non-profit experimental art space with independent exhibition area sponsored by MoShang gallery. It isresolved to protect the vanguardism and purity of contemporary art practice andencourage to explore new horizon of art definition. Moreover, by promoting global communication and cooperation between independent art spaces, itinitiates independent art projects matrix, encouraging, sponsoring andre commending promising artists and curators with independent and experimental spirits.
