Independent Curator and Exhibition-Maker
By Nadya Wang

This essay was first published in CHECK-IN 2023, A&M’s third annual publication. Click here to read the digital copy in full, or to purchase a copy of the limited print edition.

How have curators made choices in the past year to develop their practices and collaborate with their communities? We speak with curator John Tung about highlight projects he has completed at home and abroad, and how the resumption of travel has generated new ideas and opportunities.

John Tung conducting a curator’s tour at The Museum is Dead. Image courtesy of OH! Open House.

Could you talk about your practice in the past year? How have you intentionally developed it?

In addition to the commissioned exhibitions that I curate for my clients, I endeavour to make time for a personal project each year. These projects often pertain to my own research interests of regionalism, ecology, cultural development, cultural policy, and post-colonialism.

That being said, my clients often give me ample room to explore these ideas in the exhibitions that I curate for them–a good example being the ‘For the House; Against the House (FTH;ATH)’ series that I am Associate Curator for with OH! Open House, and has run for three editions now. Both the 2022 edition, ‘Art Imitates Life’ and the 2023 edition, ‘The Museum is Dead’ take their cues from my earlier writings. The prior edition built on ideas abstracted from my MA Thesis, “Assessing the Effectiveness of Arts Led Cultural Development in Singapore“, and the recent edition drew from my essay ”Die Wunderkammer der schmutzigen Geheimnisse and the forward to Singapore Art Museum: An Index of Exhibitions 1994-2018”.

Tool trove at ‘The Museum is Dead’ at Tanglin Shopping Centre. Image courtesy of John Tung.

Having numerous opportunities to reconfigure my textual musings into exhibitionary explorations on the same theme is a rare privilege, and the support that I receive to develop exhibitions in this manner is strong encouragement to further my own independent curatorial research practice.

What were the highlight projects for you?

There have been quite a number this year! ‘The Museum is Dead’ that was presented at Tanglin Shopping Centre for SAW 2023 was well received in spite of its provocative title. I’m glad that it spurred audiences to think more about the functioning and necessity of museums not just in our contemporary circumstance, but the role it has played in human history.

In March, I was happy to be able to curate ‘New Futures’, a presentation of artworks by inmate-artists working behind bars in Changi Prison at the 66th session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna. I have been a long-time supporter of the cause, and I am glad to have been able to continuously contribute to the de-stigmatisation of ex-inmates in society, and the promotion of art as a healthy outlet for catharsis and self-expression.

What were the setbacks (if any), and how did you resolve them and move forward?

With commissioning artists to produce new works and presenting them in unconventional venues, there is often a large number of technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to realise the exhibition successfully. In this respect, I have grown accustomed to expecting the unexpected. That being said, I maintain a large collection of fittings, fasteners, and tools (a variety of drills, drivers, saws, pliers... you name it!) that go with me to every exhibition installation. This practice proved to be invaluable while installing ‘The Museum Is Dead’, as having the right tools for the job streamlined the very short timeframe we had to ready the exhibition in the mall. My tool arsenal seems to grow with every exhibition opening... but I like to think of it as a tangible manifestation of my exhibition-making knowledge growing!

At the same time, maintaining strong rapport with the range of service provider—such as designers, printers, framers, art handlers, and more—that we depend on is perhaps even more important. While we should endeavour to plan ahead and prepare failsafes, there will remain hiccups we cannot anticipate. There have been multiple occasions where if not for these collaborators going out of their way to give support, the exhibitions may have opened in catastrophic states! I’m of the mind that the Singapore arts and cultural landscape owes an inordinate debt to these individuals, and I strive to learn more from them and show them my appreciation.

“Maintaining strong rapport with the range of service provider—such as designers, printers, framers, art handlers, and more—that we depend on is perhaps even more important. ”

Travel has resumed. Could you speak about a show/project anywhere you’ve travelled that you particularly enjoyed in the past year? What was compelling about it?

The “personal project” that I had decided to undertake this year—rather than an exhibition—was to go on my first residency. Following an invitation by Valerie Portefaix (Principal and Co-Founder of MAP Office) to apply for her new residency initiative, Ma Umi Residencies, I reached out to fellow Singaporean artist Robert Zhao Renhui to join me for two weeks in May on Ishigaki, Okinawa to observe and study the mangrove ecology of the island.

Wading out to an island at the mouth of the Oura River with stakes for the setting up of wildlife surveillance cameras. Marine debris covers the otherwise picturesque coastline. Image courtesy of Robert Zhao Renhui.

Robert adjusts the settings on one of the cameras. At high tide, the estuarine island becomes almost completely submerged. Image courtesy of John Tung.

Utilising a range of wildlife surveillance cameras, both night vision and infra-red, we scoured the island with a focus on uncovering sites of human-nature interactions, especially in fringe areas where the mangrove forests intersected with human infrastructure.

Our findings revealed an exciting range of species, ranging native, migratory, and invasive fauna, a number of which the local communities had themselves not encountered on the island. With the numerous surveillance cameras that we had deployed over a 10-day period, we were also able to ascertain rudimentary patterns in which the animals traversed and interacted with the terrain.

However, my rationale behind attending the residency was twofold. Beyond an interest in the island’s ecology, I was aware that the Ryukyu Kingdom had played a vital role in maritime trade with Southeast Asia and China between the 14th and 18th centuries. This is a fact often omitted in discussions on the cultural imprint left behind on the region. Noting the mode of propagation that mangrove trees adopt, I was also keen to ascertain if the manner in which mangrove seeds were dispersed by the sea had any parallels with the routes undertaken during the Austronesian expansion commencing some 5,000 years ago. In this respect, the residency was an opportunity to further develop my ideas on regionalism that I had first foregrounded in my curatorial essay “Southeast Asia: The Geographic Question” for the Singapore Biennale 2019: Every Step in the Right Direction.

While this research is nowhere close to materialising yet, the residency provided me with a crucial opportunity to reflect and think more deeply about the range of ideas I plan to engage with, as well as a framework to take it forward.

How are you planning the coming year in terms of your projects and/ or travel and how might they intersect?

All I can say is that I always plan ahead, but never divulge my plans.

This essay was first published in CHECK-IN 2023, A&M’s third annual publication. Click here to read the digital copy in full, or to purchase a copy of the limited print edition.

Re-connect/Centre/Converge: The Arts Festival by The Substation

Founded in 1990 as Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre, The Substation presents a two-week arts festival titled ‘Re-connect/Centre/Converge’. In his curatorial statement, Festival Director John Tung shares that while there is a contemporary impulse to de-centralise art festivals, ‘Re-connect/Centre/Converge’ privileges accessibility by centralising its art programmes at Parklane Shopping Mall. The festival will feature a diverse line-up of exhibitions, performances and recitals. Audiences can also look forward to commissioned artworks by practitioners such as Adeline Kueh, Ezzam Rahman, Hong Shu-ying and Lai Yu Tong.

‘Re-connect/Centre/Converge: The Arts Festival by The Substation’ runs from 16 to 30 September 2023 at Level 8 Carpark, Parklane Shopping Mall, Singapore. Click here for more information.