Art that transcends borders

Navin Rawanchaikul (Thailand)

Places of Rebirth, 2009; acrylic on canvas, 220cm x 720 cm

Navin Rawanchaikul is a born-and-bred Thai, but his surname was originally Rawal - a North Indian name. During the violent 1947 partition of South Asia, his family was forced to seek refuge in Thailand, eventually settling in Chiang Mai.

His massive 7m-long painting - one of the most brilliant works at the exhibition - is executed in the style of Bollywood movie posters, as it imagines an epic tale of his family's migration from South Asia to South-east Asia.

Rawanchaikul's take on it brims with glee and humour - a stark contrast to the actual event that was marked by the grief and suffering of his family. At the centre of the painting is an image of his family packed in a car, as dancers and musicians fete their departure. In another part of the painting, a Sikh Indian officer is hugging a Pakistani officer, in a gesture of conciliation. The work reimagines personal and political histories and questions the necessity of borders and national identities.

Tang Da Wu (Singapore)

Our Children, 2012, galvanized steel, glass, and milk

Tang Da Wu is one of Singapore's most revered contemporary artists. As the founder of the Artist Village in 1988, Singapore's first artist colony, he has long urged local practitioners to explore radical new ways and ideologies in making art.

His sleek, steel sculpture Our Children is inspired by a story in Teochew opera in which a boy experiences illumination after seeing a young goat bending its knees to suckle its mother. The boy interpreted the image as one of filial piety and respect towards elders. If goats can demonstrate respect, surely humans can do it too - and do it better.

Tang recasts the image of the goat and its mother in the form of a three-part sculpture. The goats are represented by table-like steel structures with bent legs, while a bottle of milk sits atop the larger table as a further reference to the Chinese fable. The structures also resemble Chinese characters with their thin lines and angles.

Sopheap Pich (Cambodia)

Morning Glory, 2011, Rattan, bamboo, wire, plywood, and steel, 533.4 x 261.6 x 188 cm

Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich is a favourite among top Asian art collectors. His elegant rattan sculptures are typically suffused with political and historical meaning, even though they appear calm and reticent on the surface. His Morning Glory is easily one of the most satisfying works of the exhibition, a large and beautiful rattan sculpture in the shape of the morning glory flower. But like most of Pich's sculptures, the back story is a painful one.

Pich, now 42, was a very young boy when the brutal Khmer Rouge terrorised the country from 1975 to 1979. As food was scarce, many families had to eat morning glory stalks for sustenance.

Pich's monumental sculpture of the ubiquitous weed is a poignant symbol of and tribute to the suffering and resilience of the Cambodian people.

Poklong Anading (The Philippines)

Counter Acts (2004, Chromogenic transparency in a four-part lightbox, 228.6 x 121.9 x 12.7 cm each)

Poklong Anading's Counter Acts is the first in his series of photographs taken in different cities he visits. He typically asks strangers to hold up mirrors in front of themselves while he shoots them. The act of highlighting a subject through photographing that subject is instantly corrupted. The subject becomes impossible to see while his surroundings remain clear. By this simple act, Anading perverts photography's claim to capture and illuminate.

Indeed, Anading's conceptually challenging works have made him someone to watch in Asian art. For his solo show at Art Fair Philippines in February, he found shoddily-made wooden workstations at construction sites and coated them with gleaming stainless steel. Transforming the dull makeshift object into a shiny durable one, he pays unlikely homage to the modest and forgotten symbol of urban development. Anading's star is certainly on the rise.