Singapore Biennale returns with broader focus – and a scandalous name

WHAT’S in a name? Far too much, judging by the ground response to the Singapore Biennale 2022 (SB2022) officially calling itself “Natasha” instead of going with the usual title or theme. “Natasha” has Slavic origins and was popularised by a character in the Russian novel War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy.  Tongues have been wagging since the announcement was made 4 months ago, with art lovers calling the name “inappropriate” and “insensitive” in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As recent as the press conference on Jul 27, journalists were still questioning the logic behind the name.

But the 4 co-artistic directors – June Yap, Nida Ghouse, Ala Younis and Binna Choi, all born and raised in different countries – stood by their decision, saying that “Natasha” has become a very popular name across the world, and taken on other cultural meanings and connotations independent of its Slavic origins.

“We came up with the name ‘Natasha’ because we all knew someone by that name in different countries. So to cancel out ‘Natasha’, one would also be cancelling out these other cultural contexts,” says Younis, who was born in Kuwait but has lived in various parts of the Middle East.

“Giving it a name lets one see the Biennale as a person instead of an event,” says Singapore-born Yap. “It creates a familiarity and intimacy, so the audience can have a long-running conversation with the Biennale, instead of seeing it as simply a presentation of artworks. This level of intimacy, I think, is what makes this edition of Singapore Biennale different from the 6 past editions.”

Into the woods

If art lovers can accept the logic, then there is much fun to be had with Natasha. The country’s biggest contemporary art exhibition will take place across several locations, including Singapore Art Museum in Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Yan Kit Playfield in Tanjong Pagar, and the southern islands of Singapore (Lazarus Island, St John’s Island, Sentosa Cove). At the opposite edges of the country, the regional libraries of Woodlands, Jurong and Tampines will also be home to some artworks.

At press time, Natasha has invited over 50 artists of approximately 25 nationalities whose practices aren’t necessarily concerned with the visual. The Singapore artists include Heman Chong, Zarina Muhammad, Berny Tan, ila and Ong Kian Peng. But famous playwrights Alfian Sa’at and Tan Tarn How have also been invited to create works of fiction. Meanwhile, Natasha’s list of international luminaries include Malaysia’s Shooshie Sulaiman, France’s Philippe Parreno, Thailand’s Rirkrit Tiravanija and South Korea’s Haegue Yang.

Indeed, the artist list of SB2002 feels much more global than that of some previous editions, in part because the 4 co-ADs have, between them, spent significant amounts of time in countries such as Germany, India, Jordan, South Korea, the Netherlands and, of course, Singapore. Choi, for instance, comes from South Korea, but has since 2008 helmed the Casco Art Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She says: “I’m not shy in saying that our curatorial approach is quite artistic… We are looking at all that we have unlearned and learned from past decades of contemporary art development, from conceptual art to relational aesthetics – and we’re extending that.”

Asked to pick artists from the 50 whom they wished to highlight, Younis picked Samia Halaby, an 86-year-old female Palestinian artist who became the first full-time female associate professor at the Yale School of Art in the 1970s. Her pioneering work includes kinetic paintings produced in the 1980s by writing codes into her personal computer. 

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Ghouse picked Kiran Kumar, an Indian artist, researcher and dancer who will be looking at the life of computer scientist Alan Turing (1912–1954) through speculative fiction and imagining how Turing might have lived had his parents remained in India.

Yap singled out young Norwegian artist Elina Waage Mikalsen who uses primarily her body to create exceptional sound, video, performance, installation and text-based works. Choi championed Joo Jae-hwan, a crucial 82-year-old Korean figure who led the Minjung Art Movement (or the People’s Art Movement) in the 1980s in response to the Gwangju Massacre directed by dictator-general Chun Doo-hwan.

The 7th Singapore Biennale 2022 runs from Oct 16, 2022 to Mar 19, 2023. For more information, visit singaporebiennale.org.