Speaker:  

Theaster Gates 

Theaster Gates is an artist whose practice finds roots in conceptual formalism, sculpture, space theory, land art, and performance. Trained in urban planning and within the tradition of Japanese ceramics, Gates’s artistic philosophy is guided by the concepts of Shintoism, Buddhism and Animism—most notably honouring the “spirit within things.” Foundational to Gates’s practice is his custodianship and critical redeployment of culturally significant Black objects, archives, and spaces. Through the expansiveness of his approach as a thinker, maker, and builder, Gates extends the life and dignity of disappearing and bygone histories, places, traditions, and loved ones. 
Photo: Lyndon French. Courtesy of Theaster Gates Studio. 

Moderated by:  

Patrick Flores 

Patrick Flores is Chief Curator of National Gallery Singapore and concurrently Professor of Art Studies at the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines. He is the Director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. He was a Visiting Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1999. Among his publications are Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (1999); Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (2008); Art After War: 1948-1969 (2015); and Raymundo Albano: Texts (2017). He was a Guest Scholar of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2014. He was Artistic Director of the Singapore Biennale 2019 and Curator of the Taiwan exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2022. 

Lilian Chee 

Lilian Chee is Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Visual Cultures at the Department of Architecture in the National University of Singapore, where she co-leads the Research by Design Cluster, and serves as Assistant Dean at the College of Design and Engineering. Her work includes Architecture and Affect (2023), Art in Public Space (2022), and Remote Practices (2022); the documentary Objects for Thriving (2022) and the award-winning essay film 03-FLATS (2014). She leads the Social Sciences Research Council-funded Foundations for Home-based Work (2021-2024). She writes on affect, architectural representation, domesticity, and works creatively across the intersections of architecture and visual cultures. 

Sharon Chin 

Sharon Chin is an artist living in Port Dickson, Malaysia. Her work includes printmaking, illustration, installation and collaborative performance projects, and has been shown in Malaysia and around the world. She participated in the Singapore Biennale (2013, 2019), the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2015) and the Asian Art Biennial (2024). Her work is in the permanent collections of Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. In 2024, she was a recipient of the Prince Claus Mentorship Award for Cultural and Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis (CAREC) and the British Council Connections Through Culture Grant. Recently, she has been concerned with healing the relationship between humans, land and place, focusing on the intersection of art, ecology and community organising in Port Dickson. 

Henriette Vamberg 

As Managing Director in Copenhagen, Henriette leads a portfolio focused on city transformations. Henriette graduated from Jan Gehl’s Urban Design Department. His methodology and knowledge are deeply embedded in Henriette’s approach, which constantly evolves through the variety of projects that Gehl undertakes. A key part of the Gehl team since its founding in 2000, Henriette has worked across public and private sectors and led major projects that are canonical to the Gehl story, including Thrive Zones London, Sydney George Street, and City Strategy in New York. This work and a commitment to human-centred design have brought her to different destinations in Europe, the US, Russia, India, Australia, and New Zealand, extending the impact and reach of the company’s mission: making cities for people. 

Moderated by: 

Selene Yap 

Selene Yap is Curator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). Her recent projects include Simryn Gill & Charles Lim Yi Yong: The Sea is a Field (2024), Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger (2023) and the recently launched solo exhibition of Thai contemporary artist Pratchaya Phinthong, No Patents on Ideas (2024). Prior to her appointment at SAM, she held research positions at the Future Cities Laboratory and Singapore University of Technology and Design, and was also a programme manager for visual arts at The Substation, Singapore. 

Speakers:

Grégory Castéra 

Grégory Castéra works in the field of contemporary art at the intersection of curating, research, and institution development. He is currently Curator-at-large and Chief of “Learning from the Commons” at KANAL-Centre Pompidou (Brussels), Advisor for the Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht), Strategic and Program Advisor for Kerenidis Pepe (Paris, Athens, and Anafi), and a Founding Member of both AFIELD (Paris) and Celador (Brussels). Previously, Castéra served as Senior Advisor for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Paris and Lisbon), Co-Founder and Co-Director of Council (Paris), Guest Professor of collective practices at the Royal Institute of Art (Stockholm), and Co-director of Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. 

Sharmini Pereira 

Sharmini Pereira is Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka. She is the Founder and Director of the nonprofit publishing organisation, Raking Leaves, and Co-Founder of the Sri Lanka Archive of Contemporary Art, Architecture and Design. Pereira was part of the curatorial teams for the Dhaka Art Summit (2018), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011) and the Singapore Biennale (2006), among others. She was born in 1970 and currently lives and works in Sri Lanka. 

Hilde Teerlinck 

Hilde Teerlinck is CEO/Artistic Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation. From 1994 to 1999, she was Coordinator of the Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona. She moved to Perpignan, where she founded an art centre linked to the École de Beaux-arts. In 2002, she was appointed Director of the Center Rhénan d’Art Contemporain (CRAC Alsace) in Altkirch, and from 2006 to 2014, she was the Director of the FRAC (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain) Nord-Pas-de-Calais where she developed a new building with the architects Lacaton & Vassal. She has curated a large number of exhibitions worldwide and was part of the curatorial teams for the Beaufort Biennial (2016), Palais de Tokyo at the Lyon Biennale (2015), Triennale Kortrijk (2018-2024), amongst others. Recently, she was Curator for the Belgian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale with Francis Alÿs in 2022. She is an advisor and board member for several international museums and foundations.
Photo: Roberto Ruiz, 2024.  

Moderated by:  

Ong Puay Khim 

Ong Puay Khim is Director, Collection, Public Art & Programmes at Singapore Art Museum (SAM). At SAM, she has also curated exhibitions Lila: Unending Play by Jane Lee (2023) and CosmicWander: Expedition by Choy Ka Fai (2021). Ong was previously Deputy Director of Curatorial Programmes at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and had held curatorial positions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE and Osage Gallery, Hong Kong. She was part of the curatorial team of Escape Routes, Bangkok Art Biennale 2020 and Curator of the Southeast Asia Platform at Art Stage Singapore in 2015.