STATION 13010 BY KIN CHUI [2020]
[21.01.2020 — 10.03.2020]
Station 13010 is an act of rebasing, a recoding of possibilities, via a different branch, of virtual memory, through the codes of ritual, icons and conduct. A post-dystopian speculation, whose point of origin is that of Null Island located in the Gulf of Guinea. An island that exists only in code, for the computational calculation of geographical positioning and orientation, the point of intersection between the meridian line and the equator, an unreal center, an everyday fiction.
Taking the form of a home temple informed by classical artistic and cultural practices within the region and their relation to community healing. A fictional proposition of possibilities, a techno-animist worlding of the entanglement between nature, the spiritual and technology, our geo-social relations, whilst rooted in their tension and realities of the Capitalo/Plantationo/Chthulu-cene.
The exhibition consists of three altars, each altar an imagining of a fictional deity that alludes to a method of organising, inspired by the work of Adrienne Maree Brown in Emergent Strategy and Donna Haraway. It takes a Shen-istic view of ‘minor’ beings and their entelechies.
Mycelium - Interconnectedness. Remediation. Detoxification.
Algae - Use similar principles to build at all scales.
Lichen - Collective Sustainability.
The exhibition serves as a fragment of a fractal, like an incantation, a spell to cast intent, to build upon. A play on symbiosis and syncretism, an opening for possession, by the histories, knowledges and objects of resistance.
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In a previous life, Kin Chui (b. 1984) found work in the camera and art department of independent film productions in Singapore. These days Kin aspires to be a cat, but occasionally masquerades as an artist, having been involved in a number of socially orientated art initiatives with an investment in emancipatory struggles.
He was part of a collaboration with the Tunisian collective Ahl Al Kahf in creating a communicative platform for individuals involved in the Sidi Bouzid Revolution in Tunisia, and co-organised the project Re-Emphasis, which consisted of a public installation and forum that addressed the subject of migrant and refugee rights within the EU for the cultural festival Wienwoche. He has shown works at exhibitions such as State of Motion, a site specific exhibition that retraces film histories of Singapore, as well as curating the exhibition, Fantasy Islands, that looks at the manifold relations between Batam and Singapore as part of the program of Singapore Art Week.
In the last years, he has been an active member of soft/WALL/studs, a self organised collaborative project that mobilises around acts of amplification, hosting, fugitivity, counter-rhythms, support, resource gathering, research, writing, pirating, game-making, collaboration, and maintenance.