On display at Singapore Art Museum (SAM), "Time & The Tiger" is a captivating mid-career retrospective by renowned Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen. Ho is a visual artist, writer, theatre director and filmmaker whose practice challenges conventional hierarchies and people's understanding of the past.
The exhibition "Time & The Tiger" offers a glimpse into what inspires Ho's art: his fascination with how tigers migrated across Asia over time. With glacial shifts and rising sea levels over 2 million years, tigers went from roaming freely across Asia to near extinction today. Tigers symbolised power during Japan's invasion of Southeast and East Asia, and the Malay weretigers connected humans to ancestral memory. For Ho, time is a multi-dimensional matrix, shaped and reshaped by cultural, ecological and historical forces where the tiger serves as a powerful symbol of variability and complexities.
Taking over Galleries 1 and 2 at SAM, "Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & The Tiger" holds the largest collection of Ho's works to date, including The Cloud Of Unknowing (2011), The Name (2015-2017), The Nameless (2015), CDOSEA (2017), One Or Several Tigers (2017) and Hotel Aporia (2019). Additionally, the exhibition includes new artwork called T For Time, a two-channel video installation. It explores different and varied experiences of time.
Hotel Aporia (2019), situated in the centre of the exhibition, presents a video installation that features multiple rooms filled with video projections, shoji screens and tatami mats, simulating the interiors of a Japanese-style inn. The work features a cast of historical figures from Japan's interwar period including kamikaze pilots, philosophers of the Kyoto School, filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu and animator Ryuichi. The sound effects and video related to World War II can evoke a sense of what it was like during that period.
T For Time explores the concept of time through anecdotal stories, memories and timekeeping traditions from across Asia. It randomly re-sequences over its 60-minute duration, creating new patterns each time viewers watch it.
T For Time by Ho Tzu Nyen. Singapore Art Museum
CDOSEA (The Critical Dictionary Of Southeast Asia) consists of existing images, video clips and animations. The artist added a captivating voiceover sharing various stories and histories of Southeast Asia. The work is programmed by an algorithm that randomly sequences its files and makes the work different each time.
One Or Several Tigers (2017) is a video installation that traces the figure of the tiger as it appears across the different histories and mythologies of Southeast Asia; from the tiger that interrupted government superintendent G.D. Coleman's road survey in the jungles of Singapore to the weretigers in the Malay world, who inhabit the space between humans and animals and present and past. This work focuses on a strange hypnotic duet between G.D. Coleman and a tiger. At one point, it becomes unclear just who is singing which verse as the identities of the two seem to merge.
Life recently spoke with Ho Tzu Nyen at SAM where he talked about T For Time, Hotel Aporia and his interest in history.
Why are you particularly interested in tigers?
Studying tigers has always been an interesting way for me to learn about history. Tigers spread across Southeast Asia more than a million years ago even before Homo sapiens evolved. Following the path of tigers is a way to look at history through non-human eyes. Singapore used to be full of tigers, but after the British colonisation, they became extinct. If we follow the story of the tigers, it gives us a different perspective.
Why are you fascinated by history, and how does this fascination influence your work?
History is not something in the past. It is something that still exists in the present time. For example, there are some unfinished events from the past that are still ongoing in the present and may reoccur in the future. In a certain sense, history to me is like a ghost. A ghost is someone who has unfinished business in the world, and therefore, it may get stuck in the present or back in the future. That's how I think about history.
What inspired you to create Hotel Aporia?
Hotel Aporia is a conceptual piece where I invite different Japanese characters from World War II. I wanted to bring these characters or spirits back because in Japan, people cannot openly discuss the war for there are many taboo issues. As we can't discuss it, I feel that this is unfinished business. Therefore, I would like to use this work to bring back some kind of a dialogue.
Hotel Aporia (2019). Singapore Art Museum
Most of your work focuses on Southeast Asia. Why did you want to create something that relates to Japan?
The starting point for my other work The Critical Dictionary Of Southeast Asia asked: Why is Southeast Asia called Southeast Asia? We speak different languages and we have different religions, but why are we considered as one? Southeast Asia had never been unified until 1942 to 1945, which was the period of World War II. It was the only time when almost all of Southeast Asia, except Thailand, was ruled by Japan. The Japanese invasion is the only time when Southeast Asia literally became one.
I never thought of creating a work related only to Southeast Asia. I just work on things that interest me. After World War II, Japanese culture profoundly influenced all of Asia. Many Southeast Asians around my age have watched Japanese TV programmes, films, animations and listened to Japanese music, so I have a deep interest in Japanese culture and history.
Additionally, a group of philosophers called the Kyoto School tried to use Buddhism to deconstruct Western philosophy. They wanted to free the rest of Asia from Western imperialism and wanted Asia to be united. I also have interest in philosophy. That's why I started this series.
How did you come up with T For Time?
My true medium is time, not video. Creating video is one way to express time. That's why I wanted to look at and try to understand what time is. Moreover, my work deals with history. Whenever people think about the past, we make unspoken assumptions about time. Talking about history means you talk about the past and to refer to the past, you already have assumptions about what time really is.
An example was while researching Japanese imperialism during World War II, I discovered that after the Japanese military conquered Southeast Asia, they wanted to synchronise all of Southeast Asia time to Tokyo time. Controlling and unifying time is very often a sign of political power.
Many of your creations involve using technology. Are you planning to use AI for your upcoming work?
I think about it a lot, but I keep trying to resist working with AI. People create different types of works with AI, but there is something in the process that is very similar. I find that sometimes new technology makes people do the same thing rather than different things. At this moment, AI isn't truly intelligent because it operates by the data that it collects. Unfortunately, what is available on the internet is full of false facts and a lot of stupidities, so the AI cannot possibly be intelligent if it's learning from stupid data.
What is your expectation for this exhibition?
I learned that the secret to happiness is to expect nothing. I'm just happy to be able to bring these pieces of work together. This exhibition is a midcareer survey, so I have been thinking that this is a chapter in my life and what's next for me. This is a moment to sum up my artistic practice in hope that I will have new ideas and new adventures for the future.
"Time & The Tiger" runs at Singapore Art Museum, Gallery 1 & 2, at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore, until March 3. The admission fee for adult tourists and foreign residents is SGD$10 (262 baht) and $5 for overseas students/teachers/seniors (60 years and above). For more information, visit facebook.com/singaporeartmuseum.
CDOSEA (The Critical Dictionary Of Southeast Asia). Singapore Art Museum
One Or Several Tigers (2017). Singapore Art Museum
