The artist Charles Lim will represent Singapore at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. SEA STATE, curated by Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, is a project in nine parts, initiated in 2005 by the artist with the premise of inverting perceptions of sea and land on the island of Singapore. In Venice visitors will see the culmination of Lim’s project.
SEA STATE explores the biophysical, political and psychic contours of the Southeast Asian city-state, through the visible and invisible lenses of the sea. The project’s structure is inspired by the World Meteorological Organization’s code for measuring sea conditions, which numbers the varying states ranging from calm, to moderate, to the phenomenal.
Charles Lim’s practice stems from an intimate engagement with the natural world, mediated and informed by field research and experimentation, performance, drawing, photography and video. His works make visible a dynamic coastal ecology, showing how the infrastructures of global capitalism do not replace the maritime environment, but inhabit and transform it. In an era of rapid global exchange, the complex, transnational spaces of the sea play host to a dynamic interplay between nature and culture, framing many of the key challenges and anxieties of our time.
Singapore Pavilion
SEA STATE
9 May – 22 November 2015
Pavilion at Arsenale, Sale d’Armi
Artist: Charles Lim
Curator: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa
www.seastate.sg
Image Credits:
SEA STATE: phase 1 (production still), 2014, Charles Lim
Courtesy of the artist and Future Perfect, Singapore
