Open studio with artist Chu Hao Pei
Friday 5 May 2017, 6:00-8:00pm
In English with Khmer translation
During an eight-week Pisaot residency with Sa Sa Art Projects, Chu Hao Pei has researched on nature conservation practices in Cambodia. He met with some activists, environmental protection organizations as well as Buddhist monk groups who work on various environmental conservation projects. In particular, Hao Pei is interested in the act of ordination — wrapping of monk’s robe — on trees as a religious and political gesture to save the forest, which has been practiced throughout Southeast and South Asia. Concerned with the confrontation and conflict between conservation and development, Hao Pei has explored with monk’s robe ordination and discussion on protecting the White Building’s community in light of the current residents-government negotiation on the building’s onsite redevelopment.
Hao Pei’s residency is made possible through shared funding initiative between the artist and the support from Foundation for Art Initiatives (FfAI).
About the artist
Chu Hao Pei (b.1990, Singapore) was formally trained in interactive media and began his practice under the School of Art, Design & Media (ADM) in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His artistic process is increasingly informed by the ecological, social and shifting urban landscapes in the society which led him to explore issues concerning the intervention of a state, culture and nature. The conflicts and tensions arising from these interventions direct him on a fact-finding journey, uncovering various aesthetic strategies in the process. More critically, Hao Pei’s works examine the loss, or potential loss, of nature and cultural heritage as a tactic to draw attention to wider issues of environmental and cultural loss.
Hao Pei was an artist-in-residence at NPE Art Residency, Singapore, 2016, and was a finalist for New Wave Art Awards, 2015. Group exhibitions include Co-Existence Art Exhibition, Living with Animals/Seeing with Animals (LwA/SwA) Conference, Eastern University of Kentucky, United States (2017); On the Stream - The Third Kunming Fine Arts Biennale 2016, Yunnan Fine Art Museum, Yunnan, China; Survey: Space, Sharing, Haunting, The Substation Gallery, Singapore (2016); Crossing Border | Border Crossing - International Festival of Cross Media, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Hong Kong (2016); and New Wave Art Expo, Venetian Macao, Macau (2015). More about Chu Hao Pei at http://dasismyportfolio.tumblr.com/
