Daguerréotypes

The inaugural exhibition of Neptune, titled “Daguerréotypes” after a 1976 film by Agnès Varda, features works by Heman Chong, Moe Satt, Trevor Yeung and Varda.

Daguerreotypes is about different rituals that people have in relation to common objects and places, and is an indirect response to the idiosyncratic singularity of many of the specialised small shops surrounding Neptune. These commercial units, often not more than a shop-window, each have their own politics of display and house diverse services and knowledge. From a Chinese doctor specialised in joint problems to a hardware store, from a domestic helpers agency to a diorama shop, every business is a micro-universe. They also represent a grassroots entrepreneurship that has resisted the wave of more homogeneous corporate shopping architectures.

The exhibition title is borrowed from a 1978 experimental anthropological film by the French feminist filmmaker, artist, and thinker Agnès Varda, who observed the shopkeepers on her street, Daguerre, named after the inventor of the silver print.