Archaeology of the Present

Gajah Gallery presents “Archaeology of the Present“, an exhibition curated by Kamiliah Bahdar.
“Archaeology of the Present” is a largely object-oriented exhibition that brings together an assemblage of sculptures and sculptural objects, showcasing the wealth of materials used by artists today and how these materials are deployed to different artistic forms and visual languages on subjects varying from the personal to the iconic, and the quotidian to the historical.

Excavated from the collection of Gajah Gallery, this ambitious selection of work reflects a multiplicity of temporal ideas that conflict, vary and differ – an archaeology of the present that accepts the plurality of realities that co-exist and are entangled. Selected artists include Yunizar, Suzann Victor, Ashley Bickerton, Kumari Nahappan, Jason Lim, Handiwirman Saputra, Rudi Hendriatno, S. Nandagopal, Afdhal, Ugo Untoro and Yusra Martunus.

ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Kamiliah Bahdar is an independent curator living and working in Singapore. She graduated from Monash University, Australia in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) majoring in Anthropology. Her thesis explored the issues of identity politics and the politics of adat in post-Suharto Indonesia after the decentralisation policies implemented in 2001. Upon returning to Singapore, she participated in Curating Lab 2012, a programme organised by NUS Museum in partnership with National Arts Council to train young curators. The programme culminated in Objectum in January 2013, an exhibition she co-curated which explored the ambiguity of commonplace objects within museum collections. She joined the residency collective Bureau in Sculpture Square and mounted Oversight: Where is the Public? (2013) and OVERRIDE (2014), which were two exhibitions observing the relationship between people and sculptures in public spaces. She is currently pursuing a degree in Masters of Arts (Research) Spaces of the Curatorial at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).