In discussion with Haeju Kim

Curator Haeju Kim, 2024. Image courtesy of Robert Zhao Renhui.

Haeju Kim is a Senior Curator and Head of Residencies at Singapore Art Museum. Haeju has experience curating numerous contemporary art exhibitions and projects across various disciplines, with an emphasis on the body, time, and memory. Her work also engages with topics of ecological perspectives, migration, locality, and planetary connections. Most recently She co-curated Asia Art Biennial 2024: How to hold your breath, in Taichung, Taiwan and curated Seeing Forest (2024), which represented the Singapore Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She was the Artistic Director for Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the Rising Wave, and previously was the Deputy Director at Art Sonje Center 2017-2021. At Art Sonje Center, Haeju curated group exhibition Transposition (2021),  Dust, Clay, Stone (2020), The Island of the Colorblind (2019) and solo exhibitions of artists such as Koki Tanaka (2020) Hwayeon Nam (2020), Donghee Koo (2019) and Lee Kit (2019) among others. Other exhibitions curated by Kim include two solo exhibitions by Shitamichi Motoyuki and Manon de Boer at Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark in 2022, as well as Moving/Image, a three-chapter exhibition and performance programme that was presented at Seoul Art Space Mullae (2016), ARKO Art Center (2017) and Seoul Museum of Art (2020). Currently, she is serving as the guest curator for the Roppongi Crossing at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, which will open in December 2025, and is conducting a research project at Singapore Art Museum that explores artists' works by employing archiving as a method.

I had the pleasure and honor of asking Haeju about her curatorial philosophy, the challenges she has faced as a curator, what some of the most interesting artists in Everyday Practices are, and so much more.

UZOMAH: Could you walk us through your approach to researching and developing exhibition content, particularly in relation to Tehching Hsieh 's life's work?

HAEJU: In researching and developing the exhibition, we were drawn to how Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performance 1978–1979 challenges conventional ideas of art-making by collapsing the boundaries between art and life. In his work, time is both medium and subject—each day lived under strict conditions becomes a unit of meaning. This led us to explore how other artists across Asia similarly engage with everyday gestures, routines, or repetitions as acts of endurance, reflection, or resistance.

Rather than focusing solely on performance or durational practices, we adopted a broader perspective by looking at how artists use different approaches to trace the weight of time, the rhythms of daily life, and the significance embedded in ordinary acts. Hsieh’s work served less as a template than as a provocation: how might living itself become a practice of meaning-making? The exhibition builds from this inquiry, bringing together a range of voices that reflect how the personal and the social can converge through the language of the everyday.

U: What are some interesting artists in the exhibition that viewers should take note of when they come to the exhibition?

H: Everyday Practices brings together 19 artists and one collective from across Asia whose works respond in varied ways to the themes of “everyday,” “repetition,” and “endurance.” The exhibition highlights practices that explore the fundamental conditions of life and meaning, reflecting the richness and diversity of contemporary art in the region. Each artist brings a distinct voice, marked by a quiet intensity and innovative use of materials in their work.

Singaporean artist Guo-Liang Tan works primarily in painting, treating surface as a site for gesture, presence, and affect. In Peripheral Ritual I–III, he applies thinned paint to aeronautical fabric, producing translucent stains through bodily movements—tilting, shifting, turning. The resulting forms evoke bruised skin, drawing attention to the negotiation between body and material, as well as the quiet tension between control and chance. His work captures the physical and emotional traces left behind by repeated gestures, embodying the exhibition’s exploration of endurance through abstraction.

Burmese artist Htein Lin uses everyday items from his surroundings to convey powerful messages in his work Soap Blocked. The installation features hundreds of hand-carved soap blocks arranged to form a map of his home country, Myanmar, with red blocks marking the locations where political prisoners have been detained. On closer inspection, each soap block contains a small, hunched figure trapped within its rectangular frame. The work draws from Htein Lin’s own experience of imprisonment for political dissent and speaks to the shared helpnesses under military rule. It also demonstrates how art can become a tool to navigate hardship and an act of resistance.

Lastly, Thai artist Imhathai Suwattanasilp’s The Flower Field stands out for its deeply personal and tactile approach. Using human hair donated by cancer patients, survivors, and supporters, the artist weaves thousands of delicate “flowers” in memory of her father. Presented on a lightbox the size of a bed, the work invites reflection on illness, caregiving, and loss, while also offering a tender vision of hope and renewal. Her use of hair, a material laden with intimacy and memory, imbues the work with both fragility and strength, embodying the resilience at the heart of the exhibition.

U: What are some of the unique challenges you faced in curating an exhibition like Everyday Practices? How did you navigate these challenges?

H: One of the considerations in curating Everyday Practices was bringing together works by a diverse range of artists from different countries, generations, and media, while maintaining a cohesive narrative around the themes of the “everyday”, “repetition”, and “endurance”.

Each artist approaches these ideas from distinct cultural, social and personal perspectives, so it was important to create those connections through the curatorial framework between the works without oversimplifying or forcing them into rigid categories. Rather than dividing the exhibition into separate sections, we focused on crafting a fluid experience where visual and conceptual resonances could emerge naturally, allowing visitors to explore the layered meanings of everyday acts across varied contexts.

We embraced an open, collaborative curatorial process that involved in-depth research of the different artistic practices. This helped us understand the nuances behind each work and ensured that the exhibition honoured their intentions. Ultimately, this presented an opportunity to highlight how individual narratives, when woven together thoughtfully, can tell a richer and more complex story about the power of the everyday.

U: How was your experience working with another curator? Was this your first time working with another curator?

H: Although most of the exhibitions I have curated so far have been solo projects, this is not my first co-curated exhibition. Co-curation offers the advantage of having a counterpart for dialogue and exchange throughout the development of the exhibition. It allows for the project to be shaped through complementary perspectives and experiences, and facilitates the division of tasks during the exhibition process. Most of the projects I currently do at SAM, as well as those carried out externally, are also developed through co-curation. I believe co-curation is becoming increasingly common in the field of contemporary art, where collaboration and solidarity are gaining emphasis.

U: What made you want to work on this exhibition? Can you discuss some of the highlights of working on it and why?

H: Needless to say, one of the core roles of a museum is to build and activate its collection. When I was in Korea, I co-translated Claire Bishop’s Radical Museology, a book that emphasizes the importance of constructing exhibition narratives by treating the collection as a form of public resource and finding ways to share it. In other words, the most radical approach in museology begins with how we engage with the most fundamental resource—the collection. Through the process of translating the book, I came to deeply understand the significance of collections and collection-based exhibitions. Until now, I have had few opportunities to curate exhibitions based on a collection, so it was especially meaningful for my first exhibition at SAM to be a collection-based one. It offered a valuable opportunity to study and better understand SAM’s collection. Moreover, it was the first collection exhibition held at SAM’s new Tanjong Pagar site, which added further significance.

U: Throughout your career as a curator, what is one of the most challenging tasks you have had to overcome? How did you overcome the task? What did you learn from the experience?

H: One of the challenges—and also the most interesting aspects—of curating exhibitions is that no two projects are ever the same. There has never been a project without its own set of challenges, and each time, it requires adapting to new situations, people, and contexts. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to remain patient and not become worn out in the process. It reminds me of the idea of ‘endurance’ as discussed in Everyday Practices.

U: How would you describe your curatorial philosophy?

H: Curatorial work can take many forms, but when it comes to exhibitions, I see them as acts of articulation. Each exhibition carries a message, and I always ask why that message matters—here and now. I value this opportunity to speak, and I need to be fully convinced of its necessity.

I’m not interested in saying things that are incidental or unnecessary. I want exhibitions to express what truly needs to be said—and if possible, what has not yet been said but must be. This requires a clear understanding of context: what needs to be heard, and what has been left out.

No curatorial work is possible without artists and their works. It’s essential to appreciate the work, understand the artists, and support what they require.

U: How do you balance the need for a unique and fresh perspective with the preservation of the historical aspect of an exhibition?

H: As mentioned earlier, if an exhibition is a message, an act of voicing, then whether it should speak loudly, softly, sing, or protest must be determined by its background. Each exhibition calls for a different approach. Even when an exhibition aims to preserve historical context, I still see it as a temporal and ephemeral medium—an experience that disappears once the exhibition ends. While a unique and fresh perspective can be conveyed through the textual narratives an exhibition proposes, I believe it is often shaped by the nature of the visual and spatial experience itself. So, when seeking balance, I focus on imagining how the audience might experience and feel the exhibition, hoping it fosters affective understanding that continues to resonate with them — remaining in their memory even after the exhibition has disappeared.

For more information about the exhibition and other exhibitions at SAM, please visit their site here.