In discussion with Joella Kiu

image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Joella Kiu is Curator at Singapore Art Museum. She studies how artists employ the visual, textual, counter-cartographic, speculative and mythological to communicate urgent ecological conditions and contemporary lived realities. Some of her recent curatorial projects include ‘SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds’ (2025), 'Lost & Found: Embodied Archive' (2024), 'Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey' (2024) and 'Lonely Vectors' (2022) at the Singapore Art Museum, and 'to gather: The Architecture of Relationships' (2021) at the Singapore Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Her writing has been published in AAA Like A Fever, Field Journal, The February Journal and PR&TA. Forthcoming written contributions include a chapter within Tastes of Justice: The Aesthetics and Politics of Food-Art Practices in Asia and Australia (Routledge, 2025). She holds an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art (2017), and a BA in History of Art from the University of York (2015).

I had the pleasure of asking how she applied her curatorial philosophy to this exhibition. What does the role of a curator mean to her on a personal level, how does this personal connection influence your approach to curating an exhibition and so much more.

UZOMAH: Please tell more about the significance of SAM Contemporaries as an initiative, and what it seeks to achieve.

JOELLA: SAM Contemporaries is one of the museum’s key commissioning platforms and reflects our commitment to supporting emerging practices and generative trends in Singapore art. What sets this initiative apart is its focus on the artistic process rather than just finished outcomes. It gives artists the resources, space and curatorial support to develop ideas that are still evolving, sometimes even experimental or not fully formed. The artists and curators remain in dialogue with one another over an extended period leading up to the exhibition, allowing for expanded discussion, research and material experimentation.

In addition, the artists are not asked to respond to a brief or to make work in relation to an overarching theme. Instead, they are given complete freedom to shape their work however they want to. In that sense, SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds is a celebration of these six artists and the creative impulse that drives all their practices.

U: SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds features six new works by six artists. Could you tell us more about NEO_ARTEFACTS’s Secrets, Sweat and Sand? What was it like working with the artist and Angelica? Take us through the process of initial discussions with the artist to the final presentation of the work at SAM.

J: Secrets, Sweat and Sand is drawn from NEO_ARTEFACTS’s, or Fazleen Karlan’s, long-term interest in archaeology—both as a scholarly pursuit and as a visual vocabulary.

Secrets, Sweat and Sand is set within a darkened room. The lighting in the room is warm-toned and focused. It draws your attention to a large, central structure. The structure is circular, and it is covered in sand. Set within the circular structure is a digging pit with multi-coloured gem-like artefacts that look like they’ve just been uncovered from the earth. This marks our introduction to Gunong Perandaian, the site within which this installation is located.

Whilst many elements in the installation look consistent with what we might expect to find in an actual archaeological work site, there are artefacts within the work that are drawn from pop culture. In our discussions with Fazleen, she often brought up the dissonance between the slow, methodological labour required of real-life archaeological digs and the way in which such pursuits were glamourised in movies.

We knew quite early on that this work would be quite pivotal for Fazleen. For one, she decided to begin operating under the artist moniker of NEO_ARTEFACTS instead. This marks her intention to begin working more collaboratively and collectively. The scale and variety of materials within Secrets, Sweat and Sand also points towards Fazleen’s ambitions for this work.

It's always a deep privilege to work alongside artists and to bear witness to the ways in which their practices developed. Fazleen’s attention to detail was unparalleled, and she was meticulous with her planning. She had a very clear idea of the work she wanted to make for SAM Contemporaries from the very beginning, so Angelica and I simply had the joy of being interlocutors, co-navigators and companions on this journey.

U: What have been some of the benefits of working in a pair alongside another curator on this exhibition?

J: Each artist in SAM Contemporaries works with at least two curators from SAM. We had hoped to create a constellation of working relationships, such that each pairing did not feel like they were working in a silo. In doing so, we also hope that the conversations between artists and curators were enriched by this three-way exchange. The curators were also able to observe and learn from one another, which made for a valuable experience all round.

U: What do you consider to be the most crucial aspect of a curator's role in planning and executing an exhibition? How does this role contribute to the overall success of the exhibition?

J: I would say that this really differs from exhibition to exhibition. In the immediate context of this edition of SAM Contemporaries, there was much work that had to be done around aligning expectations, ensuring timely communication and access to materials or fabricators. This was because all the works were being commissioned and made specifically for the exhibition. By keeping on top of these tasks, we hope that it allows the artist to focus on their artmaking and on realising their ideas.

U: How do you measure an exhibition’s success?

J: A successful exhibition operates on multiple levels. We work with artists to present their works in a sensitive manner, and share this with public audiences who might come into the museum, exhibition and artworks with different entry points. A successful exhibition might function quite similarly to a conversation over a cup of tea. It is the work of the institution to create the space and environment such that the artist’s intentions might sit meaningfully and engage with various visitors. Within these exhibitions, a hopeful invitation is extended both ways—to the artist and the viewer—to meet at the table, to linger and to perhaps reflect on our ways of seeing.

U: What do you think should be the relationship between art and activism in the current age of politics today? Does art still have a say, or should the two be separate, or can they?

J: Art that is concerned with the conditions of our contemporary moment necessarily is self-reflective, curious and at times, critical. As you rightfully point out, there is a relationship between this and political action. For example, many artists do also serve as activists in their own community. At the same time, the language that makes a distinction between the words “art” and “activism” is precise—there are certain nuances to each endeavour that the other is unable to encompass. Not all art should be read through the lens of activism, and not all activists might think of themselves as artists. Art does have the power to unsettle, to disturb and to vex the powerful—often through quiet defiance and refusal. Through a careful consideration of visual language, it allows us to come face to face with depictions of systems of power. Activism, through direct action, plays an integral role in uplifting the voice of communities or entities at the margin. In my mind, art and activism might be better understood as siblings, not twins—much like eyebrows!

U: How did you apply your curatorial philosophy to this exhibition?

J: Curatorial work has always been a difficult thing to define, but I believe my practice has been marked by an interest in expansiveness—both in the sense of working with artists who have multifarious practices and in relation to employing curatorial formats that upend the conventional white cube. For SAM Contemporaries, I think this came to life most through my relationships with the artists that I have worked with – NEO_ARTEFACTS and Chu Hao Pei. With both artists, we spent a long time thinking not just of the work itself but of ways in which we could create a web of understanding around it. This meant thinking early on about how we would write about the work, how we would explicate the context within which it was made, and how we could immerse visitors in the worlds the respective artists have made through programmes or activations.

U: What does the role of a curator mean to you on a personal level? How does this personal connection influence your approach to curating an exhibition?

J: My life has taken many twists and turns since I started working as a curator, and I now find myself questioning and exploring intensely what it means to make, to act and to be in community in the face of both immense crisis and deep joy.

In each new and completely unknowable season of my life, I have found curatorial work to be a wellspring. It has offered me new strategies of breathing, sensing, testing, mobilising and doing in conversation with others—these are, to me, the existential possibilities and propositions that exhibition making offers. To me, artmaking and inevitably, curating, occurs within one’s life and not outside of, or divorced from it.

U: If you could elaborate on one exhibition that you would use as an example of your curating skills, which one would it be and why?

J: I’ve been working on a long-term curatorial project alongside two other colleagues here at SAM, Haeju Kim and Hsu Fang-tze. Titled Lost & Found, we’re interested in expanded notions of the archive and the archival gesture. We’ve produced two iterations of this curatorial project so far, Sea Chanty Project and Embodied Archive. With each iteration, we’ve pushed conventional understandings of what exhibition making should be or look like (spatial, definitive, and finite).

We have more up our sleeves for 2026, and I’m excited for what it will reveal of our collaborative efforts and where it also will push each of us curatorially.

For more information about the SAM Contemporaries: How to Dream Worlds exhibition and other events at the museum, please visit the site here. SAM can be found on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.