A Gathering of Tomorrow

A Gathering of Tomorrow presents imaginings of South and Southeast Asian futures. It draws from the potency of feminist writing, speculative fiction, mythology and Asian epistemologies in thinking about world-building and the post-human condition. 

In a sound installation that harnesses both analogue and digital technologies, ANTARMUKA explores the sonic systems of the Nusantara that sit outside of the equal temperament and diatonic scales of normalised Western music constructs. Chok Si Xuan probes the ever-evolving relationship between man and machine in kinetic sculptures that explore the materiality of synthetics like metals, silicone and polymers and the intimate ways they interface with the body. In a film set in a Nepali Yakthung nation, Subash Thebe Limbu lays out a vision for what he calls “Adivasi Futurism”, where interplanetary civilisations thrive by adopting indigenous knowledge and technology. Arabelle Zhuang seeks a future shaped by a reconnection to the cultural traditions and landscapes of Southeast Asia through an installation that merges weaving with photography and moving image.

The artworks are complemented by an olfactory imagining by perfumer Morgane Riou. The scent is inspired by the white flowers of Southeast Asia and their role in the sacred and the supernatural, intermingled with synthetic notes of the laboratory. 

Reckoning with our entanglement with colonial pasts, A Gathering of Tomorrow seeks to discover more expansive ways of thinking that holds equal space for Asian histories, cultures and practices.

The exhibition is curated by Gillian Daniel and Kristine Tan (proto projects) and supported by Starch and the National Arts Council.