PULAU SEBAKAU – A solo exhibition by GREEN ZENG

8-17 December 2023

Mon-Fri: 11am – 7pm

Sat-Sun: 11am – 8pm

PULAU SEBAKAU continues Green Zeng’s exploration into the topics of identity, history, absence and displacement through a postcard installation.The exhibition features an imagined narrative about a character called PB who was exiled to Pulau Sebakau, a fictitious southern island of Singapore. The 1960s-1970s saw rapid depopulation in the offshore islands of Singapore due to the socio-economic needs of the new and developing nation.Mirroring that, Sebakau would also succumb to the relentless march of progress and its inhabitants would be resettled to the mainland. While living on the island, PB encounters the indigenous communities who live along the coast and make their living traditionally by fishing. Reflecting onthe island’s landscape and the lives of its friendly inhabitants, PB would share these insights with his wife in a series of postcards. By so doing, he offers a moving portrait of a place and people who are facing the prospect of leaving their island home and the uncertainty of resettlement.Using old photographs from the personal collection of Teo Yen Teck, an islander from Pulau Seking(which no longer exists), Zeng allows these real images of a lost island to speak for themselves, while PB’s narrative runs on the other side of the postcard. Through this work, Zeng seeks to explore Foucault’s notion that “fictions are experiments in truth” and how fiction upholds ‘truth’ in that it allows us to imagine an “alternative interpretation of the present”

Opening event on 8 December 2023 from 6pm-8.30pmVenue: HEARTH by Art Outreach, 5 Lock Rd, #01-06, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933 If you would like to arrange a special viewing, please email: mirtillofilms@yahoo.com.sg

About the Artist:Green Zeng is a multi-disciplinary artist from Singapore. His art practice explores issues of historiography and identity, and examines how history is scripted, perceived and disseminated. His earlier work focused on alternative histories, student activism and the left, and the connection between the archives, the State and the individual. His recent work explores the connection between truth, power and resistance, and the role that an artist plays in truth-telling.In 2015, his debut feature film,The Return, made its international premiere in competition at the30th Venice International Film Critics’ Week. Zeng has exhibited widely in Singapore and abroad, in both solo and group exhibitions. In 2012, he was a Finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize inHong Kong. He won the Bronze Award in the 36th UOB Painting of the Year (Established ArtistCategory) in 2018. Recent exhibitions in 2021 include a solo show,Notes for the Future at ArtOutreach, Singapore and a group show, Recast at Starch, Singapore. In 2020, he was an artist-in-residence at the NTU Contemporary Art Singapore.