‘SafeEntry, a national digital check-in system that collects personal data for contact tracing, has become a metonym for Singapore’s efficient management of the COVID-19 pandemic,’ observes Wong Bing Hao in their review of Heman Chong’s solo exhibition at STPI.
Safe Entry (Version 2.0 – 2.7) (2020), a suite of eight, near-identical paintings of QR codes on flesh-coloured backgrounds, opens the show. Upon scanning, viewers are directed to a point-of-view video of Chong walking through Singapore’s Changi Airport during the government’s stay-at-home order. The desolate travel hub is at odds with the city’s utopic self-image, feeding the artist’s ongoing inquiry into systems of power.