OVER MIDNIGHT HOTPOT, artist Ming Wong, curator Kenji Praepipatmongkol, and I pored over the hefty catalogue for Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2022, which earlier this month boasted a staggering 130-plus virtual and in-person events, the most in its decade-long history. This year’s off-kilter mascot blue googly eyes against a yellow background, reminiscent of the Cookie Monster was true to its slogan: “Art Takes Over.” The sheer volume of events seemed to suggest Singapore’s ravenous appetite for art.For the second year in a row, the Tanjong Pagar Distripark, a shipping-port/warehouse-turned-art-nucleus,
‘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.