Ways of Not Seeing

Workshop (90 minutes), Sharing (30 minutes)
Drawing on the artist’s research on aphantasia (a blindness of the mind’s eye) this workshop is motivated by a curious desire to unpack clichéd notions of “wellness”, envisioning it beyond what we can most immediately sense. For example, is it realistic to expect “recovery” as a journey with clear beginning, middle, and end? In this workshop, participants are invited to explore, both individually and collectively, the ways in which process marks our lives. How can we come to terms with our unfinished stories and savour wellness as process and not outcome?
For the workshop, please bring a physical object that represents something “unfinished” or “still-in-the-process-of”. This can be an object, artefact, heirloom, printed photo, drawing, poster, ticket stub, receipt, luggage tag, and so on.

*The object you bring will be held by other participants during the workshop, so do bring something that you are comfortable for others to touch and handle.
** “Ways of Not Seeing: Aphantasia and its Affiliations” is the artist’s overarching research for the Calm Room Creative Residency at National Gallery Singapore. This workshop is part of a continuing collaboration with Janel Ang and Wong Hui Yu.
 

Presenter: Jevon Chandra

Jevon Chandra (b. 1991) is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher. Through time and context-bound installations and interventions, his works estimate the push and pull between notions of doubt and belief, as present in acts of love, hope, and faith. He is presently the inaugural artist-in-residence at National Gallery Singapore’s Calm Room program and co-lead of Brack, a Singapore-based socially-engaged arts collective.

As lead/co-lead artist, his projects have been presented at platforms such as National Gallery Singapore’s Gallery Children Biennale 2023, Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) (2022), Leipzig International Art Programme (Germany, 2022), Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) (2021), Singapore Art Week (2021), Fujinoyama Biennale (Japan, 2020), Incheon Art Platform (South Korea, 2019), Esplanade Flipside Festival (2019), Understanding Risk Conference 2019 (Chiang Mai), The Substation (2018), and OXO Tower Wharf (London, 2017).
As a collaborator in the performing and media arts, recent credits include multimedia and sound design for Between 5 Cows and the Deep Blue Sea… (2022) for Esplanade’s Kalaa Utsavam Festival, multimedia design for Kepaten Obor – Igniting a Weathered Torch (2022) for Esplanade’s Pesta Raya Festival, _ Can Change (2021) with The Necessary Stage, and (un)becoming (2021) at T:>Works’ N.O.W. Festival. Other sound design credits include An Impression (2021) with T.H.E. Dance Company, NO FLASH (2021), an audio-fiction podcast for National Gallery Singapore.