New Bahru Presents:
Now Now
New Bahru Presents: Now Now
What Time is Now?
What is a minute in a world that no longer knows how to wait? Or a year on an island with no seasons? How does Time move in a country whose evolution is a speed of blur—and where do we stash our memories in a city bent on erasing what was, to make way for the new?
Does time slow down with the soft tinkling of metal spoons in glass cups at an old kopitiam? Does it speed up with the flashing strobes of a nightclub and stand still at the end of an old corridor? Do we lose Time when we lose an object—like a person, a building or part of a forest? Can we physically bind Time to our wrists with a watch or cradle it in our phones?
Is our desire to hold time, the same desire to hold on to a feeling? What would it mean to stay in a single moment forever? Is that what youth is—a place where time stretches out infinitely like the ocean? How does one stop time, even for a split second?
The answer: a photograph.
Now Now is a series of 6 arresting photographic works of billboard stature and scale commissioned by New Bahru. Featuring 6 local artists that represent a zeitgeist of Singapore’s here and now, the works form a bold yet intimate tapestry of moments across this city fossilized by the camera. The intentional placement of each work piques a visual dialogue with specific structures of the old school building, transforming large walls into time portals that freeze-frame moments both real and imaginary.
Lavender Chang, Jovian Lim, KHOOGJ, Sean Lee, Akai Chew and Liu Liling
Curated by Dawn Ng
Artworks
Artist, Jovian Lim (b.1984)
Artwork, Waltzing In
↳ School Block Facade
-
Photographer Jovian Lim’s practice draws on the ephemeral beauty of commonplace matter. The subliminal beauty of his work, Waltzing in, poised atop the entrance facade of New Bahru, burns as bright as the sun in billowing hues of yellow ochre and amber that furl in a soft embrace. Few may realise what their eyes rise to meet, is an abstract portrait of Singapore’s national flora - a burst of orchids, which Lim captures in full bloom. Beyond object, what Lim holds up to the viewer, is a time capsule of the ever now - a kind of eternal summer, unique to this island we call home.
As an award-winning commercial photographer, Lim’s work is widely featured in Design Hotels, Wallpaper*, and Design Anthology, and is part of Singapore Art Museum’s collection. Lim continues to work on project commissions by Hermès, Marina Bay Sands, This Humid House, The Lo & Behold Group, and other leading spatial, luxury and design companies.
Artist, Sean Lee (b.1985)
Artwork, Young Love
↳ Factory Block Facade
-
Sean Lee’s portraits of people are rooted in his desire to explore human narratives through photography. Hoisted above the tallest parapet of New Bahru’s factory space, is Lee’s earnest portrait of a pair of young lovers locked in an embrace, at the edge of a similar balustrade. Freeze-framing their fleeting adolescence in black-and-white, is what Lee does with incredible sensitivity throughout his latest series, Young Love, which starkly captures youths in pairs across our island. His work speaks to the subject matter of time and a sweet longing for the people we once were.
To date, Lee’s salient photographs have shown at renowned institutions and festivals worldwide, including the Saatchi Gallery in London and the Chobi Mela Photo Festival in Bangladesh, and has been acquired by the Singapore Art Museum’s permanent collection. A recipient of the prestigious ICON de Martell Cordon Bleu Award (2011), Sean's first book, Shauna (2014) was added to the MoMA Library collection while his second book, Young Love, was published in 2022.
The Young Love book is available to purchase here.
Artist, Lavender Chang (b.1983)
Artwork, Eldest Daughter #6
↳ School Block L3, outside Studio Yono
-
Lavender Chang's practice of conceptual photography is a reflection of her sensitivity toward the subtle nuances of her environment. Centering on these experiences, Chang creates images that allow time to leave behind a residue of her mortality. Embedded at the end of a key passageway in New Bahru, Chang's work Eldest Daughter #6, depicts an arresting portrait of a young girl furled over a desk, with multiple outstretched hands that pin her head down. To Lavender, eldest daughters take on responsibilities once reserved for sons - such as financial support, while still handling household duties in today’s Chinese culture. This shift in societal expectations, reshapes a new gender dynamic that mounts palpable pressure onto young women, permeating image to reality.
Chang, a recipient of numerous awards, such as the President Design Award's Design of the Year 2015 and and France+ Singapore Photographic Art Award in 2016, has shown across key cities in China, Singapore, New York, and Yogyakarta. In 2018, her cinematography work for John Clang’s debut feature film, Their Remaining Journey, premiered at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam and garnered a nomination for the festival's Bright Future Award. In 2022, Chang’s solo gallery exhibition was invited to the Bandung Photography Triennale, while her debut feature film, Absent Smile, had its world premiere at the 2022 Singapore International Film Festival's Singapore Panorama section. In 2023, Chang exhibited a new series, Sheltered Dreams, commissioned by the Peranakan Museum, Singapore.
Artist, KHOOGJ (b.1985)
Artwork, Space between Giants
↳ School Block, Main Staircase (between L1 & L2)
-
Based in Singapore, Photographer Guo Jie Khoo’s practice explores how human experiences are interwoven with one’s environment. Using light and colour, his emotive images reveal how thoughts and feelings are shaped by the spaces we inhabit. Sprawled across the internal expanse of New Bahru’s central stairwell wall, lies Khoo’s haunting image of a sash of sunlight falling through the gap between an urban expressway, illuminating the dark, lush foliage beneath. Titled, Space Between Giants, the tenderness of this easily overlooked moment in the city, is fossilized by Khoo, who keeps the viewer in a state of suspension between light and shadow, life and stillness, radiance and secrecy.
Khoo’s rising influence as a photographer of spatial and narrative spaces, spans commissioned projects by Monocle Magazine, Wallpaper*, Swiss Confederation, IPLI architects, Capella to Studio Juju. His work continues to be featured in various design publications and his latest solo, Spaces Between Giants, opened in Geneva, Switzerland in 2022.
The archival print ‘Spaces Between Giants’ on SIHL 3315 is available for sale. Email to purchase.
Artist, Liu Liling (b.1993)
Artwork, Dying Blush
↳ School Block L2, outside School Hall
-
Beyond the camera, visual Artist Liu Liling uses her photographs as a starting point and medium, alongside her subtle manipulation of the printing process, to create abstract images. Liu’s exploration of durational and experiential aspects of photography and printing, are core to her process of repetition, erasure, and layered surface treatments, to arrive at a new picture plane. Sprawled across the adjacent wall to New Bahru’s iconic school hall is, Dying Blush, Liu’s image in the form of an expansive wallpaper, which draws on atmospheric hues she photographed at sunrise. Stripped, softened and blurred by Liu’s repeated printing process, one is confronted with a warm, incandescent horizon that seems to hover on the wall surface, forming a surreal landscape that holds the viewer’s gaze.
Liu graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, with a Bachelor's in Fine Arts. In 2024, she launched her first solo, ’After Light’ at Mizuma Gallery, Singapore, and participated in a residency with Onomichi City University / VILLA WASAKU, Onomichi, Japan.
Akai Chew (b.1987)
Artwork, When we were together
↳ School Block L1, outside San Shu Gong Chao Yue
-
With a background in architecture, Akai Chew’s photographic works are a confluence of urban memory, history and contentious landscapes. His visual art practice often involves site-specific, observation and research-based methodologies that culminate in thought-provoking installations, images and objects. Anchoring the main lobby wall of New Bahru is Chew’s photograph of a common public housing flat void deck, in which a mysterious paper balloon sails mid-air, as if tossed up by an invisible child. At once nostalgic yet dissonant, this image titled, When We Were Together, is a re-staging of his memory, highlighting the real and imaginary elements present in any memory.
Post graduation, Chew has participated in both solo and group shows across Perth, New Delhi and Bandung. Most recently, he was commissioned by the National Gallery Singapore for the Light to Night Festival 2022.
-
-
Dawn Ng, Curator / Artist (b.1982)
Dawn Ng is a multidisciplinary visual artist who works across a diverse range of mediums, motifs, and large-scale installations. Her practice investigates concepts of time, memory, nostalgia, and temporality. In her most significant and ongoing body of work, “Into Air,” Ng incorporates ice—the ultimate ephemeral material in the tropical climate of her native country—to articulate time’s shifts and nuances, through a series of paintings, films, photographic prints, light boxes, and performance. Often characterised by visual and emotive connections to landscape and geology, Ng’s work explores time’s transience through markmaking in a resplendence of color, texture, and detail. To date, the artist’s work has been collected and commissioned by international institutions and museums across Asia, Australia, and Europe.