Holding Space Between Lands

Exhibition view of Between Lands: Migration as Transformation | Image by Naoko Kaneda. 

In an article for Plural Art Magazine, Syakirah Aqilah writes about the the exhibition Between Lands: Migration as Transformation, held at the Goethe-Institut Singapore.

How do we listen to, read, and witness migrant voices, and empathise better with them? Migration may be a bureaucratic process, but the process is also at once deeply personal, potentially painful, and often a vehicle of collective trauma. 

At the exhibition Between Lands: Migration as Transformation, held at the Goethe-Institut Singapore in early October, seven Southeast Asian artists sought to answer this question through the deeply personal works that they created in response to this fraught experience. 

Each wall in the exhibition’s tight space was lined with artworks that teemed with stories — memories from Bui Cong Khanh, Justin Loke, Jakkai Siributr, Jason Lim, Yadanar Win, Nge Lay, and Aung Ko. These artists tussled with their personal histories within our region and beyond, exploring the themes of trauma, displacement, natural decay, and embodied memory.