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Today, travel has become an essential part of our lives. The sense of migration is no more the idea of settling and changing ways of life and environment from native to foreign. It is more like the stops in between, the stop between two journeys. This phenomenon questions our identity and the notion of belonging to one place and existence in between. The global context and the pressure to become part of the global system make our everyday needs mutate in order to satisfy the new desires and necessities. The “Migration Addicts” traveling exhibition started in Shanghai in April, 2005. |
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Migration Addicts, Singapore Stop – Curator Biljana Ciric
Today, travel has become an essential part of our lives. The sense of migration is no more the idea of settling and changing ways of life and environment from native to foreign. It is more like the stops in between, the stop between two journeys. This phenomenon questions our identity and the notion of belonging to one place and existence in between. The global context and the pressure to become part of the global system make our everyday needs mutate in order to satisfy the new desires and necessities.
The “Migration Addicts” traveling exhibition started in Shanghai in April, 2005. It started as an initiative by a few artists and I in response to the specific locality of ddm warehouse and the whole North Bund area. This area has become the field for new, overnight growing skyscrapers as a symbol of what is going on, not only in this specific part of Shanghai, but pretty much in the whole country, taking Shanghai as a model of success in economic development. Conflict between visual city effects, the city’s content, cultural values, social infrastructure and the city’s kitchness are the issues that these artists were/are faced with. Next stop, Sinagpore…
Cities in Asia are facing similar issues in the last decade. Rapid development and economic power are turning the cities into metropolises and losing their own independent critical standpoints towards the process of globalization. These Asian cities are usually taking Western models as a social structure to copy.
Wherever we go, the first impression that we get about the unknown country is its airport, the very first physical impression that cannot be replaced with the virtual worldwide-web experience.
The space in between, the space between the actual destinations where the laws in flux, where the physical borders are set, the airport is a symbol of this culture. Singapore is a tourist country with over eight million visitors per year. Singapore, historically, was a port between Europe and East Asia. Today it is one of the most connected cities in Asia in terms of air and sea. It has turned into a hotel country that attracts people from all over the world.
An airport, as an essential point of arrival and departure, could be taken as an island—the island where you feel free but each step you take, every procedure you follow, is according to strict laws. The metaphor of the airport could be taken as a symbol of the Singapore city-state island. The place with its own laws, traditions and standards. Its architecture, its services, facilities and clean environment, these characteristics can already tell you a lot about the place that you are about to step into. All that you need and desire can be satisfied: swimming pools, restaurants, hotels, shopping… everything that you can think of in between destinations, while you are waiting during layover time.
Airports are places with air conditioning, the same temperature and climate around the world. This led me to think of the environment in a museum. An air-conditioned atmosphere in a white cube. Both are isolated systems and share many similarities. The air-conditioned environment is artificial and safe; that’s why we feel comfortable in both spaces.
The airport in the exhibition could be seen as an island, city-state island. Singapore itself with its system of multi-religious island country in the global system, could be attached to the airport city, obsessed with order and clean white space. The island that we are talking about is not an isolated island but it’s the part of the global networking system of global cities and financial centers that questions existing values.
The exhibition in Sculpture Square has a long history. Its functions have been ever-changing according to the social conditions from the old chapel, to a Chinese restaurant and finally, to an art gallery. This venue will be seen as an island itself. The borderline. By transforming the space into an airport/cultural port, the exhibition will try to create a new relationship with the local community, creating new life and new ideas inside the exhibition.
