A Place with No Sand by Genevieve Ang

Genevieve Ang presents four newly created works in the exhibition A Place with No Sand, part of a developing project of her practice, and a space she currently shares with Shireen Marican to expand conversation and ideas.

Powered by Genevieve’s interest in unveiling invisible structures, architecture and technologies that underpins material culture; and harmonised with Shireen’s curiosity in the relationships within ecological systems to reveal how human communities can do better for the future, this exhibition is a visual study of glass transformation and a deeper exploration into the ecological relationships of materials with the natural world.

Environments have been largely altered by extractive and destructive human-made practices over time, yet natural materials within ecological systems can sense, adapt and learn, willed by their desire to thrive. However, there is still little motivation for humankind to strengthen their relationship with materials and take part in this resilient and transformative system, taking reference from the rate in which extractive practices continue to prevail.

When philosopher and writer Bayo Akomolafe was recently proposed by a group campaigning for a new definition of the word ‘nature’, he offered his interpretation: “A theoretical, economic, political, and theological designation from the Enlightenment era that attempts to name the material world of trees, ecologies, animals, and the general features and products of earth as separate from humans and human society, large in a bid to position humans as masters over material forces, independent and capable of transforming the world for their exclusive ends.”

Like Bayo’s interpretation, the exhibition is a proposition to reconsider the distinction between human and nature; the hierarchy between concept and making, humanity’s relationship with materials and their ecological systems.

The thematic incursions in this exhibition, inspired in part by the discoveries from Genevieve’s experiments to generate desired material outcomes, are

explored through the lenses of glass transformation to provide some knowledge production and offer hope and imagination for material futures within the landscape of A Place with No Sand.

This exhibition is supported by Art Outreach Singapore’s HEARTH Patron’s programme.

Artist Bio:

Genevieve ANG is an artist and designer interested in investigating our

complex relationship with materials and the resulting ecological implications

of our interactions. She seeks to engage with the diverse uses of different

materials through experimentation and to untangle the intricate processes

through research, translating the outputs into sculptures, visual images, and

installations that bring together craft, technology, nature, and people.

Immersed in both art and design, she was funded by DesignSingapore

under the Good Design Research Grant to experiment on how glass waste

can be transformed into glazes. Additionally, she has exhibited internationally

in art and design showcases such as Art Jakarta, SEA

Shireen MARICAN is a cultural manager, systems thinker and educator

motivated to advance the engagement of culture with people, institutions and

organisations for a just and equitable environment and society. She engages

deeply with community and contemporary discourses for projects and

research to co-create strategy and practice across diverse stakeholders

through her work as a Consultant with Desire Lines and an Adjunct Lecturer

with LASALLE College of the Arts. Passionate about weaving intercultural

and interdisciplinary perspectives, and building resilience towards global

critical and social issues, Shireen has also been awarded the Platform

Curatorial Projects Award in 2019 by NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts, an

affiliation of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and was a

recipient of the Teman Warisan (Cultural Heritage Ambassador) award in

2022 by the Malay Heritage Foundation.