Part of the ongoing TRACE series featuring Singapore image-makers.

meta- [comb. form] – a change of position or condition;
-graphy [comb. form] – a technique of producing images.

META-GRAPHY is a photographic exhibition curated by Urich Lau, featuring works by members of The Artists Village whose art practices come from diverse disciplines. The artists use only photography in their work that deal with contexts in urbanization, the shifts between reality and fiction and technological experimentation.

Photography requires immediacy and contemplation at the same time, it is both reactionary and relational, it captures both triviality and the solemn. This exhibition looks at photography in a contemporary diversification of expressions, recordings, information, and nuances.

The Artists Village (TAV) is a contemporary art group in Singapore. Founded by contemporary artist Tang Da Wu in 1988 at 61-B Lorong Gambas in Sembawang. He enabled like-minded contemporary artists to critically re-look and examine existing assumptions, values and concepts of art making in Singapore. The Artists Village was Singapore’s first artist colony, which enables artists to explore radical new ways and ideologies in making art that is in synch with the societal changes and state affairs in the late 1980’s. From 1989 onwards, the village came alive with avant-garde performances and art exhibitions with 7 art shows that year. At the height of the village history, The Artists Village housed 35 artists with 50 other artists participating in other art activities organised by the Village. In 1990, The Artists Village organised a 24-hour art event called The Time Show. It brought together artists working in all forms of multimedia in one art show. Sadly that same year, the village’s land was repossessed by the Singapore Government for urban development.