seastate.sg
Charles Lim Yi Yong
SEA STATE 8
These notions cumulate in SEASTATE 8: the grid, whatever wherever whenever (2014-2021), which depicts a nautical map of Singapore. The work consists of one main piece representing the nation state, and numerous, scattered pieces to represent the sea state. The screenprinted map pieces are adhered onto magnetic rubber sheets, and are subsequently stuck onto a wall painted with magnetic paint. This allows for a more fluid showcase-in both its presentation at Singapore Art Museum's Wikiclicki (2021) and the artist's solo at STPI, Staggered Observations of a Coast (2021)-as the artist periodically reconfigures the magnetic pieces so as to highlight the alwavs-shifting landscape of Singapore's landmass and its ever-changing contours.
In this fashion, the work epitomises the divide between the SEA STATE / NATION STATE throuch how it implies two realities: the ongoing project of land reclamation as being one state, the "sea state", and the rest of Singapore being the official "nation state". Within the liminal body of the sea state, where land and sea are in constant negotiation for existence, the artist calls attention toward the malleability and historical void of such spaces
SEASTATE 8 : the grid, whatever wherever whenever
(2014–2021)
SEASTATE 8 : seabook the submerged histories of gsp1
In the various maritime maps produced of Singapore between the nineteenth century to the present day, Singapore has changed from ‘Singapore Island’ to simply ‘Singapore’ reminding us that contact zones between land and sea remain contested spaces.
Seen as an extension of Lim’s solo exhibition at the NUS Museum titled In Search of Raffles’ Light, www.seabook.sg is conceived as a website for the accumulation of archival materials, anecdotes, and memories that unravel Singapore’s relationship with its sea.
Developed with librarians at the National Library Board, the project attempts to bring to the fore materials ranging from pre-Rafflesian artefacts such as maps, charts and manuscripts, to the vast archives that were accumulated during the colonial period, as well as the multiple studies that have attempted to grapple with the complex and strategic relationship postcolonial Singapore has established with the sea.
In effect, www.seabook.sg aspires to be the most comprehensive cultural study of Singapore’s relationship with the sea to be ever undertaken.
The project was also partially inspired by the life of polymath Eric Ronald Alfred, a marine zoologist, Singapore’s first non-European Director of the Raffles Museum, and founder-curator of the country’s erstwhile and only Maritime Museum (1972-2005).
During his years as curator of the Museum, Alfred was also commissioned by his then-employer, the Port of Singapore Authority, to relocate residents from outer-lying islands off the coast of Singapore to the mainland, as the country prepared to embark on major land reclamation projects.
The project is accumulative in its approach, with other voices constantly added. For instance, Captain Wilson Chua, now retired Chief Hydrographer of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore; Professor Lui Pao Chuen, who was appointed to the newly created post of Chief Defence Scientist, Ministry of Defence in 1986; and Lily Cashin, a former lawyer turned professional dancer who used to live with her husband Howard at one of the oldest pier houses in Singapore along the Johor Straits.
This work is not yet released.
