Tan Kai Syng graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College of London and School of Art, Institute of Chicago, as well as with a Master in Arts (Excellence Award) at the Department of Imaging Arts and Sciences, Musashino Art University. Tokyo. An insatiable tourist-digger-hoarder, she scavenges, swallows the surrounding clutter of signs/information/noise. As a compulsive editor she chews up, re-arranges, regurgitates - and re-maps ?the found fragments into densely-layered works that question our ealities? via the image. Be it multimedia installation, single-channel video art, short films, text, ive?cinema or talk-performance, Kai Syng work is fiercely personal but always at a critical distant, with an urgency and currency laced with self-reflexivity, and wit, inviting multiple levels of reading. Her efforts have been shared in more than 35 cities. Kai Syng was invited to represent Singapore at the Biennale of Sydney 2006 to popular and critical acclaim with a large pink Emporium-Museum-Monster. Her works are collected by Fukuoka Asia Museum of Art and is streamed in a UK media channel Firecracker Media. In 2007, Kai Syng has been awarded a permanent commission to create a media installation for a new, central subway Bras Basah Station of the Circle Line in Singapore. She has also been conferred the prestigious Young Artist Award, Singapore. For the year 2008, Kai Syng will work on 3 new commissions, as well as co-curate a programme of South East Asian cinema in South Cinema Festival in Israel.
Selected Awards
2008
Artist-in-residency programme in Japan Beppu Contemporary Arts Festival Mixed Bathing World, sponsored by Japan Foundation
2007
Young Artist Award. National Arts Council, Singapore.
2006 -
Artist-in-Residence Award from NIFCA-Theatreworks. Suommenlinna, Finland.
2002
scholarship from the Japanese Chambers of Commerce Industry Singapore
1999
Merit Award, New Visions (Video), 42nd San Francisco International Film Festival, USA.
1994
Shell-National Arts Council Art Scholarship ,Singapore.
1994
8th Panasonic Video Award , Singapore
1993
The Most Promising Young Artist Award, UOB 12th Painting of the Year Art Competition.
1993
Certificate of Distinction Phillipe Charriol Contemporary Art Competition 1992/1993, Singapore.
Selected Exhibitions
2009
"Chlorine Addiction" (2000) will be re-visited at urating Labs: 100 Remix?(the xhibition?. Organised by the NUS Museum, in partnership with the National Arts Council, Helutrans Contemporary Space, Singapore
2009
Exhibited Re-imagining at the Changwon Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition,Changwon, South Korea.
2009
Exhibited "Dying For " (collaboration with Christophe Charles, Japan) and Apology (2005, Japan, both from ISLANDHOPPING) at GEOMETRIES VIRTUELLES, multimedia exhibition at the French Cultural Center, Cambodia.
2007
Exhibited " The Rather Terrible Slaughter of the Tour Guide!" , Macau, China.
2007
Single-channel version of The Rather Terrible Slaughter of the Tour Guide! Featuring artists from India, Japan, Seoul, Singapore and Guangzhou, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul- Korea.
2007
Exhibited " The Rather Terrible Slaughter of the Tour Guide!" As a single-channel projection, Zendai Museum of Modern Art , China.
2007
Exhibited DIS-EASES / CEASE-FIRES as a single-channel projection Changwon 2007 Asia Art Festival: Peach Flower,
Changwon, South Korea.
2005
Presented "Chlorine Addiction" and a video from ISLANDHOPPING at Asian Experimental Film, Aichi Cultural Centre, Aichi, Japan.
2005
Presented "Apology" at The 3rd Women's Arts Festival Fantastic Asia. Organised by Feminist Artists' Network,Sung Kok Art Museum, Seoul, Korea.
2004
One of the artists featured in Japanese Experimental Cinema Programme: a major historical look at Japanese avant garde cinema from 1950s ?contemporary. The show includes retrospectives of video art giant Matsumoto Toshio, Tokyo, Japan.
"The Big Big 21st century Sci-Fi Disaster Horror Movie" exhibited in SENI, Singapore trial Biennale.,Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.SemiillogicalSpores at public space organised by Stitching Picos,Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Feeling So What (Contradictory in Terms) presented by Videoart Centre Tokyo, Bandung, Indonesia. Feeling So What (Contradictory in Terms) on a 9-month long exhibition Interrupt, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.
Pre-Texts: Pre-formulated Structures exhibited in public space in joint project between students of Beaux-Arts Ecole de Paris and Musashino Art University, Paris, France.
"The 21st Century Big Big Horror Sci-Fi" Movie exhibited at Twilight Tomorrow,. Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Participate in group exhibition as Special Guest. Installation - "Dying For", Uplink Gallery, Tokyo - Japan.
Document dance performance DDD by Dumb Type artist Takao Kawaguchi and edit DVD, Superdeluxe, Tokyo, Japan
" Feeling So What" presented at Media Arts Conference by Videoart Centre Tokyo, Seoul, Korea.
2003
6th International Exhibition of Sculpture & Installations with FEELING SO WHAT , Venice, Italy
Exhibition of 3 works at 2 day-event SIGHT Media Festival: Visual Music for the Deaf, of I AM FIT FOR LIFE; WHY WHAT (Apologies) and Brookfield Zoo, Japan.
6-minute commissioned music video for Japanese musician ho? Media Art II Exhibition, Bldg 12 BI Exhibition Hall
Musashino Art University, Tokyo -Japan.
2002
Kai Syng video was one of the ixes?in a European-Asian collaborative exhibition "Sonic Process" curated by Matthieu Oeil, Centre Georges Pompidou,Paris, France.
Kai Syng populist Chlorine Addiction tours Japan , Yamagata in Kansai Festivals, Osaka, Kyoto, Japan.
"How?Far?From?The?Truths?" exhibited at Video Programme, Copenhagen, Denmark.
screening of "Chlorine Addiction" at Parthenon Tama Asian Documentary Festival, Box Higashi Nakano, Tokyo,Japan.
2001
"A Blue & A Yellow " Movie, a chapter from Chlorine Addiction, at the Transmediale.01, Chicago, USA.
"Chlorine Addiction" screened at Discount Cinema, New York City, USA.
2000
Exhibited at Video Take, organised by A Prior, Brussels, Belgium.
Joint video exhibition, Alliance Francaise du Singapour,Singapore
Screening of ALL CHANGE!!!, Resolutions, Alien Nation, and Vertigo,Fukuoka Asai Art Museum Fukuka, Japan.
1999
Exhibited at 21st Shell Discovery Art Exhibition with paintings and sculptures, Paragon Shopping Centre,Singapore
2nd San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco, USA.
Screening of videos at Post Ulu Show with the Artists?Village, Substation, Singapore.
1998
Slade School Summer Degree Show. 5 sets of works exhibited,Slade School Of Fine Art, UK
1997
Short structuralist-ic film "Brookfield" , Empire Leicester Square Zoo screened at the British Short Film Festival, UK
1996
"Brookfield Zoo and London Marathons" screened at music item by Modern Quartet at dance performance Fan Anthology, LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore
Screening of black & white 16mm film One Liner a.k.a. Finishing Life Sentences at To See, To Hear, To Speak --a Word and Image 2 day event at the Slade with St. Martin's and Dartington, Slade School of Fine Art, London UK
1994
Screening of award-winning short video animation "The Creation" at the 8th Panasonic Video Awards , Raffles City , Singapore
1993
The UOB 12th Painting of the Year Exhibition, La Salle-SIA College of the Arts Gallery, Singapore
1992
Phillipe Charriol Contemporary Art Competition and travelling exhibition, Singapore
Selected Collection
2001
"Chlorine Addiction" collected by Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.
