Fraternize is an initiative by Artspace@Helutrans, Galerie Steph and Ikkan Art to provide young Singaporean artists with a platform for experimentation. Encouraged to intervene into the industrial warehouse space offered by Artspace@Helutrans, the artist is given free reign of a gallery for a site-specific installation.

This edition introduces Tan Peiling, an interdisciplinary artist that finds compelling ways to channel our perception and understanding of reality by immersing the audience in a carefully constructed environment. Her works often utilise both audio recordings and visual images to construct spaces that examine how visual culture shapes our attention and experience. Peiling will be presenting The Blind Witness, a sculptural installation that looks to the Keppel container terminal located directly behind Artspace@Helutrans.

In 2027, port leasing in Keppel will be terminated. With the terminal relocated to Tuas, the area will be redeveloped into a new waterfront city. The artist asks: How does the constant relocation and redevelopment of spaces in Singapore inform our view of place and non-place? How do we reconcile these experiences other than through documenting them as visual archives? In an obsessively visual culture, does the absence of vision affect one’s experience of the event? The Blind Witness looks to the possibility of representing events as aural archives. The artist will transform the gallery into a site for witnessing the relocation of Keppel Terminal through a light and sound installation.

Peiling graduated with a MFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art, London, in 2011 and a BFA from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2010. She received the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Still Photography 2010, Singapore, and was shortlisted for the Bar-Tur Photography Award 2011, London. Her works have recently been included in Lit Up Indie Arts Festival at Aliwal Arts Centre, Oversight at Sculpture Square, C L O S U R E at Teban Gardens, OH! Open House at Marina Bay, and Campaign City at National Library Building.

Image: © Tan Peiling
The Silent Witness
2011