The National Gallery Singapore (NGS) has opened a new exhibition titled Art Remembers, running from August 21 to October 18, which examines how Southeast Asian artists engage with archives to explore history and memory. The show features 20 works, including seven commissioned pieces, and highlights a variety of approaches to archival material—ranging from personal and self-made collections to interventions in official state and colonial records.
One of the exhibition’s notable features is a restored version of a modified Counter-Strike map originally created in 2001 by Singaporean contemporary artist Charles Lim Yi Yong and Lim Yeong Chun, founder of the online platform Geek Culture. The interactive installation invites visitors to navigate a virtual recreation of Choa Chu Kang Housing Board estate, evoking turn-of-the-millennium LAN gaming culture with authentic Singlish voiceovers and gaming chairs.
Curators aim to challenge the conventional view of archives as rigid or impersonal. Co-curator Seng Yu Jin described the concept of “archive fever” as a desire to reclaim overlooked or marginalized histories, asserting that “all of us have our own compelling stories to tell.” The exhibition explores how artists use archives to intercede in official narratives shaped by colonial or state authorities, often revealing hidden or violent histories.
Among the works on display is a 15-year ongoing project by Singaporean artist Sim Chi Yin, who investigates her late grandfather’s deportation to China during the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). By reprinting photographs from the Imperial War Museums on glass, she exposes the layered complexity of archival records and their often violent contexts.
Other artists reimagine archival materials to restore agency to subjects erased or ignored in official histories. Filipino artist Stephanie Sipuco’s 2019 work Block Out The Sun reclaims the identities of Filipinos exhibited in a 1904 World’s Fair “human zoo” in Missouri by painting over historical photographs.
Additionally, Singaporean artist Ho Rui An’s recent project Fuelling Apocalypse (2024–2025) uses artificial intelligence trained on war imagery to depict Singapore’s covert role in supplying fuel for American military aircraft during the Vietnam War, drawing on Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now and scholarly research.
The exhibition also challenges human-centered perspectives on archives. Robert Zhao Renhui’s The Fish Does Not Know The War Is Over (2025) offers a view of the Japanese Occupation from the perspective of a tilapia, bringing non-human narratives into the conversation. Seng noted the relevance of such approaches amid contemporary discourse on climate change and environmental histories, citing Maju Forest as an example of an archive that records the history of land and species.
Art Remembers, curated by Seng alongside Lisa Horikawa, Phoebe Scott, and Kathleen Ditzig, forms a standalone exhibition distinct from the postponed After The Monsoon: Art & War In Southeast Asia show, initially scheduled at the same venue. The gallery underscored that while there are thematic overlaps, the two exhibitions are separate.
The curatorial team emphasized that the exhibition requires active engagement from audiences, encouraging critical reflection on the nature of archives and memory. Seng expressed the view that gallery visitors should exercise their own perspectives with the same rigor expected from curators, underscoring the exhibition’s ambition to foster thoughtful dialogue around history and representation.