I’m excited to be showing ten glass works and a two-channel video installation at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) in Berlin, in a group exhibition “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”, till 8 December 2024. It is the first time I have been able to show a whole series of glass plates…
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“Taking a speculative turn while considering the continuity of family narratives, Sim grafts the image of her young child and her disappeared grandfather into these found magic lantern slide images. While they could never meet in real life, the lineage and connection between Sim’s child and grandfather is enacted in this highly constructed–if not already…
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My video “Requiem” is showing in the “Disobedience Archive” group exhibition, part of the main show at the 60th Venice Biennale (20 April – 24 Nov 2024). Curated by Marco Scotini, assistant curator Arnold Braho. Requiem, 2017 from “One Day We’ll Understand”, 2015-on-going Single-channel video and sound installation, 16:9, sound, colour Duration: 06:08 mins Requiem…
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Thrilled to announce the world premiere season of “One Day We’ll Understand” 《有那么一天》, a new multimedia performance I’ve been making from my long project on the anti-colonial war in Malaya. This production is a commission by the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, for Esplanade Presents: The Studios, and will be presented at Singtel Waterfront…
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My glass works from “The Suitcase Is A Little Bit Rotten” and the two-channel video “The Mountain That Hid” are in the group exhibition “Nomadic”, curated by Dr. Vennes Cheng, at the The Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. It opened on 21 March and is on till 2 June 2024. In these lovely installation…
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I’m grateful to curator Matthew Lawson Garrett and the team at Datsuijo independent art space for mounting this solo exhibition of my work in Tokyo, transforming my first artist book into a physical installation (and with translation into Japanese)! The book, “She Never Rode That Trishaw Again” (https://chiyinsim.com/she-never-rode-that-trishaw-again/), is the first of possibly four I’m…
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My series of glass works The Suitcase Is A Little Bit Rotten and two-channel film The Mountain That Hid are in a group exhibition “Double Exposure” at Camera Austria in Graz. Curatorial text by Anna Voswinckel: The examination of the complex, transnational political entanglements of colonialism and its traumatic effects on (family) biographies forms the starting…
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I first became interested in Magic Lantern slides in learning through @gabbymoser’s scholarship about how they were a colonial pedagogical tool — specifically, they were used in a series of eight lectures cast as geography lessons to teach pupils around the British empire about its colonies. I became interested in what was inscribed in those…
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“The Suitcase Is A Little Bit Rotten”, drawn from a series of 40 glass slides , and “The Mountain That Hid”, a two-channel video work, are on view at Zilberman Gallery, Berlin, in the group show “Transit”. Zilberman | Berlin is delighted to announce the opening of its new space in Berlin’s Schlüterstraße 45 with…
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An installation of photographic prints and a newly-created VR piece, ‘The Garden Of No Return”, from my “Shifting Sands” project is on view at the Gropius Bau Berlin till August 2023. Indigo Waves and Other Stories Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora 6 April to 13 August 2023 Taking the stories and histories…
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“This meticulously crafted and quietly powerful work probes the ways in which the past reads differently depending on how and by whom history is written.” Full text: https://hyperallergic.com/772131/photographing-historys-silences-and-gaps/
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New short film out: The Mountain That Hid, 2022 One of the new commissions I’ve worked on this year is this short two-channel essay film for Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary‘s St_age platform. https://www.stage.tba21.org/episode/episode-09 This two-channel film is an experiment coming out of my archive of videos shot over the past decade, around my project on my…
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“…Sim Chi Yin’s multimedia project One Day We’ll Understand (2016–ongoing) — despite its stern, museological feel, a remarkably stirring exploration of the anti-colonial guerrilla war waged in British Malaya in the mid-20th century …” https://www.frieze.com/article/17th-istanbul-biennial
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Installation views of my new solo exhibition in Berlin on my long, on-going project re-narrating the anti-colonial war in British Malaya — a story that is as small and as large as one can make it, for all the resonances across the decolonisation wars in the “Third World” at the time. A period of history…
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She Never Rode That Trishaw Again tells the story of Loo Ngan Yue, a woman widowed by the British war against anti-colonial forces in Malaya — a 12-year conflict that became a template for other counter-insurgency campaigns around the world, including Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Artist and author Sim Chi Yin juxtaposes vacation photographs of Loo…
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A solo exhibition of my new work “Interventions”, part of my broader “One Day We’ll Understand” project, opened 4 July 2021 at the Les Rencontres d’Arles. Curated by Sam I-shan. The exhibition is installed in the Abbaye de Montmajour, a Benedictine monastery from the 10th century. https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/1032/sim-chi-yin A review essay on the show, by British…
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I’ve been working on “Interventions”, a new solo show to debut at Les Rencontres de la photographie, Arles in July. This is a new chapter of my ongoing work on the anti-colonial war in Malaya, focused on my reinterpretations of the colonial representation of this war and its participants. Excited to debut it at Arles,…
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Won the Jimei x Arles Discovery Prize in November 2020. Deeply appreciate this surprise win, which means I’ll do a solo show at Les Rencontres d’Arles in France next summer.
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Excited to be among 7 artists shortlisted for the Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award 2020 — a special grant in the spirit of Tim’s ever seeking different and unique ways of telling stories of our world. Tim was always genre-defying, irreverently multi-disciplinary and experimental. Congratulations to fellow shortlisted artists! Visionary Award shortlisted artists 2020 Daniel…
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On the occasion of Mothers’ Day and his one lunar month birthday, I wrote a note to our son who was born at the peak of the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK. ———– “Dear Lucas, You marked one lunar month on earth today. In good Chinese tradition, we made red-dyed eggs to celebrate this day.…
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In anticipation of the birth of our baby at the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic here in the UK, I wrote a series of letters to the unborn Lucas. —- “Dear Lucas This is the view of the sky from your cot… from a corner of our bedroom in this one-bedroom apartment in south…
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In expecting to give birth at the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic here in London, I wrote letters to our unborn son… “Dear Lucas In three weeks or less, you are due to join us. What a chaotic world you are being born into…. On Monday, your dad and I saw you in…
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Excited to join the stable of artists at Zilberman Gallery making work on socio-political themes from around the world, with this new representation by the gallery announced via e-flux today. With thanks to the team at the gallery; look forward to making new, multidisciplinary work with your support! https://www.art-agenda.com/announcements/319098/sim-chi-yin
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Part of my series on nuclear weapons, “Most People Were Silent is showing in Art Basel’s Virtual Viewiing Room, alongside work by fellow Zilberman Gallery artists including Isaac Chong Wai, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Jaffa Lam, Burcak Bingol. This is the Covid19-era alternative after Art Basel Hong Kong was called off this month. https://www.artbasel.com/viewing-rooms ・・・ Visit our @artbasel Online Viewing Room dedicated…
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My conversation with Prof. Tejaswini Niranjana in the Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong.
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ArTouch: “Whither faith, whither politics? In today’s climate of complex and pessimistic global politics, is it the case that ‘one day we’ll understand’?” Hong Kong Tatler, “10 Hong Kong Art Exhibitions To See This Summer” South China Morning Post, “Legacy of colonialism: Singapore artist’s show on Malayan Emergency and its resonance for Hong Kong” Art…
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“One Day We’ll Understand” 2015 – on-going Remnants Photographic installation, variable dimensions Requiem Two-channel video and sound installation, 16:9, sound, colour Duration: 12:34 mins Sim Chi Yin’s Remnants and Requiem take us on a cinematic journey through traces of hidden histories. The ethereal landscapes she conjures are an unspoken archive of an undeclared war. Evocative…
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Shifting Sands (Singapore, Malaysia, China, 2017 – on-going) The world is running out of sand. It seems counter-intuitive but sand, besides air and water, is our most used commodity. The insatiable demand for this non-renewable resource has led to environmental impact where it’s mined and to mafias driving the lucrative business. The global depletion of…
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Fallout (China-North Korea border, United States, 2017) In this exhibition commission for the Nobel Peace Prize 2017 — won by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) — I created a series of diptychs pairing nuclear-related landscapes from the North Korea-China border and the United States. My intention was to get the viewer to…
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I was thrilled to participate in this Magnum Photos panel discussion on how can images affect cultural, social and political situations alongside Ella Saltmarshe from The Long Time Project, Magnum Cultural Director, Sophie Wright and Emma Lewis, Assistant Curator. It’s important to investigate the agency of images in relation to environmental awareness and consider how images can affect and…
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Alessandra Cianetti and Xavier de Sousa of Performingborders I LIVE organized this opportunity for Chi Yin to do her performative reading and be in thoughtful conversation with curator Annie Jael Kwan about hidden (family and national) histories, counter narratives, embodied trauma and performative acts, intended and unintended, at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts in Brighton on March…
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This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote in response to a question about ethics in image making for a day of study at London’s Tate Britain, an event I co-led with Hilary Roberts of the Imperial War Museum and photographer and educator Anthony Luvera. You can learn more about the event and read…
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“They emerge out of nowhere. Culturally, aesthetically, geologically, ecologically, architecturally. They possess no foundation and little fundament. Some of them stand unfinished, defeated by the whim of a politician or the tremor of global financial markets. For artificial islands don’t stand for anything but the perspective of quick economic profits and the mirage of luxury…
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“Most People Were Silent”, the video installation on nuclear weapons produced on commission for Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center, Nobel Prize , has been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2019. The video diptych, alongside other shortlisted works, will be shown in an exhibition that opens in the York Art Gallery on March 7th. This installation was shown in…
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Had a lovely weekend doing the performative reading I’ve devised around my longterm project on my family history and the Malayan Emergency, at the closing of our group show UnAuthorised Medium curated by Annie Jael Kwan at Framer Framed gallery in Amsterdam. Thank you to Annie for the hard, hard work curating, coordinating and shepherding each of our works…
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My project ‘Shifting Sands’ is being featured in Migrant Journal No. 5: Micro Odysseys. I presented this ongoing project on November 5th at the Tate Modern Book Shop in London for the launch of this new edition of Migrant Journal, which is available now. Migrant Journal is a unique six-issue project that explores the circulation of people,…
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My ongoing project “One Day We’ll Understand,” which is currently part of the group show ‘UnAuthorized Medium’ in Amsterdam, reviewed in ArtAsiaPacific. I’m showing an experimental installation of portraits, still life images and text. Installation view by Eva Broekema. “The transcripts and mail correspondences are based on Sim’s six years of research into her family’s oral…
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This print is currently for sale on Magnum’s website for just $100 as part of their Square Print Sale – only from Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, 2018. From the series, “Shifting Sands.” Malaysia. 2017. “Windblown or washed up over millennia, sand is ubiquitous. Whether inside an hourglass or as an idiom, it often refers to…
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I enjoyed this conversation with Objects Lessons Space about the place of facts in making art, experimentation and the power of stories. We delved into the slippage between fact and fiction and the role of archives in my work. The piece also includes excerpts from various bodies of work, including One Day We’ll Understand and Most People Were…
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Thanks to Art Radar for the feature of “Most people were silent.” The work, on nuclear weapons in our world, was originally commissioned by Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). You can head over to the link below to read the full piece, which includes an…
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A piece of my on-going history project “One Day We’ll Understand” is in a group show in Amsterdam 15 September to 18 November, at Framer Framed gallery. “Unauthorised Medium”, curated by Annie Kwan. https://www.magnumphotos.com/events/event/sim-chi-yin-unauthorised-medium/ https://framerframed.nl/en/exposities/expositie-unauthorised-medium/ I’m showing an experimental installation of portraits, still life images and text from my “One Day We’ll Understand” project. Installation view by…
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Thanks Mackerel and Marc Nair for this interview on my solo exhibition “Most People Were Silent” on at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore till 10 October. Curated by Caterina Riva. http://www.mackerel.life/inside-the-ripple-an-interview-with-sim-chi-yin/ The work, on nuclear weapons in our world, was originally commissioned by Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). With…
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Spoke to Magnum.com on where I am with my work and practice. Part of Magnum’s series of interviews introducing the new nominee members this year. https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/magnum-nominee-sim-chi-yin-waited-years-to-be-able-to-commit-to-photography/
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Thanks luxury portal Keyyes for this interview and photo shoot, on my solo exhibition “Most People Were Silent”, on at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore till 10 October. Curated by Caterina Riva. The work is a new installation of the exhibition commission I created for the Nobel Peace Prize at the Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center last December. This profile article comes…
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On joining Magnum Photos as its first Southeast Asian photographer, on the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission, on the aesthetics of horror, on starting a research PhD at War Studies/ King’s College London, and on shuffling towards the big 4-0! Thanks The Straits Times and Toh Wen Li and the Lianhe Zaobao and Chow Yian Peng, and the two photographers for these interviews and profiles.…
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Grazie to these two inspiring women who made possible my exhibition at Cortona On The Move of “Fallout”, the project on nuclear weapons originally commissioned by the Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center: festival curator Arianna Rinaldo, and Nobel Peace Centre exhibitions director Liv Astrid Sverdrup!! The diptychs, video installation and singles were installed in what used to be a…
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“Most People Were Silent”, my solo exhibition on nuclear weapons, originally a commission for the Nobel Peace Prize / Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center, will open at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore on 20 July, in a installation of video and still images suspended from screens. It’s been a pleasure working this new installation of this work with…
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Excited to begin a new chapter of creating, making, learning, thinking, experimenting, collaborating with Magnum Photos, as my work evolves and diversifies, and combines with explorations in art and academic research. I’ve joined the agency as a nominee: https://www.magnumphotos.com/…/updates-2018-magnum-photos-…/ A special thank you to Jonas Bendiksen and Susan Meiselas for shepherding me through this process, and several friends for helping me…
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Thank you to the British Journal of Photography for a 12-page feature on my evolving work, practice and thinking, in its July 2018 issue catching up with three photographers previously on its “Ones To Watch” list. http://www.bjp-online.com/2018/06/sim-chi-yin/ | “When we first featured Sim Chi Yin in Ones To Watch in 2014, she seemed to have…
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The New Yorker made a video piece on my Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission “Fallout”. Video and interview by Gareth Smit.
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I presented my project on my family history and the Cold War in British Malaya at the Magnum Foundation “Counter Histories” symposium at the New School in New York, 1 May 2018. A great day of learning and sharing with other practitioners working on counter narratives. Photo by Emma Raynes
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Arianna Rinaldo is putting me in the cellar but I’m excited about it! My “Fallout” project on nuclear weapons, an exhibition commission I produced for the Nobel Peace Prize 2017 / Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center will be exhibited at Cortona On The Move festival in Italy in July. The diptychs, single images and video…
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My project ‘The Rat Tribe’ was featured in the 15th annual Istanbul Biennial in 2017 alongside work by artists of all kinds and backgrounds under the theme ‘A Good Neighbour.’ Frieze Magazine wrote of The Rat Tribe: “Some dwellings are more dispassionately treated, as in Sim Chi Yin’s The Rat Tribe (2011–14), which captures the poor inhabitants…
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SIM CHI YIN: MOST PEOPLE WERE SILENT Photographs, video and audio installation, various dimensions, 2018. Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore Earl Lu Gallery LASALLE College of the Arts 21 July – 10 October 2018 Curator Caterina Riva’s text “Most People Were Silent” is an exhibition composed of photographs taken in the vicinity of nuclear sites…
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Thank you BBC and Channel News Asia, for having me in your studios last week to speak on “Fallout”, my exhibition on nuclear weapons, a commission for the Nobel Peace Prize 2017. “Fallout” is on show in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Centre till November 2018. BBC interview, on Newsday, 19 Jan 2018: Channel News…
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Rat Tribe -CNN interview
This is "Rat Tribe -CNN interview" by Sim Chi Yin on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
Kristie Lu Stout of CNN interviews me on the “Rat Tribe” project I did on migrant workers living in Beijing’s air raid shelters and basements. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/02/18/intv-lu-stout-sim-chi-yin-china-rat-tribe.cnn
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Thank you very much Kathy Ryan for having me sit for a contributor portrait by you for The New York Times Magazine. Thank you for sharing this special light! #Repost @kathyryan with @get_repost ・・・ Sim Chi Yin 5/3/18 9:54 a.m. @nytmag. Yesterday, Sim Chi Yin was awarded the Getty Images and The Chris Hondros Fund Award at the Aperture Gallery. Chi Yin…
Read MoreChris Hondros prize acceptance speech 3 May 2018
This is "Chris Hondros prize acceptance speech 3 May 2018" by Sim Chi Yin on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
” A heartfelt thank you to everyone, who makes this prize possible, especially the board of the Fund, Christina, Pancho, Todd, Jeff. Thank you for awarding it this year to work that is super slow-burn, un-iconic and far from the frontlines. Thank you for recognising work that is dead unsexy. This sort of slow…
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I’ll be presenting my project “One Day We’ll Understand”, on a chapter of the hidden histories from Cold War-era Southeast Asia — as a performative reading — at the Magnum Foundation “Counter Histories” symposium next Tuesday May 1, alongside an amazing slate of speakers. My long and still-in-progress project stems from family history but has become a…
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Excited to be able to present “Fallout” my Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission in New York with Fred Ritchin, a leading thinker of our time on images, communication and photography, and Dean Emeritus at the ICP – International Center of Photography, and Alex Wellerstein, historian of the nuclear bomb. At the Magnum Foundation, April 24, 6pm. Friends in New York,…
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Friends in Singapore, I’ll be doing a public lecture at SMU Singapore Management University next Saturday 31 March 2pm, presenting “Fallout”, my Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission on nuclear weapons, and will have a dialogue with Tan Dan Feng on broader issues of documenting present day international and local issues as a China-based photographer and…
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Video at: https://shanghai.nyu.edu/works/talk-photographing-history Wrapped up an interesting week in Shanghai talking visual representation (“how can we be sure we are accurately portraying those we photograph?”) , social justice, and nuclear weapons (“without them, would we have nuclear energy?”). And presenting “Fallout”, my Nobel Prize/ Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission for Nobels Fredssenter | Nobel Peace Center, on…
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A piece I photographed and researched last year in Vietnam, on the rampant sand mining on the Mekong River and the impact it has on landscapes and communities has just been published on National Geographic. Chunks of the Mekong Delta are melting away into the river daily, taking with it people’s ancestral lands and homes,…
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I’ll be doing a series of talks and presentations of “Fallout”, the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition commission I shot late last year, currently on show all of this year in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Centre. I’ll show the photographs and video installation on March 16, 6pm, at the Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival. In Shanghai: on March 19…
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Inspired by her family history, Sim Chi Yin’s research and photographic project One Day We’ll Understand explores an aspect of the Cold War in Southeast Asia that is rarely spoken of. Seeking out stories behind the 1948-60 guerrilla war against the British in the Federation of Malaya, that emerged in part from anti-Japanese resistance during…
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“Every society needs to make room for outliers who insist on self-invention, for they are often the ones who can show us new ways of being, and help us push back the realm of possibilities… Dear Chi Yin, consider this my letter to you, a letter of thanks and encouragement, for I know you still…
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Thank you to the L’Œil de la Photographie (Eye of Photography, France) and the GUP Magazine in the Netherlands for the articles on “Fallout”, my Nobel Peace Prize exhibition. In French: https://loeildelaphotographie.com/fr/2018/01/25/article/159979465/sim-chi-yin-fallout-lexposition-du-prix-nobel-de-la-paix/ In English: https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/2018/01/25/article/159979465/sim-chi-yins-fallout-a-nobel-peace-prize-exhibition/ Eye of Photography- Sim Chi Yin’s “Fallout”, exhibition for Nobel Peace Prize – PDF In GUP Magazine: http://www.gupmagazine.com/articles/nobel-peace-prize-photographer-sim-chi-yin-on-display-in-oslo
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Dear 爷爷 (grandpa), We arrived safely in Singapore on Monday. You flew in Business Class while I was in Economy — the kind Air China stewardess was worried the glass over your frame might crack in the overhead cabin so she took you and put you behind the seats in Business. We’ve been busy installing…
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Dear 爷爷 (grandpa) , I’m taking you back to 南洋 Nanyang (the “southern seas”) tonight. In early 1949, you were transferred from Taiping detention camp onto a train, and deported by British from the port of Singapore, sailing seven days and seven nights to Swatow/Shantou in southern China. Tonight, I’m taking you from Beijing to…
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Great to receive this review of the Istanbul Biennial in Artforum International Magazine’s December issue, including a detail of my work “The Rat Tribe, 2011-2015”, alongside that of some of the other international artists who exhibited. https://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=201710&id=72471 The Biennale is also reviewed in the latest issue of @Frieze Magazine. https://frieze.com/issues/frieze-magazine/issue-192 With thanks to the wonderful…
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I’ll be exhibiting part of the family history/ colonial history project I’ve been working on — “One Day We’ll Understand” — at the Esplanade Singapore’s Jendela Gallery during Singapore Art Week, in a three-artist show titled “Relics”, engaging with colonial legacies and hidden histories. Curated by Sam I-shan. The other artists are Sarker Protick from Bangladesh and…
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Not a happy story, but for the record, this was the essay I wrote — as soon as I could type again — on how my thumb ligament was ripped when a group of North Korean women migrant workers attacked me in a border town in China: http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/media/north-korea-border-photographer-attacked
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My button is bigger than your button…. but there is no button… I don’t know about the North Korean command and control systems, but in all the Cold War era nuclear facilities I photographed in November in the United States for “Fallout”, my exhibition for the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, there wasn’t a big angry…
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The project I shot in 2014 in Indonesia’s Bangka island — where much of the world’s supply of tin used for our electronic products — will be shown in the Sydney Festival opening 5 January 2018, at the University of New South Wales galleries. Curated by Cherie McNair. https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2018/in-your-dreams Full story: http://chiyinsim.com/tin-men/
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