Synopsis

Artists-in-residence at the Tun Tan Cheng Lock Centre for Asian Architectural and Urban Heritage, Cheo Chai-Hiang and Cecily C Cheo, share their recent near-miss experiences of domestic architectural 
collapse, as well as their current research in progress – inquiry into the visual phenomenon of disappearing cultural 
heritages. Their one-year residency at the TTCLC will culminate with an exhibition informed by visual research into the richness of history, sense of place and intercultural interconnectivities that characterize the 'every-day' of Melaka.

Biography

Cecily C. Cheo completed her BA in Fine Arts(Sydney College of the Arts, NSW. Australia), Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts (Sydney College of The Arts, NSW, Australia), Graduate Diploma in TESOL (University of Technology, NSW, Australia; MA Communication & Cultural Studies (University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia). Cecily is a painter, writer and independent curator who lives and works in Melaka, Malaysia. She has extensive teaching experience at tertiary level in studio practice, art history and theory and educational theory & practices. Between 2003 and 2011, Cheo worked as a lecturer in the Visual & Performing Arts Academic Group in the National Institute of Education at The Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. As a painter she has exhibited her work in Australia, China and Singapore. In 2007 she held a one-woman exhibition in Singapore, titled The Subjunctive Mood. Her special interest in Drawing and Intercultural Studies prompted her to co-curate with her partner Cheo Chai-Hiang the exhibition Drawings: Propositions and Possibilities, an exploration of different approaches taken to drawings by artists from Australia, China and Singapore. She also curated Wendy Paramor: Lost & Found, a retrospective exhibition, held in 2000, of 160 paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by the late Australian artist Wendy Paramor. In conjunction with this exhibition, she worked with Solange Kershaw to produce a two-part radio program for the ABC Australia. In 2000, with Singapore writer T K Sabapathy, she co-wrote Cheo Chai-Hiang: Thoughts and Processes (Rethinking the Singapore River). Cecily Cheo and her partner Cheo Chai-Hiang have collaborated on several projects, including the exhibition Teachers as Artists/Artists as Teachers, an exhibition held at the NIE Gallery in 2004, and Right at Home: Ng Yat Chuan’s Works on Paper(2009) at the NIE Art Gallery.  She curated Motherhood Games: Paintings of Shia Yih Yiing also at the NIE Art Gallery. In 2010 she initiated and coordinated the publication of a lecture by T.K. Sabapathy, titled Road To Nowhere: The quick rise and long fall of art history in Singapore. She has recently completed the chapter Participatory Practices between Mother & Daughter: The Art of Amanda Heng (Singapore) and Shia Yih Yiing (Malaysia) for the anthology Reconciling Art and Mothering titled) to be published by Ashgate in 2012/3.

Cheo Chai-Hiang was born Singapore, and lives and works in Melaka. Rome Scholar Cheo Chai-Hiang is one of Singapore’s pioneering contemporary artists. Educated in UK’s Royal College of Art and Brighton Polytechnic, Cheo is an artist, lecturer, writer and independent curator who has worked in Singapore, UK, Spain, Italy, Australia and China. As an artist, he covers a wide range of disciplines, including printmaking, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, performance and writing. Since 1975 Cheo has held 20 solo shows in Singapore, Italy, Australia and China and has also exhibited his work in important international exhibitions in Australia, Italy, Germany and Singapore. As a teacher, Cheo has held the position of senior lecturer at the University of Western Sydney. He has also held the position of the curator of UWS university gallery and art collection. In February 2003, Cheo returned to live and work in Singapore. In 2004, he completed and published a book project titled Re-Connecting, in which he translated selected writings by Liu Kang and Ho Ho Ying from Chinese to English on the subject of Singapore art and art criticism. The translations are accompanied by an introduction and ‘interjections’ by Cheo. He has been commissioned to write and publish reviews and catalogue essays in both the Chinese and English language. Cheo’s instruction pieces from the early 1970s are generally regarded as the first conceptual art works in the country, and his practice since then has consistently sought to question the forms and processes of art-making. A fundamental interest in Cheo’s work is the relationship between language and meaning; text, both Chinese and English, has been a recurrent motif in his art over the past four decades. Cheo’s work for APT6, entitled Cash converter 2009, comprises a series of text-based sculptures in a range of materials, from stainless steel to neon. The installation visually references signage found on the streets of Singapore, and draws upon Chinese-language slogans, poetry and wordplay. The work toys with slogans and phrases that connect with cultural, social and financial changes in Singapore today, using language’s facility to capture the shifting nature of meaning and information.