NUS Museum
50 Kent Ridge Crescent
University Cultural Centre
National University of Singapore

12 September - 23 November 2008

Curator: June Yap

Bound for Glory presents five recent works by Wong Hoy Cheong (* 1960, Malaysia):

Chronicles of Crime (2006) is a series of 10 photographs staging and re-enacting scenes from actual criminal events that preoccupied the tabloid media and the public in Malaysia. Framed in the style of film noir, the photographs both fictionalise and immortalise these figures, prompting questions on the nature of media today in shaping history and perspectives.

Suburbia: Bukit Beruntung, Subang Jaya (2006) presents two suburban landscapes in Malaysia: the successful Subang Jaya and the less successful Bukit Beruntung, two different yet strangely similar settings viewed from a wheel-chair and the top of a remote-control toy car. From these unexpected perspectives, suburbia unfolds as a problematic and ambiguous space, where expectations fall short even as ambitions run high.

Anthem (2006) is a light and sound installation that provides the audience with excerpts of national anthems compiled by the artist.

Re:Looking (2002-3), in collaboration with Arifwaran Shaharuddin for video and Chimera Design for website, creates the setting of a living room of a middle-class Malaysian household with a difference; within this cosy and amiable environment, one finds the history of a two-hundred-year colonization of Austria by Malaysia (1683 - 1955). Through a video documentary, website, objects and images, the artist compiles a wry account of this fictional colonization, and conversely scrutinizes the issue of post-colonial identity in Asia.

Aman Sulukule, Canim Sulukule / Oh Sulukule, Darling Sulukule (2007) presents a collaboration with Romani children of the historic gypsy enclave Sulukule in Istanbul that faces demolition, who in spite the overhanging political agendas by government councils and international organisations upon their district and futures reveal poignantly familiar dreams and hopes.

Extract from press information.

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