Artists: Lai Yu Tong, Li Shan, Lu Lei, Arin Rungjang, Sun Xun, Melati Suryodarmo, Boedi Widjaja, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong
ShanghART Singapore is pleased to present Everyday We Create Histories, bringing together works by nine artists who offer different ways of looking at, constructing, and questioning history. Spanning across painting, photography, sculpture, and animation, the exhibition provides multiple entry points into the idea of history, positioning artists as observers of the past and artmaking as an act of both remembrance and resistance.
We often understand “history” as a record of past events. Yet not everything that happens becomes history. Events must be witnessed, documented, and circulated before they are collectively remembered as part of history. At each stage, various factors and decisions determine whether an event gets turned into history, and how it is framed. Under such conditions, history reveals itself as contingent and malleable rather than singular and fixed.
It is within this space where artistic practice operates. Artists offer their own readings of the world, attending to the cracks and dents within history through their work. Their efforts range from the everyday to the monumental; from glancing at the recent present to looking at the distant past. Drawing on motifs, crafting narratives, and engaging materiality, the artists created works that invoke intersecting possibilities, suggesting presence as much as absence. What remains unspoken and outside of the frame can at times appear as loud and clear as what is placed before our eyes.
Across diverse contexts and subjects, the artists in Everyday We Create Histories continually examine both present and past, sharing distinctive takes that could shed light on the future as much as reflecting on what has been. The exhibition invites us to look beyond what is visible and read between the lines, encouraging us to reconsider our roles not only as a spectator, but also as active participants in the ongoing making and reading of history, day after day.
