SG ART BOOK DIALOGUE


SG Art Book Dialogue is a series of book launches, discussions & artist talks curated by and held at the Singapore Art Book Fair.
All programmes are held at The Engine Room at Singapore Art Museum, located beside the Exhibitor Hall



14 April 2023, Friday


5:00PM — 6:30PM

Session 1: Portraiture
Fee: S$15.00 per participant

Limited to 15 pax per session


Register here.
[WORKSHOP]
Drawing through Touch: Charcoal & Pastel Workshop

with Painter Kok Choon Choo
In collaboration with Unseen Art Initiatives
Participants will learn how to draw self-portraits and a portrait of fellow workshop participants, or work on a unique animal mascot as they explore and discover their facial features through touch or sight. They will learn forms of mark-making using pastels and charcoal.

Born with visual impairment, painter Kok Choon Choo fell in love with drawing and painting when he was a child. Choon has been painting for over a decade, exploring human portraits and character design. His images are often provocative and explore multi-faceted aspects of our human psyche. A highly skilled and versatile painter, he is inspired by German expressionism and Japanese Manga. The process invites participants to develop unique approaches to materials and their aesthetics.

Workshop Features
  • Introduction of Choon’s art practice as a visually-impaired painter;
  • Understanding different approaches to portraiture and character creation;
  • Building confidence through exercises that help you explore different types of mark-making.

Suitable for beginners • All materials included • Language: Mandarin with English Translation



Kok Choon Choo (Choon) is a painter based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
His works are inspired by the German Expressionism and Japanese Pop Culture - creating vivid characters that bring his ideas of the society across. Choon has been given awards for his paintings. He also works as an arts educator in Malaysia, regularly conducting workshops. He is a National Art Gallery Malaysia member, PPM (Malaysia Artists Society) and Persatuan Senilukis Rekacipta Negeri Johor (SERUPA). He graduated from the University of Tasmania (UTAS @ Hobart Campus) and has a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) in Painting 2001-CAA Academy of Art (Johor Bahru Campus).

Unseen Art Initiatives is a Singapore-based arts platform that aims to evoke and harness the creative potential of people through the arts. Through arts-based interventions and curating art exhibitions and cultural programmes, we enable collaborations between professional and emerging disabled artists across creative industries, schools, community organisations and public institutions. Our projects include Edible Art Club, an intercultural collaboration with Aung Mental Health (Myanmar), Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) 2020 - 2022, which premiered at the National Gallery Singapore's Light to Night Festival, Unseen: Constellations (2014 - 2016), a mentorship programme for visually-impaired youth and Unseen: Shift Lab (2015) a collaborative project with Dialogue-in-the-Dark Malaysia and artists from Kuala Lumpur. Our platform also developed research for the pilot Touch Art Collection for the Singapore Art Museum and National Gallery Singapore, researching accessibility practices for visually-impaired museum patrons.

unseenart.myportfolio.com@unseensg

15 April 2023, Saturday


2:00PM — 3:00PM

Register here.
[ARTIST TALK]
The Book as a Stage; Spector Books’ Publishing Practice

Presented by Spector Books
Moderated by Melvin Tan
Spector Books’ publishing practice is settled in the intersection of the arts, theory, design and architecture. Based in Leipzig, Germany we explore the possibilities offered by an active exchange between all parties involved in a book production process: artists, authors, designers, lithographers, printers and bookbinders. The book as medium is turned into a stage, a site of encounter for productive exchange. Finding innovative approaches to the medium today calls for a well considered interplay between the content, design, and materiality of a book.



Robert Stürzl
Editor and Head of Production, Spector Books
Robert Stürzl is an editor with a background in architecture and urban design at Spector Books in Leipzig, Germany. He first joined the publishing house in 2013, today he is responsible for the production department.

Melvin Tan
Creative Lead at Currency and Co-Founder of Hothouse
Melvin is the creative lead at Currency, a branding and strategy design studio. He is also a co-founder of Hothouse, a prototyping collective that explores the intersections of art, design, and architecture.



3:30PM — 4:30PM

Register here.
[BOOK LAUNCH]
By The Moon and The Tides

Presented by The Slow Press
What could a foraging Singapore look like? What did a foraging Singapore look like?

By The Moon and The Tides is an exploration and reimagining of Singapore's relationship with the practice of foraging, perhaps the oldest subsistence pattern of man. Following The Slow Press Vol. 5: BITTERSWEET, this risograph zine will exclusively be launched at SGABF2023.

The team behind the zine will be sharing our conversations with three foragers: self-taught urban forager Esmonde Luo, Syazwan of Wan's Ubin Journal, and Firdaus of Orang Laut SG, as well as our design and editorial processes.


Tan Aik
Editor-in-Chief, The Slow Press
Aik moonlights as a writer. In his role as Editor-in-Chief of The Slow Press, he explores the intersections between food and culture. In his free time, he plays RPGs and eats noodles.

Christy Chua
Founder and Editorial Director, The Slow Press
Christy is a consumer of good food and drinks. She runs the magazine's day-to-day, and sneaks around kitchens and wet markets, after which she translates her findings into the colourful food stories and wonderful parties that you see at The Slow Press.

Jamie Png
Contributing Designer, The Slow Press
Jamie is a part-time photographer/designer and a full-time dugong wannabe. As the main designer of By The Moon and The Tides, she helped create a feast not only for the mind but also for the eyes, as The Slow Press always does.



5:00PM — 6:30PM

Session 2: Animal Mascots
Fee: S$15.00 per participant

Limited to 15 pax per session

Register here.
[WORKSHOP]
Drawing through Touch: Charcoal & Pastel Workshop

with Painter Kok Choon Choo
In collaboration with Unseen Art Initiatives
Participants will learn how to draw self-portraits and a portrait of fellow workshop participants, or work on a unique animal mascot as they explore and discover their facial features through touch or sight. They will learn forms of mark-making using pastels and charcoal.

Born with visual impairment, painter Kok Choon Choo fell in love with drawing and painting when he was a child. Choon has been painting for over a decade, exploring human portraits and character design. His images are often provocative and explore multi-faceted aspects of our human psyche. A highly skilled and versatile painter, he is inspired by German expressionism and Japanese Manga. The process invites participants to develop unique approaches to materials and their aesthetics.

Workshop Features
  • Introduction of Choon’s art practice as a visually-impaired painter;
  • Understanding different approaches to portraiture and character creation;
  • Building confidence through exercises that help you explore different types of mark-making.

Suitable for beginners • All materials included • Language: Mandarin with English Translation



Kok Choon Choo (Choon) is a painter based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
His works are inspired by the German Expressionism and Japanese Pop Culture - creating vivid characters that bring his ideas of the society across. Choon has been given awards for his paintings. He also works as an arts educator in Malaysia, regularly conducting workshops. He is a National Art Gallery Malaysia member, PPM (Malaysia Artists Society) and Persatuan Senilukis Rekacipta Negeri Johor (SERUPA). He graduated from the University of Tasmania (UTAS @ Hobart Campus) and has a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) in Painting 2001-CAA Academy of Art (Johor Bahru Campus).

Unseen Art Initiatives is a Singapore-based arts platform that aims to evoke and harness the creative potential of people through the arts. Through arts-based interventions and curating art exhibitions and cultural programmes, we enable collaborations between professional and emerging disabled artists across creative industries, schools, community organisations and public institutions. Our projects include Edible Art Club, an intercultural collaboration with Aung Mental Health (Myanmar), Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) 2020 - 2022, which premiered at the National Gallery Singapore's Light to Night Festival, Unseen: Constellations (2014 - 2016), a mentorship programme for visually-impaired youth and Unseen: Shift Lab (2015) a collaborative project with Dialogue-in-the-Dark Malaysia and artists from Kuala Lumpur. Our platform also developed research for the pilot Touch Art Collection for the Singapore Art Museum and National Gallery Singapore, researching accessibility practices for visually-impaired museum patrons.

unseenart.myportfolio.com@unseensg


16 April 2023, Sunday


12:30PM — 1:30PM

Register here.
[BOOK LAUNCH]
Every Step in the Right Direction

Presented by Everything’s Fine
Patrick Flores in conversation with Katrina Stuart Santiago & Sidd Perez
Curator and art historian Patrick Flores talks about his latest book, Every Step in the Right Direction, which collects essays he’s written about his thought processes and procedures directing the 2019 Singapore Biennale. He will also talk about the necessity of writing and publishing more about Southeast Asian art history 


Patrick Flores
Deputy Director, Curatorial and Exhibitions, National Gallery Singapore
Patrick Flores is currently the Deputy Director for Curatorial and Exhibitions at the National Gallery in Singapore. He served as curator of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2021 and as artistic director of the Singapore Biennale in 2019. He is formerly a professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila. He has been a guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute, a visiting fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, a member of the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Council, and an advisor to the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Katrina Stuart Santiago
Publisher, Everything's Fine
Katrina Stuart Santiago is publisher and founder of Everything’s Fine. She is one of the first cohorts of the Feminist Journalist Project of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development. She teaches writing and criticism at the College of St. Benilde at De La Salle University in Manila. Her writings on art and culture may be found in the Arts Equator website.

Sidd Perez
Curator, NUS Museum
Sidd Perez is a curator affiliated with the National University of Singapore NUS Museum focused on developing exhibitions and programs around the museum’s South and Southeast Asian collections while steering the prep-room, a curatorial modality that exposes labour in practices and unruly learning processes. She is the co-founder of Planting Rice, a curatorial and resource platform focused on Philippine art and artists.



2:00PM — 3:00PM

Register here.
[ARTIST TALK]
Publishing Ecosystems; Paper Economies


Presented by Perimeter Editions
Moderated by Renée Ting 
Publishing is more than merely editing, designing and producing a book. In this informal, broad-ranging discussion, Perimeter co-director Dan Rule uses key publications in Perimeter Editions’ eighty-book strong publishing catalogue as sign-posts in wider dialogue about publishing as practice: the making, promotion and distribution of books amidst the global independent art book diaspora. The discussion will gesture towards publishing as a metaphor for a creative, international life.



Dan Rule
Co-Director, Perimeter
Dan Rule (b. 1979) is a publisher, writer and editor from Melbourne, Australia. He is the co-director of Perimeter Books, Perimeter Distribution and Perimeter Editions, for which he has published, edited and written for upward of eighty books on contemporary photographers and artists from around the world. Dan was a longstanding visual art critic for Melbourne newspaper The Saturday Age, a design and architecture columnist for The Age, the former editor and editor-at-large of Vault magazine and the former co-editor of Composite Journal. In a career spanning more than twenty years, he has published more than three thousand articles, reviews and interviews on art, photography, design, music and culture more widely for publications internationally, including major critical writing commissions for institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Camera Austria, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Australian Centre for Photography and others. He is a co-founder and juror for the Perimeter Small Book Prize and the PHOTO x Perimeter International Photobook Prize, and regularly lectures on the intersection of writing, photography and publishing as part of the PSC MFA program and at various universities and institutions.

Renée Ting
Director, Singapore Art Book Fair
Renée Ting is the director of the Singapore Art Book Fair. She is also the founder of Thing Books, an online shop for books, zines & things by artists.



3:30PM — 4:30PM

Register here.
[BOOK LAUNCH]
MFYG: Magazine for Young Girls (For Old Girls, Young Boys, Old Boys and They/Them of all ages) says HELLO!


Presented by MFYG (Magazine for Young Girls)
Moderated by Weiqi Yap
Editor-in-Chief, Wei Ting Wong talks about creating a publication geared towards exploring ideas around gender through fashion and visual culture. Wong, a fashion stylist as her day job, created the magazine to showcase a largely ignored fashion culture based around South East Asia and its diaspora as told through the feminine gaze. Phoning in is Creative Director Boah Kim. Based in Paris, Kim who’s previous clients include Balenciaga, Indie Magazine and now Shang Xia, participated in the creative direction and graphic design of Issue 02 “Adulting”. Though the two have never met in real life, they are both excited to share their journey with you! This talk will center around fashion image making with fashion writer and curator Wei Qi Yap as moderator.



Wei Ting Wong
Founder and Editor-in Chief, MFYG (Magazine for Young Girls)
Wei Ting Wong is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the yearly pop culture and fashion publication MFYG (Magazine for Young Girls). She is interested in creating slow, thoughtful imagery that breaks gender and beauty stereotypes. Her styling work has been published in 1 Granary and AnOther Magazine (online).

Boah Kim
Creative Director, Art Director and Graphic Designer
Boah Kim is from Seoul, Korea, based in Paris where she makes books and works as a creative director, art director, and graphic designer. Craving Apollinaire’s poems and concrete poetry introduced her to the world of typography. Since she studied graphic design and semiotics in Basel, Switzerland, her main interest lies in showing a text as a sequence of aesthetic images, by actively interpreting the meaning of it. She believes in books as a matter of time-based media, where images and texts take part in creating stories organically. Apart from book creation, she works as a creative director for various fashion houses and magazines in Paris and worldwide.

Weiqi Yap
Independent Fashion Writer, Researcher, and Curator
Weiqi Yap is an independent fashion writer, researcher, and curator. In May 2022, she opened Fashion On Display, an independent fashion curation studio and experimental gallery dedicated to exhibiting fashion and everyday dress. Her writing has been published in Vogue Singapore, Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, FEMALE Singapore, The International Journal of Fashion Studies, and Fashion & Market. Weiqi also lectures at the School of Fashion Studies at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Fashion at Lasalle College of the Arts.



5:00PM — 6:30PM

Register here.
[ARTIST TALK]
The Use and Design of Risograph


Presented by NEUTRAL COLORS
Moderated by Gideon Kong
NEUTRAL COLORS is an independent magazine and publishing house that produces their own books, incorporating manual work into the printing process such as Risograph and silkscreen.

In this talk, graphic designer Daisuke Kano and editor Naonori Kato will discuss their full process; from planning, editing, printing, producing, and binding to sales.



Naonori Kato
Editor, NEUTRAL COLORS
Naonori Kato (b. 1975) is the editor of NEUTRAL COLORS. He worked for a publishing company and launched numerous magazines. He currently operates an alternative space where he can bind and print books, and produces magazines and books.

Daisuke Kano
Graphic Designer, NEUTRAL COLORS
Daisuke Kano (b. 1992, Aichi, Japan) is the art director and book designer for NEUTRAL COLORS, an alternative magazine that combines offset and Risograph printing. He also art directs for critical magazines and other publications, and is currently a lecturer at Tama Art University.

Gideon Kong
Designer, gideon-jamie/Temporary Press/Temporary Unit
Gideon Kong co-runs gideon-jamie, a design studio, Temporary Press, a micro-publishing press, and Temporary Unit, an informal space for workshops and exhibitions. He teaches at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.


© Singapore Art Book Fair 2024. All rights reserved.
For further enquiries, please contact us at info@singaporeartbookfair.org.


Singapore Art Book Fair is organised by

© Singapore Art Book Fair 2024. All rights reserved.
For further enquiries, please contact us at info@singaporeartbookfair.org.


Singapore Art Book Fair is organised by