Non-profit art space Grey Projects is back with Strange Bodies, an exhibition featuring artists Jerome Kugan and Yang Zhong Da. The exhibition of new works by two artists taking up the polyvalent possibilities is the first out of four programmes in a series, Stranger Still.
Sabah native Jerome Kugan was one of the co-founders of Seksualiti Merdeka, a sexuality and gender rights fest in Kuala Lumpur from 2008 to 2011 – which eventually was infamously shut down by the Malaysian government. Singapore artist Yang Zhongda has exhibited in group exhibitions and various art fairs including 'Affordable Art Fair', 'Expression' and 'Primeval: A Group Exhibition'. The artist believes that a strong technical facility and sincerity are the foundation of all good artworks.
In Strange Bodies, the two artists shows chimeric figurations of the human body that crosses and unfixes the human/non-human divisions – whether it's between the human and the non-human animal, between the landbound and the aquatic, between the creaturely and the vegetal. Drawn from myth, these chimeras represent the re-working of our expectations when things are in disorder, as well as an imagination of the bodies that survive, evolve, and energetically inhabit a post-crisis future.
Grey Projects is also part of 12 institutions and independent art spaces involved in Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, a new initiative to support the local art community. Museums join forces with 10 other local art institutions and independent art spaces and collectives to present a series of exhibitions and programmes that feature the works of over 170 local artists and cultural workers to imagine new ways of living in a world changed by the pandemic.