Take a fresh look at science fiction from a female and Asian perspective at New Eden: Science Fiction Mythologies Transformed, the latest art exhibition at ArtScience Museum.
Curated by the team at ArtScience Museum, and taking two years to come to fruition, New Eden brings together 70 artworks by 24 internationally-renown artists. Together, these recast science fiction in new light.
New Eden: Science Fiction Mythologies Transformed at ArtScience Museum
Traditionally, science fiction has been male dominated. It also typically takes on a western point of view.
The New Eden exhibition at ArtScience Museum challenges this paradigm by drawing the connection between science fiction, Asian mythologies and Eastern religions and philosophies.
Visitors to New Eden will be taken to eight different worlds, spread across the museum’s fourth floor galleries.
Paradox of Paradise
Visitors to New Eden will be first greeted by Paradox of Paradise. Inspired by the mythical world of Shangri La, this artwork which resembles a reflective mountain spins about like a prayer wheel, providing a prologue to what is to come.
Word and Worlds
Transcendence, crossing between dimensions and the existence of parallel worlds are common themes found in science fiction. But have you ever thought about how these are also found in Eastern spirituality.
These common threads are highlighted in the Word and Worlds gallery of the exhibition.
New Nature
Challenges the thinking of how new eco systems can develop and how nature can thrive on other planets.
In The House of Natural Fibres Galactica V.2 Dharma Garden, a goddess arrives on on a dharmic wheel space craft.
Chok Si Xuan’s latent is made from a deconstructed massage air bag. It breathes organically like an other worldly being.
Ways of Folding Space
Step inside a room to view South Korean artists Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho’s Ways of Folding Space and Flying, a work that questions the future of art and creativity in the future.
Crafting New Worlds
Drawing on Asian culture and heritage, Anne Samat’s Cannot Be Broken and Won’t Live Unspoken is a mixed media installation that amalgamates seemingly everyday items into a larger than life being.
The Monstrous Feminine
With early science fiction synthesising horror with science and often depicting women as the victims, The Monstrous Feminine gallery features three artworks that turn that narrative on its head. These works depict empowered women and also play on the horror genre.
New Myths
Step into Red Silk of Fate – The Shrine by Sputniko! and Napp Studio & Architects, created out of bioengineered silk and built to resemble a Shinto shrine.
Venture into the screening room to video presentations such as Debbie Ding’s Data Mining Jurong, a work that imagines a parallel universe where oil is discovered in Jurong and residents have been moved out and their once-homes are now a deep mining tunnel.
In a New Light
This section of New Eden challenges the way that Western science fiction has depicted the East.
A highlight is Mariko Mori’s iconic video artwork. This draws on both eastern mysticism and western science fiction to create its own aesthetic.
Lee Bul’s untitled work of an exploded female cyborg body is also fantastic and stunning.
Creating New Beginnings
New Eden: Science Fiction Mythologies Transformed offers an interesting take on science fiction and opens up the minds of visitor to the connections between the genre and asian and eastern sensibilities.
The exhibition at ArtScience Museum will run from 21 October 2023 to 3 March 2024. Admission charges apply.
Get more details here.
If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy this one about museums in Singapore.
