Oversight/Preclusion
Book
40 pages, two-colour risograph, saddle-stitched
21 x 15 cm
Edition of 200
2018
Published by wares infoshop library, printed by Knuckles & Notch
Oversight/Preclusion is an artist's book that features texts by anonymous contributors recounting their experiences of watching the 2013 documentary film by Tan Pin Pin, To Singapore, With Love. In September 2014, the film was classified as “not allowed for all ratings” by the Media Development Authority and thus banned from public screenings. A press statement describes the film as “[undermining] national security because legitimate actions of the security agencies to protect the national security and stability of Singapore are presented in a distorted way as acts that victimised innocent individuals.” In the book, three stylistically differing accounts attempt – with attendant gaps, contradictions, and reinforcements between one another – to paint a picture of the hidden, give volume to the erased, and confront fugitive memory. A surrogate image of both the unseen film and those exiled voices deemed too dangerous by the state is illuminated through text, though the veracity of each account, and memory itself, are neither stable nor static, standing in contrast in form and content to official assertions of history.
Copies available from: wares (only at physical site), Knuckles & Notch (via Singapore and at physical site), Thing Books (via Singapore, only locally and to neighbouring countries), Display Distribute (via Hong Kong using Light Logistics 'slow courier'), Motto Books (via Berlin) Browsable at wares, shrub, and NTU CCA in Singapore, and Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. |