PEEK - A Singaporean Photography Exhibition @ 2902 Gallery
Old School
11 Mount Sophia
11B #B2-09
Singapore

PEEK - A Singaporean Photography Exhibition @ 2902 Gallery

Gwen Lee

2902 Gallery - South East Asia’s biggest at 4,000 sq ft opens at Old School, the former Methodist Girls’ School on Friday, 2902, with PEEK, a breathtaking exhibition featuring 14 Singaporean photographers whose 114 works have been selected for the upcoming Month of Photography in Tokyo. Curated by photographer and academic Chris Yap, the exhibition aims to raise funds needed to transport the works to Tokyo.

“Photography stands at the edge of commercial and fine art,” said founder Gwen Lee. “Most people recognise that taking a great photo is a craft; a skillful manipulation of light and space. But it’s also about a struggle between what is true and what the image presents as truth. It evokes emotion and invokes belief systems just as a painting does,” she said. “The vision of 2902 Gallery is to help people appreciate photography as a fine art and to make artists of photographers,” she said.

Theme: Photograph Reaction

In the daily life of any person, there are reactions to a multitude of things that happen to and around the person; from the smell of coffee, to the red of the traffic light, to the sound of the wind.

Will a photographer react differently to these stimulants? Does a photographer actively go out to be stimulated? Or does a photographer create his own stimulation?

A reaction is only possible when the heart of the photographer still beats to the rhythm of what life has to offer. A beat that changes with each different experience, a rhythm or harmony that sometimes develops long after the event has happened. When all the different rhythms and harmonies and phrases are put together, an interesting symphony of images is born. While all photographers should think and feel differently, putting together the different works is much like composing a symphony.

Here is a symphony of images that acts both as a stimulant as much as a reaction by the photographer.

Ken Seet

A reaction to nature. Stimulated.
A reaction to shooting digital versus analogue. Stimulated.
A reaction to the loss of a life. Stimulated.
A reaction to being a different sort of travel photographer. Stimulated.
A reaction to the differences in the similarities. Stimulated.
A reaction to dying surroundings. Stimulated.
A reaction to the loss of childhood. Stimulated.
A reaction to love. Stimulated.
A reaction to too much commerciality. Stimulated.
A reaction to the change in memories. Stimulated.

Notes:
Visual reaction
Technical reaction
Reaction to livelihood
Reaction to life
Environmental reaction
Everyday reaction to everyday

Chris Yap

The Gallery is a much needed platform for local and regional photographers to offer their works to the market. It aims to be the nexus and catalyst of discussion, thought and critique on photography in SEA.

To make this happen, a programme of exhibitions and workshops will help photographers develop skills and equip the audience with the necessary vocabulary to appreciate photography.

2902 Gallery also has ambitious plans to establish one of SEA’s first resource centres dedicated to the analyses and documentation of photography. It hopes to amass an authoritative collection of material on various exhibitions, works, thinkers, galleries and photographers in the region, and in time, publish its own material. Researchers from around the world will have access to this valuable resource. In addition, foreign photographers (30% Asian, 20% international) will be invited to exhibit their photographs alongside local works which will occupy 50% of the exhibition space. This will create fertile ground for the cross-pollination of ideas necessary for the growth of local photography.

Edited by Eugene Tang. Photographs Courtesy of Chris Yap, Gwen Lee and Ken Seet. All Rights reserved.