Susie Lingham

Susie Lingham (born 1965) is a Singaporean contemporary artist, writer, curator, art theorist, and educator. Her practice often incorporates writing, sound, performance, and installation, synthesising interdisciplinary ideas related to the nature of the mind across different fields, from the humanities to the sciences.

From 1991 to 1994, Lingham was the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Singaporean artist-run initiative and space, 5th Passage, alongside artist Suzann Victor. In August 2013, Lingham was appointed as the Director of the Singapore Art Museum, becoming the institution's third Director and the first woman to helm the role since its opening in 1996. She would step down from the position in March 2016, moving on to take the role of Creative Director for the 5th Singapore Biennale in 2016.

She is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Technology for the Arts, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore.

Education and personal life Lingham was born in 1965 to a Peranakan Indian father and a Punjabi mother, the youngest of the five children. also organising public readings and forums. In particular, 5th Passage focussed on issues of gender and identity, and on the work of women artists. Later in 1994, 5th Passage received a ten-month offer to curate shows at vacant shop units in the Pacific Plaza shopping centre, which the initiative took up. Lingham would also design the set for the Eleanor Wong play Wills And Secession, which was staged by TheatreWorks in 1995.

Solo artistic career (2000s) From 1999 to 2003, Lingham would work as an arts lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, and from 2008 to 2009, a senior lecturer at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. For Nokia Singapore Art 2002, Susie Lingham would perform Borders at the Singapore Art Museum, using images to explore the delineation between physical fact and idealised, nostalgic fiction, further investigating how artistic works blur the boundaries between private and public space. If the Universe, Between Circle and Ellipse, Slips (2004/13) examined the geometrics of the parabola and ellipse, functioning as a poetic comment on the reciprocal relationship between comprehension and creation.

Her first solo show, Turn, held in 2012 at The Substation, featured installations, drawings and poem-riddles on glass bottles.

Museum directorship (2010s) In August 2013, Lingham was appointed as the Director of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the third Director since its opening in 1996.

Lingham later stepped down as Director in March 2016, taking on the role of Creative Director for the 5th Singapore Biennale, An Atlas of Mirrors, in 2016. The exhibition sought to revive a consciousness of the various activities, ideals, and aspirations of 5th Passage.

Art

Turn (2012) For her solo show at The Substation, Lingham examined the kinetic aspect of words and their potential as ideas, a 'brink' or 'turning point' that was explored via book art, paper works, glass sculptures, and diorama installations, many using poetic texts, numerology, associative wordplay, and inkblot imagery. A limited edition book, An Unkempt Metaphysical Alphabet and a Pseudorandom Pataphysical Alphabet, had its pages displayed as a series of 26 Rorsarch inkblot-like formations that extend into pairs of words that interrogated each other, such as "Knot/Karma" and "Formlessness/Freedom." Inkblots were likewise seen in 64 Shifts, comprising circular pieces of paper stuck on the wall, curling like a tendril even as its individual pieces seemingly fold into itself. The exhibition opened with elsewhere|erehwsele, a performance work featuring sound and poetry, choreographed movement, and vocals.