Ho Rui An
Singapore
Located at the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory, the essayistic practice of Ho Rui An probes into the ways by which images are produced, circulate and disappear within contexts of globalism and governance. He has presented projects locally and internationally, gaining attention for his discursively compelling performances, films and installations that sift through historical archives and contemporary visual culture to probe into the shifting relations between image and power. Drawing upon his training in art and anthropology across schools in London and New York, these projects often take shape through years of archival and in-situ research in different locations, mostly within East and Southeast Asia, and seek to make sense of the material networks and geopolitical imaginaries that produce our contemporary condition. Since 2016, he has been pursuing a research trajectory that began with his investigation of the so-called Asian financial crisis of the late nineties. The works produced from this research have variously examined the persistence of colonial legacies in financial capitalism, the student as a figure of capitalist modernity and radical culture, the textile industry and its many afterlives within the Eastern Asia region.
