Time Passes: Featuring Khairullah Rahim

20 Aug 2020

Khairullah Rahim is part of Time Passes, a group exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore on view from 4 September 2020.

Drawing parallels between the lush environment of the terrarium and public spaces where people interact and gather, Khairullah’s piece, ‘Rendezvous’, presents a reimagined replica of a thriving habitat comprising peculiar object pairings such as shower roses, faux plants, wood and gravel. These familiar objects embellished with rhinestones shine with a promissory and conspiratorial spark even as they remain enclosed behind glass.

The work continues Khairullah’s observations of the latent potential that public spaces hold and how they can be transformed through the gathering and interactions of various communities.

Guest curated by Samantha Yap, Time Passes is conceived as a corridor of time that echoes the indeterminate passage of our days as we navigate through the pandemic that is still to pass, and the detritus it will leave behind. Its title references the middle chapter in Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse that captures a movement in time and feeling.

Conceptualised during this necessary time apart, the exhibition stages our return to one another and to shared public spaces. It recognises the lingering tenderness of our collective time apart and our time now, together but still apart. The works in the exhibition manifest acts of care-taking through the handling of different materials, and the commitment towards uncovering possibilities of living and relating even through difficulty and uncertainty.

Time Passes, organised by Singapore Art Museum is part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, a collective response by the visual arts community to the global pandemic and its impact.

The exhibition will run until 21 February 2021.

Image: installation view of ‘Rendezvous’, 2020, mixed media assemblage installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Singapore Art Museum.