One-Man Art Archive: The Story So Far Koh Nguang How My one-man archive was named ‘The Singapore Art Archive Project (SAAP)’ in 2005 when I participated in a residency at the new curatorial collective and art space p-10 in Little India. It started from my three-room HDB flat in 1999, which was both my new single-home and a resource space for my growing materials related to art and culture in Singapore.
Installation view of SAAP, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, March 2015.
Before I became an artist and independent art researcher in 1992, I learned about the art world as a curatorial assistant at the National Museum of Singapore. At the time, I enrolled in a distance learning program named ‘An Introduction to Museum Studies’ under the Commonwealth Association of Museums. I also attended two three-month training courses in Thailand organised by SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts: ‘Preventive Conservation of Museum Objects’ in 1989 and ‘Documentation of Non-Print Materials on Culture’ in 1990. Several exhibitions at the museum and private galleries, including events during the Singapore Festival of Arts, allowed me to photograph and collect related ephemeras, adding to my collection of newspaper cuttings I started in the early 1980s. The contents of the SAAP were created between the early 20th century to this day, and they centre on topics ranging from art education in Singapore to international art exchanges, and from traditional art mediums to performance art and digital media. Then, I did not have the money to buy the relevant publications for
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