Charles LIM (Singapore)

SEA STATE 6: Phase 1, 2015, single-channel video, color, sound, 7’13”.

A society created by maritime trade, colonial and modern, Singapore stands at the intersection of pressing global debates around resource use, environmental change and territorial sovereignty. This dramatized cinematographic video, commissioned for the Singapore Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, documents the newly unveiled Jurong Rock Caverns, a gargantuan facility for hydrocarbon storage. Built by a state-owned corporation, these extraordinary geo-engineered underground spaces will soon be filled with oil and never seen like this again.

About the artist:

A former professional and Olympic sailor, Charles Lim’s practice stems from an intimate, bodily engagement with the natural world, informed by field research, experimentation, performance, drawing, photography and video. His works explore the political, biophysical and psychic contours of Singapore and make visible a dynamic coastal ecology, revealing how the infrastructures of global capitalism do not replace the maritime environment, but inhabit and transform it. Lim co-founded the net-art collective tsunamii.net, which exhibited at dOCUMENTA11. His moving image works have been screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Edinburgh Film Festival. Limvi 2011 short film All The Lines Flow Out premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival, winning a Special Mention, the first award won there by a Singaporean production. He is currently representing Singapore at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).