The new life of the floodlights.
Curated by Nadia Stefanel
Singapore, 13-19 September 2023
Background. Sustainability and floodlights.
By reflecting upon environmental degradation, sustainability and equitable future, which are the only constant concepts at the moment, we invite viewers of this exhibition to consider the role of artists as, if not agents of change, then at least advocates for greater personal responsibility in an age of indifference.
Art, given its manifold expressions, can be an important source of inspiration to highlight the urgencies and offers us stimulating horizons located somewhere between ethics and aesthetic.
This year, with an unwavering commitment to expedite sustainable human progress,
DZ Engineering SRL, a subsidiary of Dino Zoli Group Holding, provides the lighting for race events across the globe with a massive replacement of their floodlights, using sustainable LED lights, provided by long-term lighting partner Signify for the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2023.
Therefore, Dino Zoli Foundation’s annual Race Week Project stems from the urgency of this pondering on environmental sustainability and proceeds to embrace the same value of the overall quality of life on a global scale, and it decides to disseminate best practices so everyone can make their own contribution.
Open call and submission. The support network to the project.
Dino Zoli Foundation has hence arranged an open call from Italy supported by the Embassy of Italy to encourage artists based in Lion City to give a new life to the old floodlights. Then the Foundation wanted to organize a collective Upcycled Art Exhibition, thanks to a line-up of important cultural collaborations ranging from LASALLE College of the Arts, UAS University of the Arts Singapore (LASALLE), to Art Galleries Association Singapore (AGAS), the non-profit arts intermediary, Art Outreach Singapore, and with great support and backing from the Embassy of Italy, EuroCham and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.
The project has been selected, as it was last year, by STB to be part of the official programme of GPSS 2023 (F1 Grand Prix). It hasn’t just been merely selected. The project has been utterly supported by STB, also choosing to display one of the artpieces of the exhibition during the GPSS Media Night at the Singapore Suite session with invited GPSS partners and overseas media.
These collaborations have played an important role in elevating the project to new heights of excellence and impact.
After sifting through the innumerable submissions we received and holding in person meetings and interviews with the artists, the curator, Nadia Stefanel, has selected the 10 artists, also alumni, and members of these schools and organisations, including Jeyasree Chandrakumaran, Daniel Chong, Chok Si Xuan, Victoria Hertel, Ashley Hi, Elena Lo Giudice, Kumari Nahappan, Anuska Sarkar, Iman Sengupta and Yeo Ker Siang.
The Recycled exhibition.
Thanks to constant communication between the curator and the 10 artists, the Foundation has come to the final stage of the collective. A creative journey to transform these floodlights, once mere components of the illumination system crafted for the Singapore race circuit, into captivating artpieces displayed in such an important and heterogeneous exhibition at The Arts House. Once we sent every artist the necessary floodlights for their creations, studio visits began.
By demonstrating the will to change the current point of view on sustainability, this line-up of artists takes artistic efforts to an indelibly change as ethical dispatches for future visions.
Therefore, the artpieces of the exhibition are displayed according to three similar artistic perspectives. First of all, the floodlights which have been dismounted and analysed for/according to their original function of illumination. Secondly, those which have been transformed into new kinetic and experiential artworks. Lastly, those which have been considered simple germinative containers to become something different.
