“There’s Singapore filmmaker Natalie Khoo – her recent short film A Spider, Fever and Other Disappearing Islands was a refreshing blend of soft-horror and documentary fiction and I’m really excited to see what film projects she’s on to next; and media artist Brandon Tay, whose recent VR work on Demon States with art rock band The Observatory and artist Irfan Kasban was truly breathtaking.

I really like (the independent artist-run space) Comma Space as well – probably one of the most curatorially creative spaces due to its space constraints.

I’d also love to see The Observatory’s annual experimental noise festival Playfreely in its usual format again when we’re out of the Covid woods – it always features some of the most exciting acts in Asia and beyond (all artists and spaces are pictured throughout this story).”

“I was an Arts Management student at Lasalle College of The Arts. The degree programme covered visual and performing arts, but not film. During those years, the small international film festivals (German, Israeli, French, etc.) were gaining traction and I was very curious about it. So, I remember skipping quite a few classes and heading to The Cathay (which was near school) to catch those films alone (sorry Mom and Dad!).

I did that every year and really enjoyed it despite fitting the insufferable stereotype of the lonesome art student catching foreign films in mostly empty screening halls. As luck would have it, when I graduated, The Projector was just starting out. I applied for a job with them and the rest is history.

For five years, I grew with an amazing team doing some of the most exciting and unconventional things in cinema. I was sad to go but really thrilled with the opportunity to explore different mediums in the moving image at ArtScience Museum!”

“One of the most important things to me, which I still struggle with, is accessibility. To me, when people invest their time and put in the effort to attend a show or participate in an experience, they should at least get something out of it. For films, and more so for something as new and experimental as VR, the line between being adventurous and flat-out esoteric can get really fine.

Hence as much as within my control, I try to strike a balance in each programme. For instance, within a director’s retrospective – with every two crowd-pleasers a more challenging work gets thrown in to encourage people to ‘try’ it. Or if a single VR artwork is super experimental in concept, maybe the graphics should be mind-blowingly amazing or the music score is by a known and beloved artiste.

I don’t mind co-opting some ‘mainstream’ things if that means creating an opportunity for people to experience it and at the same time engaging them with challenging and meaningful materials. It’s the slow road but to me, it’s also the more inclusive one. Otherwise, aren’t we just curating for our friends?

In terms of direction, I rely on a feedback loop with audiences – they truly are my pulse of what works curatorially! For most screenings and experiences, I try to be present on site as much as possible to talk to the audiences once they’ve finished the show just to get a sense of what the general curatorial threshold is.

I’m pretty kaypoh on whether I’ve hit a home run with all the selections (not always, but always a great feeling when I do!) The feedback is so crucial in helping me frame the next programme or line-up of films or VR artworks. Oftentimes, their thoughts bring out perspectives I’ve never considered before, and this aspect of growing together with the audience is particularly meaningful for me curatorially.”

“It’s akin to choosing sides for caifan/economy rice or nasi padang. There’s a lot of agonising where you might get on everyone’s nerves as they wait for you. There’s also the latent stress of eyeing the person in front of you who chose the very last dollop of what you really wanted and you’re like, ‘Great what should I have now?’.

Essentially it’s the same thing – knowing and researching what you want, consuming and then refining your palate for the film/VR artworks. On a typical day, I ply my resources such as magazines, dedicated news sites, being on the radar of festivals, just to keep abreast of what’s new. Then I’ll go through my never-ending list of previews I almost always never have time for.

On a typical programming rotation, I would have watched at least 10 to 12 films and/or experienced five to seven VR artworks. For stuff I’m on the fence about, I’ll get my colleagues to weigh in. Once I’ve whittled down the works, I’ll quickly move on to the negotiating process – once the deal is done and dusted and the works are in our hands, the next step is to set up the relevant spaces and test the works to get them shipshape for public presentation.

For VR, there might be some adjustments to the physical space if required by the artwork(s). This is usually the case for mixed-reality artworks which blend physical and virtual environments. We might engage a design and build company to either reconfigure the space to fit the experience or propose certain design workarounds for physical limitations and safety reasons.”

“I won’t comment on programme content because it’s always going to be very subjective. But I think the most important thing for me – and a bang a lot on about it – is an accessible programme write-up and synopsis. For most shows and programmes, it’s about setting the context for a whole lot of things you’re about to see. It’s where people connect threads, concepts and idea to a bigger picture or new perspective – and sometimes two or three words is the difference between people watching every single film or VR experience in your programme or just cherry-picking one.

So, there is tons of flair in simplicity – and it’s not the same as dumbing down only because it’s so difficult to convey amazing ideas with so few words. So those who manage to do so are the most successful ones.

Also, it’s the other little things outside of the main experience that can make or break a show – especially for VR where it can be very daunting to experience for the first time. Therefore, at ArtScience Museum we’ve placed quite a bit of TLC in designing the VR Gallery space to be as calming as possible with cosy lighting, cocoon-esque pod seats and gentle ambient audio-visual cues so that people take as little time as possible to get used to things and focus fully on the experience at hand.”

“I like to read Little White Lies and Sight&Sound magazine for updates on films – my housemate subscribes to them but I always steal them from time to time and gawk at the lovely illustrations and fun reviews. The interviews are oftentimes done in very creative formats and there are tons of ideas to glean from in terms of presenting different angles to a film.

When I travel, I also like to visit as many independent or historic cinemas as possible – there’s so much that I’ve learnt from just queuing up and buying tickets, picking up their past programme brochures and seeing what they’ve done before.

Since I’ve joined ArtScience Museum last year, I haven’t the chance to travel much to see how VR experiences are being done. But with the Internet, it’s so easy to take note of what our international peers are up to, and I have to say I’m excited by what other museums such as Artechouse (in New York, Miami and Washington), ACMI (in Melbourne), NXT Museum (in Amsterdam) and the Phi Centre (in Montreal) are doing – and the conversations that they are having on the future of VR.

Emerging media is constantly evolving and so are audience habits. So it’s great to attend the seminars and cross-institution collaborations in further shaping the future of curatorial work in VR.”

Photography Phyllicia Wang Art Direction Jonathan Chia Hair Linh/Itto+Lim Makeup Kenneth Chia, using Nars

A version of this article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2022 Art & Music: The Analogue Edition of FEMALE