Published on the occasion of the exhibition Radio Malaya: abridged conversations about art. Official opening: 17 January 2017. NUS Museum Singapore.

Radio Malaya: Abridged Conversations About Art follows an earlier project Between Here and Nanyang: Marco Hsu’s Brief History of Malayan Art (2013 – 2016) and continues to proceed with ways in which the University’s permanent collection may be read in relation to writings on art and cultural history. It examines lines of inquiries that are predicated by various practices, institution-making, scholarship and nation. As a backdrop to the evolving discussion on Malayan culture which Hsu was part of, the exhibition introduces selected writings by T.K. Sabapathy and S. Rajaratnam, the former pertains to Southeast Asian art historiography, and the latter as a call for a cultural history that forms part of a shaping of community and nation. These frames provide ways to consider the Museum’s collection whose collecting histories may be associated with Malaya’s period of formation, and the evolving project of art history.