The last in a series guided exhibition walkthroughs, join SIPF staff, Assistant Producers Cavin Lim and Luna Chang, and SIPF Programmes Coordinator Jay Lim, for an afternoon at SingPost Geylang Post Office where we will delve into two parts of Shifting Images. States of Becoming explores how Singaporean artists have used photography to navigate identity and personhood, engaging with photography as a site where the self is rehearsed, contested and transformed. Imagining otherwise in Circles delves into how photography moves between document and fiction, observation and imagination, to ask how the medium might offer different ways of understanding the world.

This session will also explore works shortlisted for the 10th SIPF Open Call Showcase. Learn about the young people of Semporna, the aftermath of Fukushima after 2011, and more. Uncover how artists globally have engaged with photography to not only bear witness to our rapidly changing world, but also employed its indexical nature as a mode of self-expression, challenging the colonial gaze and reclaiming agency.

About the 10th SIPF Open Call Showcase:

At the heart of SIPF’s programming lies the Open Call Showcase, a cornerstone of the festival that has, across every edition, sought to surface new voices and illuminate the evolving landscape of photographic practice. Free from thematic constraint, the Open Call Showcase is shaped entirely by the artists themselves: the works they are compelled to make, the questions they carry, and the perspectives they bring to a world in constant flux. For this milestone 10th edition, 20 portfolios from 16 countries have been selected, each one a distinct vantage point into the preoccupations and imaginative reach of contemporary image-making.

About Shifting Images

Shifting Images is a series of exhibitions exploring the diversity and evolution of photographic practices in Singapore, presented as part of the 10th celebratory edition of the Singapore International Photography Festival. Across eight exhibitions, it takes a reflective look at the nation’s photographic culture, bringing together different generations of artists and approaches to photography to consider how the medium has developed, expanded, and responded to changing social, cultural, and technological contexts.

Images used above are taken from the 9th SIPF Open Call Portfolio Showcase.