KENT CHAN

TEMPORARY REPOSITORIES

(689 films archived with DVD casing, cardboard boxes, 2013)

Temporary Repositories is an archival installation-exhibition by Kent Chan that examined contemporary cinema in Singapore, its exhibition and conservation. The exhibition was an endeavour to provide a record of Singapore's first independent art space, The Substation’s Moving Images film programme, which began in 1997 and played a significant role in the development of Singaporean filmmaking. Kent watched through each and every one of the 689 Singaporean films shown under the programme’s banner in the last 15 years. This culminated in the creation of the Moving Images Archive which were presented for the first time at the exhibition. Alongside the film, Watching Eclipses and print, just once, but maybe twice.

Often biographical, archives are cared for and defined by their custodians. Kent Chan introduces an element of play into the process, archiving the films based on his own observations, providing a personalised reading of the history of filmmaking in Singapore.

The installation reflected upon the documents and documentation generated from the archival process. It provided insight into the ideas and labour involved in the project and looked at cinema’s obsession of recording the world through images. The installation examined the overlapping concerns for preservation within filmmaking and the film archive.

Video documentation:
https://vimeo.com/59112498