Pratchaya Phinthong: No Patents on Ideas | Artist Talk

Описание: During Singapore Art Week 2025, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) hosted a special talk featuring artist Pratchaya Phinthong in conversation with SAM curator Selene Yap.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Pratchaya Phinthong: No Patents on Ideas, this discussion explored how objects resist fixed meanings and instead evolve through their contexts, encounters, and the stories they accumulate. Phinthong's work revealed the hidden narratives and systems that underlie our daily lives, offering a subtle yet incisive critique of contemporary conditions.

The talk delved into the politics of exchange and transformation through objects, actions, and ideas.

[𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗦]
Pratchaya Phinthong (born 1974, Thailand) creates situations that invite visitors to share in an experience with him. His projects, undefined by specific forms, suggest gaps for spectators to interpret and fill. He constructs sets, fictions, or processes that challenge perceptions, offering stories with multiple pathways—blending memory and subjective experience. Rooted in dialogue between the artist and others, his work shifts toward the social realm. Beyond artistic or formal exploration, Phinthong seeks to navigate his identity within economic and cultural contexts.

Phinthong held his first solo exhibition at The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University in 2008, and has since exhibited widely. He has participated in numerous international biennale presentations, including Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025); Busan Biennale (2024); Singapore Biennale (2022); 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022); Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Art Encounters Biennale, Timisoara (2017); 14th Biennale de Lyon (2017); Taipei Biennial (2012); and Documenta 13 (2012).

Selene Yap (born 1988, Singapore) is a Curator at SAM. Her curatorial practice follows a situational approach, developing research and exhibitions in close dialogue with artists whose work respond to the contingencies and particularities of place, process and memory. Yap has curated significant solo and joint presentations of artists Pratchaya Phinthong (No Patents on Ideas, 2024), Simryn Gill & Charles Lim Yi Yong (The Sea is a Field, 2024), Ho Tzu Nyen (Time & the Tiger, 2023), and Joo Choon Lin (Dance in the Destruction Dance, 2023)—projects marked by critical engagement and conceptual depth. She was recently appointed as one of the four curators for Singapore Biennale 2025.

Before joining SAM, Yap held research roles at the Future Cities Laboratory and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She also served as Programme Manager for Visual Arts at The Substation, supporting exhibitions and initiatives that sought to defy conventional use of the arts space. As an independent curator, she co-curated State of Motion: Rushes of Time (2020) with the Asian Film Archive, exploring temporality and the moving image through film and installation.