Cheng Jia Yun

Cheng Jia Yun is an Assistant Curator with the National Gallery Singapore, with a strong interest in understanding how artistic, institutional and societal agency intersect to produce art in post-war Southeast Asia. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History with Material Studies from University College London and joining the museum in 2012, she has worked on the post-1970s sections of the inaugural hang of the Southeast Asia Gallery, Between Declarations and Dreams (2015) and the exhibition Reframing Modernism (2016). Forthcoming projects include Awakenings: Art in Society in Asia 1960s-1990s (2018) and Suddenly Turning Visible (2019). She has been involved in developing and implementing the museum’s first artwork information management system since 2013. Independent engagements from 2017-2018 include artist talks at the artist-run space Peninsular and Jendela Gallery at the Esplanade. Cheng Jia Yun co- curated opening day, a four-part series of artistic interventions sited in the disused common space of Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre, a space selected for its anomalous state within the constantly renewed urban fabric of Singapore. The project ran from 02 December 2017 to 31 January 2018, during which time they organized four artist talks and launched a publication. Past curatorial programmes she has participated in include the Curating Lab Programme (2014-2015) helmed by National University of Singapore Museum and mentored by Heman Chong and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, and the inaugural Asian edition of the French Encounters programme held in Hong Kong (March 2018).