Shabbir Hussain Mustafa is Curator at the National Art Gallery, Singapore, where he researches art from Singapore and Southeast Asia. He was formerly Curator (South-Southeast Asia) at the National University of Singapore Museum (NUS Museum). Mustafa's curatorial approach has centered heavily on deploying archival texts as ploys in engaging different modes of thinking and writing, all in an attempt at opening up the archive to multivariate struggles of perception and reading. Selected Southeast Asian exhibitions that Mustafa has curated at NUS Museum include: Archives and Desires: Selections from the Mohammad Din Mohammad Collection (2008); I Polunin: Memories of Singapore Through Film and Photographs (2009); Writing Power | ZulkifliYusoff (2011); Semblance/Presence: Renato Habulan and Alfredo Esquillo Jr (2012); and most recently, Come Cannibalise Us, Why Dont You? | Erika Tan (2013). Some of his publications include “Remembering the Intimate Past” in Shifts: Wong Hoy Cheong, 2002-2007 (2008); “Something” in Being: Ahmad Zakii Anwar (2009); “Confessional Curation” in The Sufi and The Bearded Man: Re-membering a Keramat in Contemporary Singapore (2011); and “Curatorial Notes” in Camping and Tramping (2011), an essay and exhibition that lays out some methodological considerations for the rethinking of curatorial practice in Singapore. He also co-conceived the online platform www.malayablackandwhite.wordpress.com and the curatorial project space at NUS Museum titled, Prep Room | Things That May or May Not Happen (2011).
Shabbir Hussain Mustafa
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