Singapore Art History as a History of Mobilities

ABSTRACT Moving away from the study of the history of art using place-bound and ‘rational' terms, this article examines how the different forms of mobilities practiced by Singaporean artists have shaped their artworks, practices and identities. This is achieved through a study of artists who practiced ‘unconventional’ forms of mobilities: Suzann Victor, an ‘unofficial exile’ who moved to Sydney due to the fallout from the Brother Cane incident, which made it difficult for her to continue to practice in Singapore; Jimmy Ong, who shifted his practice to the United States to lead a “domestic life” with his former husband and Gilles Massot, a French-born artist who moved to Singapore to become an “Other.” Specifically, the paper seeks to answer: What are the different types of mobilities practiced by the artists? How do these mobilities impact their practice? How are these mobilities and their impacts perceptible in the artworks? What are the ways that these mobilities differ from the ones that are typically studied in canonical art history? In this paper, the artworks are studied as ‘fluid spaces' that are shaped by the myriad forms of mobilities practiced by the artists – many of which cannot be described as completely ‘rational – rather than the product of a single form of mobility. The aim is to shift our study of art away from place-bound and ‘rational’ concepts towards the transience of the artists and the borderless nature of artistic influences and ideologies.

during a period of exploration and innovation by local artistswho were increasingly looking outwards for new inspirationthat was facilitated by an improved transport network.  Travel remains a common trope in art history as artists regularly go abroad to further their artistic education, a practice that persists today. It is commonly argued that Tang Da Wu, often credited as the founder of contemporary art in Singapore, became increasingly interested in conceptual, performance and installation art while he was in the United Kingdom.  Art historians have been quick to conclude that Tang was exposed to these ideas during his time abroad as he mostly produced modernist sculptures and works on paper before leaving Singapore.
Despite the prominent role that mobilities play in shaping the artistic development of Singapore, it is an undertheorised concept in art history. The current scholarship on mobilities is still focused on and written in place-bound terms. Returning to the Nanyang Style, it is typically studied as a fusion between ideas that 'originated' from Europe and China. Namely, the impressionist, post-impressionist, fauvist, and cubist elements in the style, and the practice of plein-air painting by the Nanyang artists are attributed to ideas transmitted from Europeprimarily Pariswhile the composition and pictorial techniques of Chinese ink are seen as ideas deriving solely from China. As a result, the transitoriness of the artists, who travelled and thought beyond the borders of these places, and the borderless nature of artistic influences and ideologies, are disregarded. Nora Taylor suggests that this is done to support indigenous traditions and counter any notion of the derivative or stylistic influence that characterise art during the colonial period.  This is particularly true for the study of non-Western art. For instance, Rey Chow points out that the biggest concern of many sinologists is that contemporary Chinese writers are "sacrificing their national cultural heritage for a 'translation' that commodifies experiences of victimisation."  The problem with such an approach is that scholars expect and seek out some sort of essential history and culture of a particular nation within the works they analyse. In his article on Korean art, J.P. Park argues that the focus on studying art through placebound identities can result in a tendency for academics and critics to over-read history and tradition in their search for something to differentiate each society, and their works, from each other.  Furthermore, as scholars rightly argue, such an approach does not take into consideration the critique of traditional canons posed by postcolonial studies and the spatial turn in art history. All these trends require art historians to broaden their perspectives to embrace the world as a whole. This is especially since the concept of national artistic identity is becoming increasingly unsatisfactory as notions of cultural mixing, decentring, and interchange have become prevalent.  This study moves away from this tendency to reduce and study art according to placebound terms; instead, this article focuses on how the transience of Singapore artists, deriving from the different forms of mobilities they practice, have impacted and shaped their artworks, practices and identities. This is done through a study of the artworks by three different artists with varying forms of as well as motivations for their mobilities to answer: What are the different types of mobilities practiced by the artists? How do these mobilities impact their practice? How are these mobilities and their impacts perceptible in the artworks? What are the ways that these mobilities differ from the ones that are typically studied in canonical art history? The three artists I look at are Suzann Victor, who describes herself as an "unofficial exile" as she relocated to Sydney following the fallout from the Brother Cane incident, which made it challenging for her to continue her artistic practice in Singapore;  Jimmy Ong, who shifted his practice to New York and Vermont in the United States to lead a "domestic life" with his former husband;  Gilles Massot, a Frenchborn artist who moved to Singapore as it allowed him to be a "stranger" and an "Other."  My theoretical framework is designed around overcoming two issues surrounding our study of art: the fixation on placespecifically the nationand the 'rational.' This is achieved through the study of the selected artworks as 'fluid spaces' that are shaped by the myriad forms of mobilities practiced by their artists. By studying artworks as being the result of a constant flux of mobilities, rather than reduced to a single form of mobility, such as migration from home to host nation, I restore the transient nature of the artists and their works. This paper is also interested in the study of identity; but rather than adopting the conventional way of studying the identities as well as the artworks of transient artists as the cutting and mixing of influences from different nations and regions, I look at how the mobilities of the artists create new forms of identities instead. This framework is key to our study of the increasingly globalising world because as Stuart Hall writes, these "global developments above and below the level of the nation-state have undermined the nation's reach and scope of manoeuvre, and with that the scale and comprehensivenessthe panoptic assumptionsof its 'imaginary.' In any event, cultures have always refused to be so perfectly corralled within the national boundaries. They transgress political limits."  Aihwa Ong writes that mobility has become a new code word for grasping the new and extensive ways in which we live.  Peter Adey adds that living without mobility can also curtail our life chances.  Studies, however, typically define these "life chances" that Ong mentions purely in rational and economic terms. For instance, art history has always been focused on how travel helped to further an artist's career by giving them greater access to art markets, exhibitions and festivals. The reason is that individuals are often assumed to partake in only 'rational' forms of mobilities. A primary reason is that due to its predictability and repetitiveness, 'rational' forms of mobility give the illusion that they are the norm. To further disrupt the conventional understanding of mobilities in art, I chose three artists with mobilities that can be described as non-conventional and non-rational. For instance, the mobilities of Ong are mainly driven not by his career, but by emotional, affective, and personal reasons, such as shifting his practice for his former husband. Massot, on the other hand, chose to settle in Singapore in the s, during a period when most artists were clamouring to move to Europe where he is from.
The fixity and flexibility of Suzann Victor Suzann Victor (b. , Singapore) began her career in the s, described by T.K. Sabapathy as a period when the foundations on which the artistic system in Singapore was built on were irreversibly disrupted. The art historian writes that the younger generation of artists were propelled to re-examine all that had been assumed as given, including issues related to the nature of art, and questions regarding the self in relation to social, cultural, and environmental conditions.  In particular, they felt that the modernist ideas of painting and sculptures, as well as the current museum and gallery spaces, were inadequate in dealing with the aforementioned issues. This drove artists towards alternative art practices, such as performance, installation and video art, as well as out of the museums, as many started to exhibit their works outdoors and in private arts spaces.  The avant-gardism of the late s and early s is evident in Victor's Still Life () (Fig. ), where the artist pinned eggplants of varying sizes onto the wall. This work is significant as it marks Victor's shift from painting, which she was trained in LASALLE College of the Arts, to the creation of performative installations.  This shift is suggested by the title which recalls one of the principal genres of Western art that is typically rendered in painting to immortalise the subject; Victor's still life, on the other hand, is an installation made out of everyday and perishable objectsspecifically, eggplants. The word "still" is also significant as it points to the 'fixity' within Victor's practice as Victor's works are often inspired by the space she is located within. The site-specific Still Life, for example, is inspired by the walls in th Passage which had gaps in them. Victor decided to stick eggplants into them as a way to challenge the dominant exhibition method in public art museums in Singapore, the white cube.  Still Life was created for the -hour event, Body Fields, which was held at th Passage, the independent arts space founded by Victor in  along with Han Ling and Susie Lingham. The mission of th Passage was to provide access to the arts for the public and to develop art in, with and for society.  These goals resonated with those of other socially conscious art groups around Southeast Asia. In particular, Michelle Antoinette writes that this ethos was shared by another Singaporean art group, The Artist Village (TAV), to which the th Passage was often compared to as they were founded around the same time and both attracted an informal community of young artists. 

Fixity as a form of mobility
One key difference, however, exists between the two groups: TAV was founded on 'mobility' and th Passage on 'fixity.' TAV located themselves away from the urban centre, holding their exhibitions, workshops, and discussion in Tang's kampung  space. Their decision to reside in rural Lorong Gambas can be seen as a rejection of the traditional arts organisation, such as public arts spaces and formal arts society, which were clustered in the city. The main concern of these institutions was to produce and display modernist artworks that the younger artists sought to move away from. TAV's goal, instead, is to create an alternative venue with a conducive environment for artists to experiment, experience and exchange ideas, particularly on alternative art forms. th Passage, on the other hand, chose to locate themselves in the city, in the Parkway Parade shopping mall. The centrality of the mall, which was  min away from the city centre, compelled Victor and her collaborators to locate th Passage in Parkway Parade as it allowed them to engage with not just artists but the wider public as well. For Victor, her goal has always been to "short-circuit" the artistic system of Singapore from within.  And as mentioned, Tang's artistic education in the United Kingdom, and the time he spent there, is credited as one of the primary reasons that inspired him to set up TAV as he was exposed to these new mediums and methods of artistic expressions while abroad. The three co-founders of th Passage, on the other hand, are "homegrown" artists.  Their decision to stay in Singapore ran counter to the trend of the time as there was an increase in travel amongst artists due to the surge in art festivals globally, the growth in the international art market, and the rising interconnectedness of the art scenes around the world. Victor admits that she never had plans to leave Singapore; this is reflected in her commitment to th Passage as she worked full-time at the arts space, often without pay.  But contrary to the dominant argument that Singaporean artists are driven to 'alternative' art forms from influences from the West, Victor suggests that she chose the art forms exactly because she was looking inwards: the artist was driven to the theatricality and social consciousness of the performances and installation which she felt were qualities lacking from the dominant art forms in Singapore.  Adey writes that to move is to be political: mobilities are underscored by political decision-making and ideological meanings that arrange mobility and the possibility of mobility in relation to society and power.  Adding to that, I argue that fixity is also political; this is evidenced by Victor who was convinced that the most effective way to bring about changes to the artistic system in Singapore is by situating herself within the country. Fixity and immobility, however, are frequently given negative associations, such as idling, lounging and drifting. It also does not fit with the rational goal of fulfilling one's potential. As David Bissell and Gillian Fuller explain, "stillness invites suspicion and is a cause of interrogation […] stillness is toxic: a failure of self-management, a resistance, a dragging of one's heels, a chocking sullenness."  Yet, Victor and th Passage illustrate the opposite as they produced equally innovative works and exhibitions despite their fixityor more accurately, exactly because they kept 'still'. The biography and artworks of Victor and th Passage, therefore, expand our conventional understanding of mobility as they demonstrate that mobilities of artistic influences is not solely derived from physical movements.

Artists as flexible citizens
Victor, however, did eventually leave Singapore as it became untenable to practice her art in Singapore after the Brother Cane incident in . Prior to the incident, during the period when th Passage was first initiated, Antoneitte argues that the Singapore government was still largely indifferent to the social possibilities and critical impact of art, and it is precisely this indifference that helped to install a critical avant-garde.  From the s onwards, however, the Singapore government started to become increasingly interested in developing the country's cultural sector, increasing their funding for the arts as well as building many new arts institutions. Additionally, the state began to consolidate its control of the arts and stamped out non-hegemonic art formsparticularly performance art. Victor surmises that it is because they did not understand the performance art form.  This 'misunderstanding' culminated in the Brother Cane incident, which was triggered by Josef Ng's performance of the same name. During the Artist's General Assembly (AGA) event, held on the last day of  at th Passage, the young artist concluded his performance by snipping his pubic hair in public. When the image of his performance was circulated on a local paper, it created a public and media furore which resulted in the government punishing Ng, th Passage and the performance art form. Although she was not directly targeted by the punitive measures of the government, it became increasingly difficult for her to continue to practice as an artist in Singapore as she was named and shamed in the local papers.  th Passage was also no longer allowed to hold any public performances and events or to receive any grants or assistance, and the government ceased all public funding and support for the performance art form. Furthermore, the arts group was quickly evicted from the passageway space they occupied in Parkway Parade, the same space that the group derived its name from.  Under the advice of fellow artist Cheo Chai Hiang, Victor decided to join him in Australia where Cheo helped her to secure a scholarship to complete her honours year in the University of Western Sydney.  Victor, however, continued to maintain a connection and network with the Singapore arts scene. Many of her works also continue to deal with the socio-political issues of Singapore, especially since she is often invited to represent Singapore in international festivals, such as  nd Asia-Pacific Triennial in Queensland and the  th Havana Biennale in . She also continues to receive commissions from institutions back in Singapore.  Although not a conscious goal of hers, the artist's continued presence in the Singapore allowed her to be reintegrated back into the dominant arts scene. This is exemplified by the fact that she was invited by the Singapore Art Museum to create an artwork for  Stars: Art Reflects on Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress, an exhibition created to celebrate the  th anniversary of Singapore's independence. The museum writes that the artists were chosen by the state-funded museum for their "lifelong commitment to art" and their "exemplary discipline."  The short survey of Victor's practice demonstrates that it is inadequate to call her either a 'home-grown' or 'international' artist. This is not only because her career is split between two geographical locations. Borrowing loosely from Ong, it would be more accurate to describe her as a "flexible citizen."  This flexible form of citizenship has emerged in response to the liquidities of capital and more permeable borders. This strategic manoeuvring and capitalising of her changing positionalities is reflected in the artist's site-specific performance, Still Waters () (Fig. ), created a year after the opening of the Singapore Art Museum.
In her performance, Victor travels around the abandoned and unused drains that meander around the building. She writes that her performance in the drains parallels the Singapore government's control of public discourse by "holding the bodies of artists in exile."  But through her artworks and her practice, Victor is able to reintroduce marginalised bodiesparticularly her ownback into the arts spaces of Singapore. This is achieved through a "cosmopolitical intervention" which, as Kin-Yan Szeto explains, arises when individuals "experience multiple dislocations through globalism, colonialism, and histories of diaspora and learn to navigate their temporal, spatial, and historical contradictions, surviving and achieving their goals."  Namely, by residing in Sydney, Victor was able to remove herself to process the "trauma" resulting from the Brother Cane incident. She was also able to receive financial support from the Australian government, in the form of scholarships, which allowed her to complete both her postgraduate degreessomething, she admits, which would not have been possible if she returned to Singapore.  Moreover, many of her works, including the commissions for Singapore institutions, were only achievable because of the resources available to her in Sydney, such as the engineers who she commends for helping her to find the technical solutions to many of her works.  Maintaining her connection to Singapore, on the other hand, allows her to continue to create works that critically engage with the issues of Singapore for a local audience as well as to receive a constant source of patronage from the government and institutions.
What Victor's flexible and cosmopolitical form of citizenship also suggests is that an artist's identity cannot be simply limited to a singular national identity. As James Clifford's rightly notes, "Identity is also, inescapably, about displacement and relocation, the experience of sustaining and mediating complex affiliations [and] multiple attachments."  Instead, Victor demonstrates to us through her practice and her artworks a kind of multiple and flexible belonging which results from the strategic flexibility in one's social and geographical positioning.

The personal mobilities of Jimmy Ong
As prefaced in the introduction, it is commonly argued that artists travel and migrate to further their career, such as studying or exhibiting overseasthat their physical movements are bound by 'rational' and economic-based reasons. Jimmy Ong (b. , Singapore), however, found himself making multiple sojourns to the United States for more affective and personal reasons. Soon after returning to Singapore after completing his studies in Philadelphia in , Ong quickly returned to the States to attend the memorial of his former boyfriend who passed away. To mourn the death of his lover, Ong created Memorial Still Lifes (), a series of live drawings of vegetables and fruits. He chose these objects as the subjects of his still lifes as he remembers his former lover as being a great cook.  The artist, however, soon returned to Singapore when he ran out of money. But not long after, he met his soon-to-be husband at a gay bar in Singapore and moved with the American to New York City the following year.
Ong describes his life in New York as "domestic" as he spent most of his time in his home.  This is reflected in the choice of subjects for the works he produced there, many of which featured objects he encountered in his home, such as the flowers he grew in his gardens which he drew in Night Still Life () (Fig. ). The reason, Ong confesses, is that he spent most of his time at home gardening, renovating the house and taking care of the couple's five dogs leaving him little time for anything else.  This is unlike the common narratives surrounding other artists who moved and resided abroad, which are centred around how the artists learned from and integrated with the local arts scene and communities. Despite his physical fixityas he mostly stayed at homethe artist kept himself abreast of what was happening in the States, Singapore, and the rest of the world through the Internet. For example, the reports of the September  terrorist attack were the impetus for Night Still Life, which was created as a way for him to process the grief he felt about the tragedy. This would explain why, compared to his other drawings, there is little white space in Night Still Life as the artist runs his charcoal through most of the drawing. Therefore, instead of evoking life and vibrancy, as fresh-cut flowers usually do, the ones in Night Still Life elicit a sense of melancholy and dread within viewers as they are veiled by the liberal and rough shading by the artist. The shading in Night Still Life, however, is visibly lighter than that of Memorial Still Life, which, as mentioned, was also created in his moment of grieving. The reason, Ong states, is that he did not feel the grief as intensely in Night Still Life as he was

Reconfiguring (un)belonging
In addition to objects from his domestic scenes, the other works by Ong from his time in the States were centred around themes related to Singapore and Southeast Asia, such as landscapes and folklores from the region. The artist describes his artworks as a way to grapple with his identity.  To navigate the uncertainty of their new everyday life, migrants tend to hold on to their national identity as a prominent and obvious identity marker. National identity, in other words, provides an anchor for individuals in their host nationa place where they occupy liminally as they straddle between a sense of belonging and 'unbelonging.'  While practices associated with national identity can be problematic due to the negative aspects associated with it, such as class tension, it allows respondents to develop a sense of belonging and an increased ability to cope with being away from family and friends, and the familiarity of the home nation. Moreover, migrant artists can also form indirect connectedness to their homeland. The concept of identity, therefore, cannot be completely disregarded; as Hall rightly explains, identity is "an idea which cannot be thought in the old way, but without which certain key questions cannot be thought at all."  Additionally, Ong continued to produce mostly charcoal on paper of still lifes or human figures as the demand for his works came almost exclusively from galleries in Singapore who favoured the genre and medium. Even though Ong has physically shifted to the States, his practice is still influenced by the connections and networks he has back in Singapore.
Ong, however, notes that he never entirely felt like he "belonged" in Singapore toowhich is confirmed by his act of leaving.  A primary reason for this non-belonging is evident in his Lovers and Ancestors () series, which the artist created before departing for the States. The drawings depict various scenes of progeny and filial piety: in Walk Walk (), for instance, we see a father watching on lovingly as his toddler crawls towards him while Mother Melatonin () (Fig. ) captures the moment a mother and her daughter embraced. However, the way that the subjects are renderedsuch as the unrealistic proportion of the figures and the unnatural poses of the father in Walk Walkreminds us that the drawings are works of imagination rather than based on a real familial scene. The fictionality of these scenes parallels the elusiveness of these moments for Ong as Singapore actively discourages non-heteronormative relationships and family units, which is one of the reasons why he chose to leave. The artist, however, is not entirely comfortable with the idea of leaving his family and friends for the States to live with his male partner either. He confesses that these drawings were partly motivated by a sense of guilt as the artist was not being 'filial.' In the Chinese community in Singapore, where Confucianism is a core ideology, individuals are often expected to get married and have children to continue the family lineage as the ultimate filial duty towards their parents and ancestors.
However, the sense of guilt he felt for not fulfilling his heteronormative 'duties' as a Singaporean Chinese son, is not hinted at in the drawings which depict idyllic familial moments. Rather than being a depiction of his guilt, these drawings allow Ong to imagine and piece together the different components of what constitutes an ideal family for the artist. This is also evident in Ancestors on the Beach (), a series of works he completed after entering a civil union with his long-term partner Scott Kreutz in the garden of their home in Vermont in . The charcoal drawings depict the imaginary ancestors of Ong in non-heteronormative marital unions: in Heart Daughters (), we see a nude female figure piggybacking another female figure, presumably her partner, with what can be read as their child at their feet. The main difference between this series and earlier ones, such as Lovers and Ancestors, is the motivation behind the work: rather than being informed of the impulses and emotions of his earlier career, such as angst, guilt, lust, loss, Ancestors of the Beach is driven by a desire for closure and to rehabilitate his past. This is evident in Breeding Ancestor () (Fig. ), where the subject literally births his ancestor. The narrative behind this work is inspired by Taoismanother hegemonic ideology and religion of Chinese communities in Singaporewhich proselytises that any individuals without any descendants will become a wandering ghost and not be allowed to reincarnate.  To rehabilitate these wandering ghosts, the artist created a scene where individuals are capable of (re)birthing their ancestors, breaking the cycle of their eternal incorporeality.
Ong's drawings, therefore, are not simply the result of place-based influences, such as the flowers in his gardens in the States or the folklore of Southeast Asia. Rather, it is made up of his personal relationships, including with his lovers and family. What the artist achieves with these drawings is the creation of an alternative space that allows him to make, remake and even unmake these relationships. More importantly, the works capture the normative identity sought by the artist which he is not able to achieve despite migrating as it is not present in both his home and host nations. Specifically, his Ancestors on the Beach series allows the artist to create a space that is free from Confucian guiltwhere one is not responsible for the future lives of their ancestorsand individuals are allowed to be (with) whoever they want.

The Economics of Belonging
After separating from his husband, Ong soon moved to Yogyakarta in Indonesia for a onemonth artist residency to "get away" from his former partner.  The move, however, quickly became permanent as the artist decided to make the city his new home. Unlike his time in the States, his stay on the island inspired several dramatic shifts in Ong's practice, such as shifting away from his favoured charcoal on paper towards the production of installation works. For example, the artist worked with the local seamstresses to create a series of effigies in Seamstresses' Raffleses () by roughly cutting locally-sourced fabric and dyeing them before sewing the pieces together. They are then stuffed with cotton into the shape of the torso of Raffles, before being tied with ropes and hung from the ceiling. These effigies are inspired by the colonial legacies shared by both Yogyakarta and Singaporeas they were both colonised under the British administration that was led by Thomas Stamford Raffles. Through Seamstresses' Raffleses, Ong aims to punish Raffles for his crimes. Thus, he rendered the effigies headless as he learned that the sultan of the island used to punish traitors by cutting off their legs and their heads before burying the head at the entrance to the royal tomb, on top of the Imogiri Hill, and the legs at the bottom of the hill.  Ong also admits that the reason he was finally able to afford to experiment with his practice is because of the lower cost of living and working in Yogyakarta compared to Singapore and the States. While in New York, Vermont, and Singapore, he was pressured to create "sellable" works as it was expensive to maintain a studio in these places. Hence, most of the artworks he created were charcoal on paper as that was what was demanded from him by his galleries and patrons. But as he was able to produce art at a much lower cost in Yogyakarta, he felt that he no longer had to restrict himself to any medium  He was also able to afford to hire others to help him in the production of his works. Hence, most of the works that he created in Yogyakarta were created in collaboration with the residents of the islands, including the local artists, seamstresses and tour guides, unlike the works he created in the States and Singapore which were mostly done alone and in isolation. What the shift in Ong's practice demonstrates is that we cannot completely disregard the economic dimension of mobilities; rather, the goal should be to consider them with other motivations and forms of mobilities that have been overlooked, such as affective and personal ones.
At the end of our interview, however, Ong states that in addition to all the above-mentioned reasons, he decided to stay in Yogyakarta as he met his current partner there. "Home for me, is where your loved ones are," the artist laments. 

The 'Other' Gilles Massot
Unlike most immigrants, what Gilles Massot (b. , Aix en Provence, France) sought in his new home, in Singapore, was not a sense of belonging; he chose to reside in Singapore as he enjoyed the feeling of being "constantly thrown off balance" by the novel sights and experiences offered by his new place of residence, such as "the humidity, the food, the amazing diversity of places of worship."  He also revelled in being a "stranger in a strange land," describing himself as an "Other."  Massot's definition of "Other," however, cannot be understood in the postcolonial sense, as a member of the dominated outgroup who is involuntarily excluded and ostracised based on their differences from the dominant in-group which renders them subordinate. Instead, the French-born artist is an Other in terms of the racial model constructed by the Singapore government which uses "Others" to describe any residents who do not fall into the other three main ethnic categories: "Chinese," "Malays," and "Indians." This categorisation is more commonly known as the "CMIO" model.
Massot's definition of an Other is also closer to that of a flâneur, a person who wanders around society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of contemporary life. This is illustrated by his Coffee Shop series () (Fig. ) which was created from the sights and interactions that he experienced in Chye Hong Coffee Shop -Massot's go-to place for his daily cup of coffeeover a span of three years. In particular, the work was inspired by and created to capture the multicultural complexion of Singapore that is embodied by the people of the coffee shop: the artist notes that the owner of the long-gone location was a Chinese family that sold drinks, while a Malay family and a group of Indian men served cooked food. He also describes himself as being one of the angmoh patrons, a term typically used by Singaporeans to describe foreigners of Caucasian descent. Massot is enthralled by the different races "living and working harmoniously under one roof" of Chye Hong Coffee Shop.  These observations are translated into the series as Massot depicts everyday scenes and objects of the coffee shop in different styles and mediums, inspired by the ones that are 'representative' of the art of the main ethnic groups of Singapore.
Massot's description of himself as an Other, however, conceals the active role he took as a new resident of Singapore. Namely, Coffee Shop is the creation of four different personas created by the artist, inspired by three of the four main ethnic groups in Singapore as defined in the CMIO model. First, there is the Chinese ink painter Lu Ma Su, who created three Chinese ink paintings depicting the tables and chairs in the coffeeshop. Next, Jill Nasso, the photographer from New Zealand, captured black-and-white photographs of the daily scenes of the coffee shop; many of them featured patrons who were seemingly unaware that they were being photographed. The Peranakan  artist Ma Geylang, on the other hand, uses charcoal on paper to depict similar scenes. These drawings are then affixed onto discarded cardboard from the boxes that the canned drinks came in, which the artist collected from the store. Lastly, the Malay contemporary artist Gila Masok created coloured drawings and photographs that are affixed on the same found cardboard.

The mobile 'Other'
It is easy to decry Massot's works as reiterating racial stereotypes, such as suggesting that artists from each race only practised specific art forms. It is important to note, however, that these racial categories, grouped collectively into the CMIO model, are created by the government and perpetuated in every aspect of society, from public policies to civic education. Almost every decision and rhetoric of the government is centred around the CMIO model. Subsequently, these hegemonic categories, and the accompanying stereotypes associated with each group, became dominant identities for Singaporeans, or "points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us."  Namely, the sense of belonging one feels to Singapore is often dependent on belonging to one of these groups. Rather than simply perpetuating these stereotypes, what Massot does is, first, highlight the limits of admittance of these categories. Despite the decades that Massot spent living, working, and creating art in Singapore, he still identifies, and is identified, as an angmohthe pejorative term is frequently used to identify someone who is white as an outsider. The borders between the different CMIO categories are so clearly defined, through essential markers such as skin colour and ancestral home, that it prevents mobility between the different categories. Second, Massot demonstrates to us the fragmented and constructed nature of these categories and all identity markers. Despite being an Other (in the CMIO sense), he can freely employ the qualities of the different categories, venturing out of the confines of 'assigned' representations. His four personas, and this ability to move between the different identities, illustrate Massot's perception of what the identity in Singapore is: that there is no singular Singaporean identity but a mixing and co-existence of different cultural identities.  More importantly, the series was inspired by the interplay and reciprocity between these seemingly distinct cultures, as seen in the interactions between the different storekeepers and patrons of the coffeeshop.
The stability of identity, including the dominant racial categories in Singapore, is also challenged by the site-specific and time-specific nature of Coffee Shop which was created and reworked based on the changing scenes that Massot witnessed over three years. The incompleteness of identity can also be seen by the fact that the works in Coffee Shop continue to transform during the duration of the exhibition. This is exemplified by the discarded cardboard boxes that were integrated into the drawings and paintings which still had the imprints of the canned drinks that they held. For the artist, the cardboard were a serendipitous find as they are cheap, practical, stylish and suits his works conceptually.  What Massot demonstrates through the simple act of using a found object, which fundamentally changed his finished work, is that instead of an essential identity, our identities and subjectivities continue to evolve based on our movements in and out, and between the changing spatiotemporal environments that we occupy as well as the strategies we use to negotiate them.
The artist also spends a large amount of his time travelling outside of Singapore, and many of his projects are inspired by his travels. They include The Road to Persepolis (), based on his travels to Iraq, Hang in There (), the name of his exhibition and art book that features the photographs he took from the numerous trips he made between  and  as well as his research and photography project where he followed the route around Asia that Jules Itier -the French customs officer who is credited for creating the earliest extant daguerreotype of Asia -took. This constant need to travel, is presumably from his desire to be a 'stranger.' As Massot explains that coming to Singapore proved "deeply liberating" as he felt that his deepest inner feeling was attuned to his social position in Singapore: as a stranger and an Other.  I hazard a guess that Massot chooses to position himself on the outside, gazing in, as he understands that rather than creating a sense of belonging, most identity markers only result in different degrees of unbelonging. It also provides him with the advantage of occupying the liminal position between different groups. In particular, the stranger's unique position offers them a level of objectivity, a distinct structure composed of nearness and remoteness, indifference and involvement, not available to those who are fully immersed within a particular environment.  In , Massot moved back to France after four decades in Singapore. For the artist, the move back to his childhood home allows him to finally "complete" his work which, to Massot, is not achieved from the objects he creates, but the facilitation of a "dialogue" between all of his past experiences from all the places he has lived and travelled.  Namely, his future projects can be described as creating links between the time periods and spaces he has resided in, and the relationships and experiences that define them.  In other words, these worksand the linkages they representcan be thought of as projects to represent the history of his mobilities.

Concluding statements
Several key conclusions, and overarching themes, can be drawn from our survey of the mobilities of the artists. First, the three artists were never in complete control over their physical mobilities: Victor's move to Australia was driven by political factors while Ong moved to New York to be with his former spouse as same-sex relationships are taboo in Singapore. Massot, on the other hand, is driven to travel not only to find inspiration for his works but also for the more banal reason of earning money through his work as a photojournalist. He also notes that he almost moved out of Singapore in  as his employment pass (the name of the visa he was staying in Singapore under) was not approved until a week before he was due to leave. Again, this disrupts the idea of a 'rational' form of mobility which suggests conscious and active decision-making on the part of the artist. Rather, we must consider them with all other types of mobilities, regardless of how mundane or 'irrational' they seem.
Second, the artists and their works also demonstrate the impossibility of locating an idea, identity or culture to any one specific place of origin. The three artists' works, for example, are created through the strategic adoption and appropriation of materials, ideas and patronage available to them. It is impossible to locate these resources to and in any one place as they are constantly being transformed and adapted by the artists. Additionally, the works narrate multiple identities, borderless imaginations, and experiences across diverse cultures. These works invoke a new way to study art: one based on mobilities. Perhaps, if we continue with this line of research, we can uncover a post-Singapore art formnot one that is devoid of 'Singaporean' characteristics, but one that transcends the need to only study it in terms of the national. My suggestion of a post-Singapore art is not to add another conceptual term to the art historical research but to demonstrate the study of mobilities can help us to think, speak and write about art in different ways. It is also important to note that I am not arguing that the works examined are devoid of national characteristics; rather, they expand and even transcend our understanding of spatiotemporal markers. What the study of mobilities allows us to achieve is to reimagine the ways that we study societies. Instead of being static and geographically fixed, the practices of the artists and their artworks demonstrate that we must conceptualise our increasingly globalising societies as being composed of mobile and transboundary processes and resources. Furthermore, these processes and resources which are endlessly being circulated, adapted, appropriated and transformed, making it impossible to study the history of art simply through place-bound or completely 'rational' concepts and terms.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ABSTRACT
Moving away from the study of the history of art using place-bound and 'rational' terms, this article examines how the different forms of mobilities practiced by Singaporean artists have shaped their artworks, practices and identities. This is achieved through a study of artists who practiced 'unconventional' forms of mobilities: Suzann Victor, an 'unofficial exile' who moved to Sydney due to the fallout from the Brother Cane incident, which made it difficult for her to continue to practice in Singapore; Jimmy Ong, who shifted his practice to the United States to lead a "domestic life" with his former husband and Gilles Massot, a French-born artist who moved to Singapore to become an "Other." Specifically, the paper seeks to answer: What are the different types of mobilities practiced by the artists? How do these mobilities impact their practice? How are these mobilities and their impacts perceptible in the artworks? What are the ways that these mobilities differ from the ones that are typically studied in canonical art history? In this paper, the artworks are studied as 'fluid spaces' that are shaped by the myriad forms of mobilities practiced by the artistsmany of which cannot be described as completely 'rationalrather than the product of a single form of mobility. The aim is to shift our study of art away from place-bound and 'rational' concepts towards the transience of the artists and the borderless nature of artistic influences and ideologies.

Wei Hao Goh
King's College London National University of Singapore Email: weihao.goh@kcl.ac.uk