SAM Mini Mobile Museum: 'is there any way i can be in your arms tonight' by Ezzam Rahman

About

SAM Mini Mobile Museum is a travelling art exhibition held in partnership with the National Library Board. 

The Mini Mobile Museum introduces the multifaceted nature of contemporary art through a selection of SAM’s permanent collection artworks, adapted for non-museum spaces and created by Southeast Asian artists. Featuring art forms like drawing, installation, sound and video, the Mini Mobile Museum invites the viewer to an intimate experience of the commissioned artwork within a public space. Every exhibition will be accompanied by self-guided activities for families.

On view: is there any way i can be in your arms tonight by Singaporean artist Ezzam Rahman 

Inspired by the bed as a gateway to sleep and dreams, is there any way i can be in your arms tonight is a site-responsive installation that draws parallels between the dream realm and the worlds of possibility contained within books. In dioramas set within bed frames of varying sizes, Ezzam presents whimsical landscapes of flora and fauna, inhabited by miniature creatures like insects and birds. 

While alluring on first sight, a closer look reveals that these objects have been sculpted from unconventional and yet not-unfamiliar materials: dead skin, nails, anti-inflammatory plasters, and depleted tubes of analgesic balm. Keenly associated with the artist’s breathing body, these ephemeral materials present the paradox of absence and presence while capturing certain long-running themes of Ezzam’s practice: of beauty and the abject, of vulnerability and impermanence, and of longing and desire. The installation invites audiences to enter an intimate viewing space, offering room for mental wanderings.

Ezzam Rahman’s commission for the SAM Mini Mobile Museum responds to an existing work by the artist in the National Collection, titled Here’s who I am, I am what you see (2015).