Ho Tzu Nyen – Ten Thousand Tigers

Overview

Visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen loves cats. While previous works have explored Singapore's colonial past, in Ten Thousand Tigers, Nyen chooses to reveal one of his home country's neglected histories — the history of the feline. In this work, he reveals how cats, whether "big and small, wild and domesticated, imagined and real" have had real, undervalued significance in the birth of the nation.

Premiering in Australia at Carriageworks for the first time, Nyen's visual work, Ten Thousand Tigers pays homage to the symbolic power and sheer magnificence of the Malayan tiger. Blending together live performance, video, installation, and sound, Nyen's work is a spectacular sight of surreal theatrics that hopes to unearth the supernatural cosmologies and mythical folklores surrounding the creature. As an artist, Nyen has previously displayed exhibitions at the Guggenheim, the Venice Biennale, Tate Modern and Sydney's Artspace, among others.

Image: Ho Tzu Nyen, Ten Thousand Tigers, 2014 Esplanade Singapore (Olivia Kwok).