Synopsis:

Drawing out the ideas informing his curatorial premise for The O.P.E.N., Ho Rui An considers what it means to momentarily hold back so that one can continue speaking. What does it mean to insist on the act of deferral in a time when there is patience for neither false notes of civility nor critical nuance?

Occupying the space of an opening address, the lecture-performance Opening Draft turns this act of commencement into a performance of drafting – of words as much as the air between them. What happens when one holds a draft of air?

Singapore-based Ho is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. He writes, talks and thinks around images, with an interest in investigating their emergence, transmission and disappearance within contexts of globalism and governance.

He has presented projects at the Serpentine Galleries (London), LUMA/Westbau (Zürich), Hessel Museum of Art and CCS Bard Galleries (Annandale-on-Hudson), QUT Art Museum (Brisbane), 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale, TPAM Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, Para Site (Hong Kong), NUS Museum (Singapore) and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. He is the Singapore desk editor for ArtAsiaPacific and has contributed to numerous publications.