Sultan Ibrahim
Organised by: Singapore International Festival of ArtsPerformed by: Lantian Xie
Synopsis:
In this lecture, Lantian Xie speaks about precarity, temporariness, and mortality in the Arab Gulf.
Pulling variously from fiction, song, essay and film, Xie shapes an itinerary for places in which people have no more need for belonging and no want for assembly into land or country or fully-formed bodies.
Instead, these people go about their daily lives all the same, with elbows and knees scattered across many gulfs, islands and peninsulas. Ears are listening nonetheless. Toes are tapping. Teeth are biting. And tongues are busy shaping words borrowed from other tongues.
Xie is an artist from Dubai who makes images, objects, stories and situations. Previous works include a taxidermy peacock, an ashtray stolen from an artist's studio, a collection of romance novels from a used book store, colour pencil drawings of bygone hotels and home delivery motorcycles parked outside. He holds an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and is editor-at-large at Dubai-based publishing practice The State.