Made in Myanmar / In Time to Come (M+2017)

Made in Myanmar (2014)
16 min, Burmese with Korean and English subtitles, Digital, Myanmar

Initiated in 2012, Lee Wan’s ongoing Made in film series considers the structural points at which ordinary daily life interfaces with global forces, particularly in the new liberalist economies of developing Asia. For Made in Myanmar, the artist worked at a Chinese-owned goldmine in northern Myanmar for three weeks, eventually extracting three grammes of gold. This rare metal, once considered a sacred Buddhist symbol, is now an icon of capitalism in a country tearing towards modernisation and globalisation.

Lee Wan (Korean, b.1979) is a socially-engaged multimedia artist who is currently representing Korea at the 2017 Venice Biennale. For his Made in series, the artist has laboured in rice fields in Cambodia, in a sugarcane plantation in Taiwan and a palm-kernel plantation in Malaysia, as well as in a furniture factory in Indonesia and with a silk-suit manufacturer in Thailand.

In Time to Come (2017)
62 min, English, DCP, Singapore

Set in Singapore during its 50-year anniversary of independence, In Time to Come follows the ritualistic exhuming of an old state time capsule, and the compilation of another. As enigmatic remnants of life from 25 years ago emerge – a bottle of water from the Singapore River, a copy of Yellow Pages, a phone charger – today’s selection of items are carefully primed for future generations to decode.

This screening marks the Asian Premiere of In Time to Come and includes a post-screening discussion with the director, Tan Pin Pin.

Tan Pin Pin (Singaporean, b.1969) chronicles gaps in history, memory and documentation. Known for her astute documentaries about Singapore, she often returns to themes of redevelopment and excavation of the past. Her film Singapore GaGa (2005) was the first ever Singaporean documentary to have a cinema release, while her multi-award-winning film To Singapore, with Love (2013) has been banned from public screenings there.