“I work in a much more cyclic way than a linear way, I don’t think it’s a kind of question of progressing or getting better, it’s just a question of discovery and rediscovery. And it’s like travelling, you can go to a place once and when you go a second time you see totally different things, because you are different, and you’re looking for something different, you know. So, it always changes, and I think that’s the important thing, not to get stuck.”
– Kim Lim, interview with Cathy Courtney, 1995.
Perhaps reflecting the island’s cosmopolitanism and (post)coloniality, Singapore’s artists have for decades moved to the United Kingdom to advance their practice. These include eminent artists Teo Eng Seng and Tang Da Wu, who studied and lived in England from the 1960s and 1970s respectively. Less often remarked however is that one of the earliest artists from Singapore to have done so is the sculptor and printmaker Kim Lim.
Kim Lim left in 1954 for London and would eventually settle there; for her, leaving was like “having a cage opened”. Away from the societal and cultural constraints of her time, the UK undoubtedly provided the conditions for developing her practice, whether in terms of options for art school, exposure to an avant-garde artistic milieu or opportunities to exhibit her work. Yet in a sense Kim Lim has always been on the move. Though she was born in Singapore, as a child she spent formative years between Malacca and Penang; when based in the UK as an adult, she travelled constantly, seeking inspiration from ancient art and architecture in places like Greece, Egypt, Cambodia and China.
On the occasion of the exhibition Kim Lim: The Space Between. A Retrospective, the panel discussion “Leaving to Thrive” brings together three artists who have spent time away from Singapore, mainly (though not exclusively) in the UK. Rather than recount Kim Lim’s biography, it adopts an oblique approach to understanding her identities, trajectories and motivations. Seeking resonances and departures, the panel probes what it means now for Singapore artists to leave and (maybe) return. Is it still necessary to leave, to thrive? When is leaving not departure, but a form of circling back?
This programme took place at National Gallery Singapore on 26 October 2024 and was moderated by Lucas Huang.
