August 31. Berlin Art Prize: Opening Min-Wei Ting, Curated by Berlin Art Prize

Saturday, August 31, 18:00 – 22:00
Berlin Art Prize: Opening
Min-Wei Ting
Curated by Berlin Art Prize

Exhibition: September 1-27
Visiting hours: Thursdays to Sundays from 12 to 6 PM

Using slow, tranquil camera movements, filmmaker Min-Wei Ting (b. 1976, Singapore) traverses the city. His lens runs over concrete, infrastructure, and people, as if they were all objects on the metropolis’ assembly line. Yet, in the rigid rhythm of architecture and space, which are reflective of a regimenting power in Min-Wei Ting’s work, moments of the uncontrolled break through: bird calls trill over the hum of ventilation systems, greenery proliferates in the clearings between skyscrapers, people lose themselves in the crowds.

If for Nothing Else than for Sunday (2019) is a cinematic passage through Singapore’s Little India District. Twice, at different times of day, Min-Wei Ting follows the same route with the camera: during the calm that announces dawn and in the midst of a Sunday evening’s hustle and bustle, when large groups of South Asian migrant workers gather in the quarter. Ting interweaves the two shots, drawing attention to the gestures, actions, lights, and sounds that are sometimes there and sometimes not, giving the space a life of its own.

In Hampshire Road (2019), Min-Wei Ting allows his camera to trail along a single building in Singapore for seven minutes. At the Little India bus terminal, guest workers wait in a seemingly endless line at night for their shuttle back to the sleeping quarters outside the city. While the lens measures the length of the building, it increasingly detects how the architecture socially separates, monitors, and controls those that are waiting.

If for Nothing Else than for Sunday
2019
Single channel HD video with stereo audio
39 minutes 35 seconds
Hampshire Road
2019
Single channel HD video with stereo audio
7 minutes 4 seconds

The Berlin Art Prize was created in 2013 by four Berlin cultural producers to establish an award for Berlin’s artists beyond the art world economy. The concept is simple yet singular: The prize is open to all artists living in Berlin for six months or longer, names and careers are not taken into account, art is the only thing that matters. The prize functions as a subversive cover version of existing art prizes and offers an alternative structure with which art in Berlin can be appreciated, interpreted, and made public.
The sixth Berlin Art Prize is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds

This year the Berlin Art Prize is hosted by 9 different project spaces, and TIER is happy to be one of them. Please join us for the opening on Saturday the 31st of September. The exhibition itself will run from 1 – 27 September, and can be visited Thursdays to Sundays from 12 to 6 PM.