The Utopia of Rules

Bureaucracy is a defining feature of contemporary life, embodying the social contracts and financialised logics that permeate our time, labor, relationships, and even the afterlife.

Borrowing its title from David Graeber’s 2015 book, this exhibition brings together artists from Singapore and beyond who have engaged with everyday bureaucracy and its idioms. Featuring artworks that are produced through international legal limits, that poetically reflect upon the personal cybernetic relationship with censorship, and that unpack the financialization of the office, public housing unit or mobile phone, The Utopia of Rules reflects upon the social contracts, agencies, and logics that define these everyday systems. In turn, the exhibition points to how in ‘following rules’ and ‘filing paperwork’, artists can speak to and shift cultural protocols.

The Utopia of Rules is curated by Hera Chan and Kathleen Ditzig, with design by Joshua Comaroff and Vanessa Ban.