Loke Hong Seng is renowned for his images of Singapore from the 1960s to 1980s. One of the pioneers of street photography in Singapore, his black-and-white images portray the industrialisation and urban transformation of the nation-building era, and suggest the tensions at work in everyday life in the 1960s and 70s, with kampung and waterborne communities giving way to the abstract contours of HDB housing estates, and pastoral and agricultural landscapes juxtaposed against scenes of land clearance and construction. What these social portraits depict is the contested terrain of a young nation-state in flux, of lifeworlds caught between one historical zeitgeist and the next.
Loke Hong Seng (b. 1943, Singapore) is renowned for his images of Singapore from the 1960s to 1980s. He began taking photographs after joining the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation as an announcer in 1965. In 1973, he received the Golden Award from the Singapore Photo Art Photography Society and, in 1974, was the recipient of the One World for All UNESCO Award. He also exhibited at the Unesco Headquarters in Paris in 1975. Selected exhibitions include group presentations at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (2015) and solo exhibitions at Yeo Workshop (2015) and at the UOB Art Gallery (2015).
This exhibition is part of Twenty Twenty, a suite of exhibitions and programs at 2 Cavan Road.
Location
1 Cavan Road
Singapore 209842
A Splendid View During a Flood, Loke Hong Seng, 1973/2015. Image courtesy of Singapore Arts Club