Born in 1971 in Singapore, Ming Wong lives and works in Singapore and Berlin. Wong, whose practice explores the performative veneers of language and identity through the moving image, often plays a mélange of roles for the camera: donning the plural personas of actors, actresses and their screen parts, at other times assuming the director’s chair. Wong who has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Singapore and Sydney, has exhibited at the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009) and participated in group exhibitions at several international biennales.‘Filem-Filem-Filem’ (Malay for film) is a series of digital photographs in ‘Polaroid’ form that documents Wong’s travels throughout Singapore and Malaysia in a quest to uncover the remnants of cinema architecture from the recent past. Collectively, the photographs provide a stark contrast to the present era of cinema complexes in Singapore. Paying tribute to the ‘dream palaces’ of old, Wong captures the beauty of the long-lost and forgotten cinemas, some of which still retain signages written in English, Chinese, Tamil and Jawi.
