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About

Biography

Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. Through lectures, essays and films, his research examines the relations between labour, technology and capital across different systems of governance in a global age. He has presented projects at the Shanghai Biennale; Bangkok Art Biennale; Gwangju Biennale; Jakarta Biennale;  Kochi-Muziris Biennale; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Kunsthalle Wien; Singapore Art Museum; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan.

Contact: horuian@gmail.com

Solo Exhibitions

2026   Ultimate Coin Test China High-Speed Rail, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
2025   Chronologies, Institute of Contemporary Arts at New York University Shanghai, China
    Scenographies, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China
2024   Post-Production Fever, A+ Works of Art, Singapore
2022   The Economy Enters the People, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Thailand
2021   The Ends of a Long Boom, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria
2021   The Ends of a Long Boom, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria
2020   Look East Gone West, A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2018   Sun, Sweat, Skirt, Fan, Centre A, Vancouver, Canada

Biennales & Groups Exhibitions

2026   Art Remembers, National Gallery Singapore
    Economies of Deferral, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand
    Islands In the Net, Padimai Art & Tech Studio, Singapore
    Cosmos and Hearth: Living Together in the Age of Technology, Central Art Museum, Hangzhou, China
    WE Are Becoming, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), Taipei
    Stay Connected: Supplying the Globe, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong
    Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale: In Interludes and Transitions, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2025   Interrogative AI, Incheon Art Platform, South Korea
    Surplus Values, Surplus Space, Wuhan, China
    Comrade Sun, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany
    Manifesto of Spring, National Asian Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea
    Sigg Prize 2025, M+, Hong Kong
    Where the Stone Lands, Moganshan Art Museum, Huzhou, China
    On-Air, Off-Air, The Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand
    PROMPTOSCAPE, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, China
    Reimagining Radical Cities, New Taipei City Art Museum, Taiwan
    Trans-Southeast Asian Triennial: Our Gaze: Art, Anthropology, and Asian Imagery, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
    Synthetic Fever, Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
    The Utopia of Rules, 72-13, Singapore
2024   At the Edge of Land, Jameel Art Centre, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    A Constellation of Cities: Contemporary Art and Experiment in Southern China and Beyond, Guangdong Museum of Art, China
    Factory of Tomorrow, Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile, Hong Kong
    Reminder: Version Update Available, Magician Space, Beijing, China
    At the Edge of Land, Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
    Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema, Shanghai, China
    Living a Performance Artist’s Life, MadeIn Art Museum, Shanghai, China
    Illiberal Lives, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany
    Evil Eye: The Parallel History of Optics and Ballistics, Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastián, Spain
2022   Ob/Scene Festival, Seoul, South Korea
    Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
    Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art: Being Theoria, China
    Liquid Ground, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art Dune, Baidaihe, China
    Fotofest Biennial: If I Had a Hammer, Houston, USA
    Where is my karaoke? Still, we sing, D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, Germany
    Lonely Vectors, Singapore Art Museum
    Spinning East Asia Series II: A Net (Dis)entangled, Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile, Hong Kong
2021   The Pineal Eye, Goethe-Institut Peking, China
    PerForm: Ho Rui An & Shubigi Rao, T:>Works, Singapore
    The Phenomenal Transition, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, South Korea
    System Down? State of Affairs, Klemms, Berlin, Germany
    Future Generation Art Prize 2021, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine
    As We Were: Selections from the Michelangelo and Lourdes Samson Collection, ArtSpace@Helutrans, Singapore
    Illiberal Arts, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
    Liquid Ground, Para Site, Hong Kong
    Total Landscaping, Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
    Guangzhou Image Triennial: Intermingling Flux, China
    Stories Across Rising Lands, Museum MACAN, Jakarta, Indonesia
2020   Bangkok Art Biennale: Escape Routes, Thailand
    Ob/Scene Festival, Seoul, South Korea
    Who is Gazing?, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, France
    Diagonal, Magician Space, Beijing, China
    Back to Art, A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Solidarity Spores, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea
2019   As the West Slept, Silver Art Projects, New York, USA
    BOOCHOA, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
    Phantom Plane, Cyberpunk in the Year of the Future, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong
    Factories, Machines, and the Poet’s Words: Echoes of the Realities in Art, 798 Art Zone, Beijing, China
    Asian Art Biennial: The Strangers from beyond the Mountain and the Sea, Taichung, Taiwan
    Fieldwork, PHOTOFAIRS | Insights, Shanghai, China
    Deep Sounding – History As Multiple Narratives, daadgalerie, Berlin, Germany
    Chinafrika. under construction, Kunstraum des Konfuzius-Instituts Nürnberg-Erlangen, Nuremberg, Germany
    SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
    Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana, Slovenia
    State of Motion 2019: A Fear of Monsters, Asian Film Archive, Singapore
2018   The Breathing of Maps, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan
    Shine on Me, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, Germany
    UnAuthorised Medium, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders, South Korea
    Building Code Violations III – Special Economic Zone, Long March Space, Beijing, China
    Two houses: Politics and histories in the contemporary art collections of John Chia and Yeap Lam Yang, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore
    Yinchuan Biennale: Starting from the Desert: Ecologies on the Edge, China
    This Site is Under Revolution, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia
    Outside the Palace of Heavenly Purity, bitforms gallery, New York, USA
    Take Me (I’m Yours), Villa Médicis –Académie de France à Rome, Italy
    Omnipresence, The Kitchen, New York, USA
    Trade Markings, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2017   Box with the Sound of Its Own Making, Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest, Romania
    Jakarta Biennale: JIWA, Indonesia
    Take Me (I’m Yours), Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy
    Sharjah Biennial: Tamawuj, Act II, Beirut, Lebanon
    Invisible Cities, Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas Contemporary and the Moving Image Archive for Contemporary Art (Hong Kong), Dallas, USA
    SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, The National Art Center, Tokyo, and Mori Art Museum, Japan
    The Conundrum of Imagination: On the Paradigm of Exploration and Discovery, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria
    Modes of Liaisons, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand
    A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth glancing at, Beijing Commune, China
    Almost There, Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center, Manila, The Philippines
    The Making of an Institution, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
2016   From Bandung to Berlin: If all the moons aligned, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
    Public Spirits, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
    Qidian, Zendai Zhujiajiao Art Museum, Shanghai, China
    Trans-Pacific Transmissions: Video Art Across the Pacific, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada
    Frontier Imaginaries: The Life of Lines, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia
2015   Filter Bubble, LUMA/Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland
    What It Is About When It Is About Nothing, Mizuma Gallery, Singapore
    A Luxury We Cannot Afford, Para Site, Hong Kong
    Take Me (I’m Yours), Monnaie de Paris, France
    On Sweat, Paper, and Porcelain, Hessel Museum of Art and CCS Bard Galleries, Annandale-on-Hudson, USA
2014   Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Whorled Explorations, Kochi, India
    Countershadows: tactics in evasion, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore
    Fieldworks: Animal Habitats in Contemporary Art, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, Ireland
    The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part of Something Else, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
    Poetry will be made by all!, LUMA/Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland
2013   Tara’s 10 Years – Views of 20 Artists, agnès b. Headquarters, Paris, France
2012   Someone Singing Like Calling Your Name, Saamlung Gallery, Hong Kong

Performances

2026   Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence, Salihara International Performing-arts Festival, Jakarta, Indonesia
    The Price of Gold, The Obayashi Foundation at Hibiya Convention Hall, Tokyo, Japan
2025   Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, China
2024   Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence, Singapore International Film Festival
    Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
    Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence, Five Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2023   Factory Film, Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastián, Spain
    Asia the Unmiraculous, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Factory Film, Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Berlin, Germany
    The Oil in the Tankers, the Wind in the Trees, Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2022   The Economy Enters the People, Ob/Scene Festival, Seoul, South Korea
    DASH, Fotofest Biennial: If I Had a Hammer, Houston, USA
    The Economy Enters the People, Singapore Art Museum
2021   The Economy Enters the People, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Thailand
    The Economy Enters the People, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria
    The Economy Enters the People, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
2020   Asia the Unmiraculous, Bangkok Art Biennale: Escape Routes, Thailand
    Asia the Unmiraculous, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2019   Asia the Unmiraculous, Silver Art Projects, New York, USA
    Asia the Unmiraculous, Asia in Resonance, Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo, Japan
    Solar: A Meltdown, Translocal: Festival Postkolonialer Perspektiven, Schauspiel Köln, Germany
2018   Asia the Unmiraculous, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan
    Tropicopolitan Objects, The Arts House, Singapore
    Asia the Unmiraculous, Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders, South Korea
    Solar: A Meltdown, Theatertreffen, Berlin, Germany
    Solar: A Meltdown, Onassis Fast Forward Festival 5, Athens, Greece
    DASH, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2017   Tropicopolitan Objects, Jakarta Biennale: JIWA, Jakarta, Indonesia
    DASH, Project Space Art Jameel, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    DASH, Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest, Romania
    Solar: A Meltdown, SPIELART Festival, Munich, Germany
    Tropicopolitan Objects, Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    DASH, Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj, Act II, Beirut, Lebanon
    DASH, Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas, USA
    DASH, Five Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Opening Draft, The O.P.E.N., Singapore International Festival of the Arts
    DASH, The Showroom, London, UK
    Solar: A Meltdown, SPRING Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands
    Solar: A Meltdown, Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria
    DASH, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
    Solar: A Meltdown, Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center, Manila, The Philippines
    DASH, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
2016   Solar: A Meltdown, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
    Screen Green, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
    Screen Green, Antenna Space, Shanghai, China
    DASH, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
    Solar: A Meltdown, NUS Museum, Singapore
    Solar: A Meltdown, TPAM Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, Japan
2015   Screen Green, Para Site, Hong Kong
2014   Sun, Sweat, Solar Queens: An Expedition, Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Whorled Explorations, Kochi, India

Screenings

2026   Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival, M+, Hong Kong
2025   Dorico International Film Festival, Ancona, Italy
    Concorto Film Festival, Pontenure and Piacenza, Italy
    Leiden Essay Film Festival, The Netherlands
    Talking—Cine 2025, Chiang Mai, Thailand
    UnArchive Found Footage Fest, Rome, Italy
    Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Thailand
2024   Machines & Me: A Filmless Festival, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
    Wuhan Bailin Film Festival, China
    Kunstraum, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
    Archivio Aperto, Bologna, Italy
    a gift horse’s mouth, Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, USA
    Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival, M+, Hong Kong
    Senses of (Dis)Connection: Japan and Contemporary Asian Art and Cinema, ASAKUSA, Tokyo, Japan
    Taiwan International Documentary Festival
2023   34th Singapore International Film Festival
    The Fantastical and the Real, Graduate Student Union of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
    Hong Kong & Shenzhen: Reflecting on the Field, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
    Speaking Nearby, esea contemporary, Manchester, UK
    Videoex Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich, Switzerland
    Costumes and Collapse, Pickle Bar, Berlin, Germany
2022   Asia Art Archive in America, New York, USA
    Entering and Leaving the Movie Theater: Films by Ho Rui An, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Thailand
2021   To Feel, To Feel More, To Feel More Than, Flaherty NYC, USA (online)
    Jalan-jalan di Asia, Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo, Japan (online)
    Terremoto Projector, Mexico City, Mexico (online)
    aashra, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon (online)
2020   Multi-here and Now, The Kathouse, Seoul, South Korea
    A+ Online Festival of Video Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (online)
2019   Architectures of Education, Nottingham Contemporary, UK
    San Diego Asian Film Festival, USA
    Dharamshala International Film Festival, India
    Lange Nacht des politischen Kurzfilms, CinéMayence, Mainz, Germany
    Long Night Screening, Plugin Future, Guangzhou, China
    International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany
    Following the oil, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2014   Singapore Short Cuts, National Museum of Singapore
2012   Sapporo International Short Film Festival, Japan
    Sintok Singapore Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan
2010   Cairo Video Festival, Medrar for Contemporary Art, Egypt
2009   Singapore Short Cuts, National Museum of Singapore

Published Work

2026   “Between Two Trees: Botany, Petroleum and the Politics of Scenography in Singapore.” In Post-Production Fever. Kuala Lumpur: A+ Works of Art, 2026.
2025   “Networked States, Stately Networks, and Representation’s Political Orders.” In MMCA Studies × Stedelijk Studies: Generating Production, edited by Sooyoung Leam, 16–45. Seoul and Amsterdam: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2025.
    “Scientific Management in Home/Factory–Global Factory/Electronic Cottage.” In Informatics of Domination, edited by Zach Blas, Melody Jue and Jennifer Rhee, 203–10. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2025.
2024   “Biennales and the Exhibitionary in the Global South: Notes from Diriyah.” LEAP S/S (June 2024): 168-83.
2023   “Icon and Network: Solidarity’s Mediums and a Materialist Internationalism.” Curatography 9 (June 2023).
2022   Capitalist Death Drives and Coin Test China High-Speed Rail Videos, Leipzig: Spector Books, 2022.
    Tables | Factories. Bangkok: Bangkok CityCity Gallery, 2022.
2021   “Tables.” In Illiberal Arts, edited by Anselm Franke and Kerstin Stakemeier, 5–18, 35. Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2021.
2020   “Contemporaneity’s Bubble.” Perspectives Magazine, July 17, 2020.
    “Technocratic Magic in the Contagion Economy.” e-flux journal 110 (June 2020).
2019   “Afterdeath.” In An Exhibition Always Hides Another Exhibition: Texts on Hans Ulrich Obrist, 77–81. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019.
    “Migration Figures: Moving, Translating, Counting.” In COUNTING. Bangkok: Bangkok CityCity Gallery, 2019.
    “A Cinema of Ambience and the Remains of History: Notes from Thailand.” In State of Motion: A Fear of Monsters, edited by Kathleen Ditzig, 111–18. Singapore: Asian Film Archive, 2019.
2018   “Crisis and Contingency at the Dashboard.” e-flux journal 90 (April 2018).
2017   “An Expanded Cinema and the Spills of Capital.” In Place.Labour.Capital., edited by Ute Meta Bauer and Anca Rujoiu, 168–71. Singapore: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, 2017.
    Spectacular Liberal Exception. Singapore: The Substation, 2017.
    “The Speculative Menagerie.” LEAP 44 (April 2017): 52–7.
2016   “Solar: A Meltdown.” In MARG: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (Dec 2016–Mar 2017): 100-3.
    “Dash, Crash, Dash: Horizon Scanners, Black Swans and Capital’s Futurecraft.” In Frontier Imaginaries Edition No1 FRONTIER, edited by Vivian Ziherl, 111–27. Amsterdam: Frontier Imaginaries, 2016.
    “Photographies of Trees.” Antennae 36 (Summer 2016): 64–80.
    “Speaking Still.” In Left to Right, edited by Geraldine Kang and Kenneth Tay, 61–2. Singapore: Left to Right.
    “An Accident: Two Views from the Dashboard.” In Concrete Island, edited by Kenneth Tay and Luca Lum, 60–9. Singapore: NUS Museum, 2016.
    “Nature’s Draw.” LEAP Singapore Supplement (2016): 8–11.
2015   “Outside the World Interior or the Light on the Writing Desk.” Stationary 1 (2015): 126–39.
2014   “Regions of Distance: An Interview with June Yap.” Issue 03: Port of Call (2014): 79–85.
2013   “The Region Unviewed.” Article: The Singapore Biennale Review (Dec 2013): 18–9.
    “Outing Cinema: Four Short Films by Ho Tzu Nyen.” In Pythagoras, 21–4. Singapore: Michael Janssen Singapore, 2013.
    “The Orient that May or May not Arrive: Yang Fudong’s The Fifth Night.” In Yang Fudong, edited by Philippe Pirotte and Beatrix Ruf, 135–38. Zürich: JRP-Ringier, 2013.
    “Dwelling in the Off-Modern.” In There Can Be No Better World, edited by Joselina Cruz, 13–27. Manila: Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, 2013.
    “From Gong Li to Ming Wong, or from the Face that Does Nothing to the Face that Does Too Much.” In Corridors, No. 1: Solitude, edited by Michael Lee, 44–9. Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2013.
    “Structures, Narratives and Mediations: A Conversation Between Genevieve Chua and Ho Rui An.” In Disappearing Moon, 62–4. Singapore: Singapore International Foundation & British Council, 2013.
    “Making Live Again: Between Josef Ng’s Brother Cane (1994) and Loo Zihan’s Cane (2012).” In Archiving Cane, edited by Louis Ho and Loo Zihan, 73–85. Singapore: The Substation, 2013.
2012   “Documenting Affect: Yangtze Scribbler, Jalan Jati and All the Lines Flow Out.” Cinémathèque Quarterly 5 (Oct-Dec 2012): 24–39.
2011  
Several Islands. Singapore: The Substation, 2011.

Curation

2023   Drawing the Lines, Spinning Time: Textile Histories at a River’s End (Exhibition & Screenings), Duke Kunshan University, China
    Drawing the Lines: Spinning and Weaving Histories at River’s End (Exhibition), Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2022   A World of Lines: From Third World Solidarities to Postsocialist Globalism (Presentations & Workshops), T:>Works, Singapore
2017   For Lack Of A Better Word (Exhibition & Performance), The O.P.E.N., Singapore International Festival of the Arts
2014   89plus in Singapore and Southeast Asia: Commentary (Conference), The O.P.E.N., Singapore International Festival of the Arts
    89plus in Singapore and Southeast Asia: Local / Knowledge (Conference), The O.P.E.N., Singapore International Festival of the Arts
2013   The Artist, the Book and the Crowd (Exhibition), The Substation Gallery, Singapore

Awards & Scholarships

2025   Finalist, Sigg Prize, Hong Kong
    Design Trust Feature Grant, Hong Kong
    Visions of the City – Obayashi Foundation Research Program, Tokyo, Japan
2024   Special Mention, Archivio Aperto, Bologna, Italy
2022   Young Artist Award, National Arts Council, Singapore
2019   International Film Critics’ Prize (FIPRESCI Prize), International Competition, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany
2014   NAC Arts Scholarship (Postgraduate), National Arts Council, Singapore
2011   Loke Cheng-Kim Foundation Scholarship, Singapore

Residencies & Fellowships

2021   PerForm Fellowship, T:>Works, Singapore
    Residency, Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile, Hong Kong
2018   DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, Germany
2017   Residency, Tentacles Art Space, Bangkok, Thailand
2016   Residency, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
    Theaterformen Fellowship, Braunschweig, Germany
2014   Residency, LUMA/Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland
2013   Residency, Tara Oceans Polar Circle Expedition