Shubigi Rao: Pulp III—A Short Biography of the Banished Book

Created for the the Singapore Pavilion at the 59th International Venice Biennale, Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book (Pulp III), by artist Shubigi Rao and curated by Ute Meta Bauer, will be one of the key events featured during Singapore Art Week (SAW) in January 2023. Pulp III marks the midpoint of Rao’s ongoing decade-long project Pulp, which explores the history of book destruction and its impact on the futures of knowledge.

The exhibition at the Marina Bay Sands’ ArtScience Museum provides visitors the opportunity to engage with Rao’s work through daily screenings of her film, Talking Leaves, and a presentation of her book, Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory of the Banished Book, Volume III of V (Pulp Vol. III). Filmed over five years in various locations including Venice and Singapore, Talking Leaves highlights the tales of those at the forefront of the effort to save books and libraries through personal confidences and elegiac reflections, as well as incendiary documentary and mytho-poetic languages. 

Housed in an abstract studiolo, copies of Rao’s book, Pulp Vol. III, are arranged in a way that speaks of the monumentality of its format as a container of knowledge and progenitor of change. This installation of books will change in form as they are dispersed into the world over the course of the exhibition. For Rao, each book is a messenger, a time-traveller, the embodiment of our need to communicate, and a rallying call to action. 

Other elements, such as Rao’s Being a Brief Guide to the Banished Book (2017), an expansive drawing of a phylogenetic tree, will also be featured in Singapore. Additionally, a series of public programmes will be held at the ArtScience Museum. On January 7, 2023, artist Shubigi Rao and curator Ute Meta Bauer will be joined by exhibition designer Laura Miotto and Vice-President of ArtScience Museum, Honor Harger, to present “The Making of the Singapore Pavilion.” On January 13, Shubigi Rao will share backstories of her film and book while on January 17, filmmaker Kirsten Tan, and Karen Chan, Executive Director of Asia Film Archive, will be in conversation with Shubigi Rao about her film. 

As a reminder of Singapore’s vital film history, Talking Leaves will also have a special screening on January 5, 2023 at Capitol Theatre—a historic building that was one of Singapore’s finest cinemas in the 1930s and had contributed significantly to the Malayan cinema industry.

Please visit pulp-iii.com for more information and register here for our programmes.

Catalogue forthcoming in March 2023
Shubigi Rao: Pulp III
Singapore Pavilion, 59th International Venice Biennale 
Texts by Amanda Lee Koe, Anca Rujoiu, Ben Eastham, Jasper Fforde and Philippe Pirotte.
Edited by Ute Meta Bauer.
Published by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

The Singapore Pavilion is commissioned by the National Arts Council, Singapore.