Relay Room

The Art, Design & Media Gallery (ADM Gallery) at Nanyang Technological University underwent a extensive renovation and reopened with Intersecting Histories, a sweeping look at contemporary art in Southeast Asia curated by T.K Sabapathy. We were tasked to design the exhibition identity, alongside an accompanying catalogue.

Images of exhibition courtesy of NTU.

The book is largely set in Freight Text, and the strict grid gives way to plate sections which are rather playful (and yet considered). We found this dichotomy to be an interesting visual interplay; a delicate balancing act of content and layout.

Images of exhibition courtesy of NTU.

All of the art pieces featured were seminal Southeast Asian works, most of which had a very raw feeling and aesthetic. In particular, one of the exhibition images the curator chose was an arresting sculpture, Bayu Utomo B. Radjikin’s Lang Kacang ; a startling figure without arms, head thrown back with the mouth agape which was made of metal and cement.

Images of exhibition courtesy of NTU.

To complement this and other pieces in the exhibition, we chose Joshua Darden’s Freight Micro for the identity. The typeface’s less refined forms; originally designed to be readable at small sizes, mimicked the raw aesthetic in large sizes.

Images of exhibition courtesy of NTU.