{"id":4076,"date":"2019-07-01T14:11:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T06:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-alumn-nus.pantheonsite.io\/alumnus\/?p=4076"},"modified":"2025-07-25T14:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T06:14:17","slug":"the-journey-to-a-life-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2019\/07\/01\/the-journey-to-a-life-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Journey to a Life of\u00a0Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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WHO IS HE?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Mr Shabbir Hussain Mustafa is a Senior Curator at National Gallery Singapore. He curated artist Charles Lim\u2019s work\u00a0<\/em>Sea State, representing Singapore at the 2015 Venice Biennale. He also received the prestigious 2017 Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) International Scholarship For Artists in Berlin, Germany.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

To hear Mr Shabbir Hussain Mustafa tell the tale of how he went from a teenage undergraduate to senior curator at the National Gallery of Singapore, one is very likely to think that the native Sri Lankan has extraordinary luck. Even the soft-spoken 35-year-old seems somewhat surprised at his own meteoric rise in the curatorial world. But while serendipity might have played a part, his success is largely the result of his hard work, innate curiosity and openness to explore possibilities.Mr Mustafa arrived in Singapore on 15 July 2003 and was enrolled in the Political Science department at NUS\u2019 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. \u201cI grew up in Sri Lanka,\u201d says the son of a polyglot Gujarati businessman father and a homemaker mother who used to be a linguist. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful place, it has history and aesthetics, and there was also the civil war. The war affected us in ways that I didn\u2019t fully realise at the time \u2014 I was doing Business Studies for the \u2018A\u2019 Levels when our teacher migrated overseas. It was eight months to exams! Since I had access to the textbook and past-year papers, I began to read the book on my own, and self-study. I was English-educated, motivated \u2014 I could do this.\u201d Sure enough, he scored As. He chose to continue his studies in Singapore because the country\u2019s work ethic and pragmatism appealed to him.<\/p>\n\n

In his first semester, Mr Mustafa took two classes in South Asian Studies under Professor Gyanesh Kudaisya, who suggested Mr Mustafa interview with his wife Dr Medha Kudaisya, for the University Scholars Programme. Mr Mustafa credits his father for teaching him to think. \u201cWe\u2019d drive around Colombo with my sister, listening to the radio. He\u2019d talk about culture, moving freely from the Beatles to Buddhism to the price of rice. My upbringing made me ready for USP,\u201d he reflects, as the programme was suited to his penchant for asking the right questions, analysis and research.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

In 2007, with an Honours in Political Science under his belt, he embarked on his MA in History and South Asian Studies. During his undergraduate years, he had served as Prof Kudaisya\u2019s research assistant: \u201cI wanted to continue working under his supervision.\u201d In his third year, Mr Mustafa \u201caccidentally\u201d joined the NUS Museum, which focuses on Asian regional art and culture. \u201cMy friend Wang Zineng (Arts and Social Sciences \u201907) \u2014 who was also in USP \u2014 and I were sitting in the USP \u2018Chatterbox\u2019, a place for reading, meeting and talking. Zineng said \u2018Do you want to make some cash?\u2019 He brought me to the NUS Museum and there I met Ahmad Mashadi (Arts and Social Sciences \u201991), the head of NUS Museum. He showed me a series of photographs. One set of family portraits done by the Dutch-Indonesian artist Tino Djumini titled \u201cRelatives\u201d or\u00a0Kerabat<\/em>. The second set was of people\u2019s homes. Their \u201cinteriors\u201d or\u00a0Dalam<\/em>, by the Malaysian photographer Simryn Gill. Ahmad said, \u2018if you were tasked to write about these images, how would you approach it?\u201d Surprisingly I did not freeze! I talked about how remembering the past is always linked to an image \u2014 every image is a delicacy and danger. I got commissioned to write the essay and was paid $300!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

That was the first of many assignments and the start of Mr Mustafa\u2019s sojourn into the curatorial world. He spent much time reading and talking to Mr Mashadi, eventually curating his first exhibition. \u201cAhmad showed me the power of juxtaposition \u2014 what happens when objects are placed next to each other,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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Through my work, I began to meet these incredible artists and thinkers. Imagine you\u2019re getting paid to think about the world and its manifold realities!<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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<\/p>\n\n

WORKING THE GROUND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

When Mr Mustafa graduated, Mr Mashadi offered him a job at NUS Museum. \u201cI came to work every day for five years, and it was like attending a masterclass! This generosity I experienced from both Prof Kudaisya and Ahmad continues to this day,\u201d he says. \u201cThrough my work, I began to meet these incredible artists and thinkers. Imagine you\u2019re getting paid to think about the world and its manifold realities!\u201d Mr Mustafa was on the team that developed Prep-Room, an experimental space where the audience observes the exhibition-making process. In 2016, Prep-Room won the NUS Museum the University Museums and Collections Award from the International Council of Museums.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Little did Mr Mustafa know that Prep-Room would lead him to the next level of his career. \u201cWhen the naturalist Dr Lim Chuan Fong approached Ahmad to say he was in possession of a seashell collection of great significance to Singapore, we went to meet him,\u201d he explains. \u201cHis house was filled with seashells! What also caught my eye was a photograph from the 1950s \u2014 of the Raffles Lighthouse in Pulau Satumu, Singapore\u2019s southernmost territorial marker.\u201d That photograph became the trigger for the inaugural Prep-Room project. Mr Mustafa roped in Ms Fiona Tan (Arts and Social Sciences \u201912), then a History undergraduate \u2014 and who now works at the National Archives of Singapore \u2014 who began to research the Raffles Lighthouse, which by that point had all but disappeared from public knowledge. Later, Mr Mashadi suggested the artist and former Olympic sailor Mr Charles Lim Yi Yong as possible collaborator. The two hit it off \u2014 even getting on a boat to check out the lighthouse \u2014 and their three-year collaboration resulted in\u00a0In Search Of Raffles\u2019 Light \u2014 An Art Project with Charles Lim<\/em>, an experimental exhibition at the NUS Museum in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

That same year, Mr Mustafa moved on to the National Gallery, where he oversaw the team that inaugurated the DBS Singapore Gallery in 2015, a long-term exhibition dedicated to the survey of Singapore art from the 19th\u00a0<\/sup>century to the present. That exhibition too bears a curious title \u2013\u00a0Siapa Nama Kamu?\u00a0<\/em>(What is Your Name?) as he observes \u201cartworks are always willing to tell us stories. My role was to develop a space that could allow for this to happen\u201d. Currently he oversees the UOB Southeast Asia Galleries \u2013 a multi-year-long project where he builds the story of art from ASEAN part by part.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/strong><\/p>\n

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SIGNIFICANT CURATORIAL WORKS<\/span>\"\"<\/strong><\/h5>\n

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SIAPA NAMA KAMU?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
A multi-year project that features over 400 works of art that surveys art in Singapore from the 19th\u00a0<\/sup>century to the present.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

BETWEEN DECLARATIONS AND DREAMS: ART OF SOUTHEAST ASIA SINCE THE 19TH<\/sup>\u00a0CENTURY\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
A multi-year project that traces the story of contemporary art in Southeast Asia and its engagement with global artistic concerns.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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BORDERLESS AMBITIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 2015, as a Senior Curator, Mr Mustafa again worked with Mr Lim, representing Singapore at the Venice Biennale. \u201cIn Venice, we presented selections from Charles\u2019\u00a0Sea State<\/em>, a 10-part multimedia work that began in 2005, that captured Singapore\u2019s complex relationship with the sea through land reclamation. The exhibition received rave reviews from the international art world. \u201cI was told by the National Arts Council that the SIngapore pavilion did very well in terms of marketing dollars too,\u201d he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Recently, Mr Mustafa, whose partner is Iranian designer and artist Ms Leila Shirazi, has been curating projects outside Singapore, notably leading Malaysian artist Latiff Mohidin\u2019s\u00a0Pago Pago (1960-1969)<\/em>, a joint exhibition last year by Centre Pompidou in France and National Gallery Singapore. Mr Mohidin was the first Southeast Asian artist to be featured at the Pompidou. It was also the National Gallery\u2019s first travelling exhibition. Next up is an exhibition by the artist Ahmad Fuad Osman at the National Art Gallery of Malaysia, which will open in October.<\/p>\n\n

Although his career has moved from one milestone to the next, Mr Mustafa is hesitant about the concept of excellence. \u201cI don\u2019t think \u2018achieving\u2019 is a very productive way of looking at excellence. Perhaps excellence is the difference between what you know and what you think you know \u2014 I come to work thinking I can bridge that,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cbut I\u2019ll never bridge that.\u201d But that doesn\u2019t stop him from aspiring, and sharing with audiences. \u201cWe must engage the public from the perspective of narration, be storytellers,\u201d he explains, adding that he enjoys giving talks at the Gallery. \u201cI just grab a stool, sometimes with an artist, and we sit and talk to people. It\u2019s important to bridge what we know and what we think we know.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Photo by Aik Chen<\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Arts and Social Sciences + USP \u201907) talks about his journey to becoming one of the most notable museum curators in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4076"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8933,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions\/8933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}