Senior Curator, National Gallery Singapore
Shabbir Hussain Mustafa is that type of curator who likes to delve into the archives, deploying what he finds in enquiring exhibitions – in his case, with a strong focus on regional and historical identity. At the National Gallery Singapore he is currently overseeing ‘Between Declarations and Dreams’, a long-term exhibition about Singaporean and other Southeast Asian art from the 19th century to the present day. At the Venice Biennale in 2015, Mustafa curated Charles Lim Yi Yong’s SEA STATE project at the Singaporean Pavilion, examining Singapore’s physical and political formation by the seas that surround it.