Rafi Abdullah
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Untangling Petro-Histories at Pulau Bukom”
as part of Residencies Rewired — NTU CCA
with/for Rand Abdul Jabbar




I had the opportunity of embarking as proxy and research liaison for the Iraqian artist Rand Abdul Jabbar as part of her residency at NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts, where we mapped the trajectory and evolution of the complex bilateral relationship between Iraq and Singapore.


“As Iraq and Singapore embark on ambitious nation-building and modernization plans during the 1960s, petroleum extraction features prominently in the evolution of the complex bilateral relationship between the two countries. Through an engagement with both institutional and personal archives, the project attempts to map out the elaborate trajectories that characterize the seemingly contradictory bonds across these two nations through the prism of petroleum trade, workforce tensions, warfare coalitions, counter-terrorism strategies, and conflict resolution.”
More on the artist and the residency programme:
https://ntu.ccasingapore.org/residency/rand-abdul-jabbar/
https://www.randabduljabbar.com/