Looking closely at the cracks and fissures around us: an unpleasant game of second-guessing and uncertainties. Yet not so innocent anymore, for the future is already here. /

NTU CCA SINGAPORE / FREE JAZZ IV. GEOMANCERS
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN /

The exhibition Free Jazz IV. Geomancers marks the fourth installment of the Free Jazz series of performance and time-based interventions on- and off-site at NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts Singapore. Based on the ancient divination method of Geomancy, Free Jazz IV gathers an ensemble of artists trying to read the current state of the Earth, and concerned with future prospects of ecological collapse. For the accompanying Exhibition Guide and exhibition visuals, mono.studio used the symbols of Geomancy – a combination of eight dots in various formations – as a visual foundation and guiding thread.

/ Commissioned by / NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore /
/ Artists / Martha Atienza, Ursula Biemann, Carolina Caycedo & David de Rozas, Chu Hao Pei, Liu Chuang, Pedro Neves Marques, Katie Paterson, Rice Brewing Sisters Club, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Jana Winderen, Zarina Muhammad & Zachary Chan, and Robert Zhao Renhui /

Neon lights glaring, that irresistible toxic glow drawing us in like moths, falling for the romantic illusions and cheap thrills of metropolis. How long until we realise: it was all a terrible mistake. /

NTU CCA SINGAPORE / THE POSTHUMAN CITY
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN /

The exhibition The Posthuman City concerns itself with the phenomenon of global urban growth and the pressures it creates on natural resources and habitats. For the exhibition’s identity, we proposed a visual overload, mirroring urban density and the metropolitan palimpsest of information, sight, sound, movement. The layers are structured by a gridded title typography running nowhere, and a toxic, sickening neon green, which found its way into the Exhibition Hall as a glaring backdrop to underline the urgency of the artworks.

/ Commissioned by / NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore /
/ Artists / Irene Agrivina, Animali Domestici, Pierre Huyghe, Ines Doujak, Jae Rhim Lee, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Nicholas Mangan, Marjetica Potrc, Hito Steyerl /

As we count the days, ever pushing forward, impatiently, barely taking the time to breathe. Who wants to look back? When all we build is built on sand, threatening to collapse as soon as we stop moving. /

NTU CCA SINGAPORE / STAGINGS. SOUNDINGS. READINGS. FREE JAZZ II
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN /

The exhibition Stagings. Soundings. Readings. Free Jazz II revisits the NTU CCA Singapore’s inaugural event, in celebration of its 5th anniversary. As the Free Jazz series is dedicated to time-based and performative arts, while also marking a specific point in time in the institute’s history, we honoured the occasion with a publication in form of a Chinese tear-off wall calendar, functioning as a schedule to the series of events over several months, while also becoming a performative act in itself. In addition, artists and writers attached to the institute created specific contributions for the daily pages.

/ Commissioned by / NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore /
/ Artists & Contributors / Carlos Casas and Phill Niblock, Heman Chong, Tyler Coburn, Luke Fowler, Anton Ginzburg, Maria Loboda, Boris Nieslony, Cally Spooner, Alexandra Pirici, Kelly Reedy, Anca Rujoiu, Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra, Mariana Silva, Peter Sipeli and 1angrynative, Lee Wen, Ming Wong /

The beauty of matter, unaware of these false categories. Only pure and unhindered, organic growth, strategical, chaotic, selfish, and yet so perfect. These complex, irresistible cycles of life. /

NTU CCA SINGAPORE / TREES OF LIFE – KNOWLEDGE IN MATERIAL
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN /

The exhibition Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material forms an inquiry into four plants deeply rooted in Asia: indigo, lacquer, rattan, and mulberry. It explores their biological knowledge as well as their social, geopolitical, and historical contexts, in the shape of an exhibition accompanied by topical seminars and workshops, combining scientific research with artistic practice. For the identity, we straddled the divide between the artistic and scientific sides of the exhibition, following nature’s organic and seemingly uncontrolled growth by letting the typography quite literally flow and spread across the pages, posters, and walls.

/ Commissioned by / NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore /
/ Artists / Liang Shaoji, Manish Nai, Phi Phi Oanh, Sopheap Pich, Vivian Xu /

Pictures of you, not so long ago and yet barely recognisable. A gentle unease, confusing dissonance between then and now. Faint memories difficult to reconcile with what you have become; look at you now. /

NTU CCA SINGAPORE / ULRIKE OTTINGER: CHINA. THE ARTS – THE PEOPLE
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN /

The exhibition ‚Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – the People‘ consists of a series of photographs and films taken during the artist’s extensive travels throughout China and Mongolia in the early 1980s, at a time when China in particular was on the brink of transitioning from Mao’s reign into modernity. Accordingly, we treated the central Exhibition Guide like a souvenir booklet, with the artworks unfolding like a set of tourist postcards from a country at a different time and place. While the circular typography is inspired by classic Chinese imagery of dragons, the colour scheme references the Chinese flag.

/ Commissioned by / NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore /
/ Artist / Ulrike Ottinger /

While you are gone, I let myself drift, exploring the dusty corners of your life, full of charming little surprises: pictures of unfamiliar faces, your smell faintly lingering on your clothes. /

MONO.GRAMM / SPRING SUMMER 2012 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

For Spring/Summer 2012, mono.gramm toyed with ‘borrowing’ your boyfriend’s clothes, developing an entire collection of dresses and tops from the classic men’s button-down shirt. Taking the idea to its logical end, for the lookbook we imagined an idle day of blissfully killing time at home, in a state of careless dress, waiting for the summer heat to ease.

/ Styling / Syria Bellisario /
/ Hair & Makeup / Julie Skok /
/ Model / Kiki / Seeds /

Some days I wake up as me; some days I wake up as someone else – or is it just another me. But then, all this might change again at any given moment. /

MONO.GRAMM / AUTUMN WINTER 2011 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

Versatility has always been an important element of mono.gramm, taken to its extreme in the Autumn/Winter 2011 season, with sleeves turning into belts, dresses being tied in many different combinations. Exploring the definitions of identity through clothing, we visually expanded the idea by generating unexpected silhouettes through the interplay of two models.

/ Hair & Makeup / Julie Skok /
/ Models / Helen / Mega & Pepa / M4 /

Summer in the city, all streets abandoned, collective surrender to the sun. Hot pavement under your bare feet, the air lazy with random thoughts. /

MONO.GRAMM / SPRING SUMMER 2011 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

mono.gramm’s Spring/Summer 2011collection is dedicated to that particular sensation of spending summer days in the city. There is no shame in taking inspirations literally when they are so rich in memories and associations, so we surrendered to a perfectly hot summer day around Berlin’s famed Karl-Marx-Allee to gather a kaleidoscopic selection of fragments and moments for the lookbook.

/ Hair & Makeup / Julie Skok /
/ Model / Elisa / Viva /

The body, that miraculous machine: bending, turning, stretching, twisting, unravelling. We are movement, we are energy, we are song, we are life. /

MONO.GRAMM / AUTUMN WINTER 2010 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

The Autumn/Winter 2010 collection by mono.gramm began with that most basic starting point: the human body. With the designs derived from impressions of dance and the body in motion, we juxtaposed the lookbook fashion images with expressive shots of dancers in full swing, creating a dark and explosive contrast between stillness and vibrancy.

/ Styling / Saskia Schmidt /
/ Hair & Makeup / Julie Skok /
/ Model / Anna / Seeds /
/ Dance / Cie. Toula Limnaios /

You open skies. I lie still in the grass and watch the clouds drifting by. Infinite blues, I breathe you in until I feel drunk with air. /

MONO.GRAMM / SPRING SUMMER 2010 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

Organic and gentle drapings and prints defined the mono.gramm Spring/Summer 2010 season. We developed this concept further for the lookbook, overprinting the fashion images on black & white landscape scenes, like a gust of wind rippling through the folds of your shirt.

/ Hair & Makeup / Julie Skok /
/ Model / Nicole / Seeds /

The melancholy of winter, when the days seem to barely fade from dark to grey to black. Winter and me, we have our very own peculiar romance. /

MONO.GRAMM / AUTUMN WINTER 2009 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

mono.gramm’s offering for Autumn/Winter 2009 combined the signature elements of twisted and organic silhouettes with soft jersey fabrics and subdued shades of grey. Consequently, like the collection, the lookbook is an exercise in reduction, opting for distorted black & white imagery set against sparse moments of colour.

/ Model / Kathlen / M4 /

Spring sensations, with the world coming alive, nature bursting at the seams in lush greens and yellows and blues, a clarity potent with possibility. /

MONO.GRAMM / SPRING SUMMER 2009 / LOOKBOOK
/ ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / PHOTOGRAPHY /

Spring/Summer 2009 marked the first season of mono.gramm, and defined a clarity in design to become the label’s signature style: a collection of dresses only, twisting men’s shirting fabrics into organic and flowing silhouettes. Natural forms have always been an essential reference point for mono.gramm, so it seemed equally natural to indulge ourselves with a day out in the countryside, by the lake, for the first lookbook. The images generated a light, effortless, yet intimate impression that would set the tone for all collections to follow. Water, sand, trees, air – what else do we need when life is so magnificent.

/ Model / Ludmilla / Seeds /