Homo Lanterns (Studies of Amsterdam Stock Exchange), 2024

The series Homo Lanterns (Studies of Amsterdam Stock Exchange) features real-time simulations that reframe architectural elements from the colonial metropole as ghostly projections. Shadows cast by the windows and colonnade enclosing the former Amsterdam Stock Exchange — originally constructed as the world’s first official stock exchange and served as a crucial financial hub for the Dutch East India Company — suggest the lingering colonial presence in Southeast Asia maintained by both architectural and ideological structures. The artificial light source operates independently of solar time, indicating a space familiar to but ultimately severed from our terrestrial reality.

Superimposing the lingering shadows of these architectural fragments with the digitized structure of Singapore Art Museum’s original site at the St. Joseph’s Institution, this adaptation of Homo Lanterns creates an uncanny effect whereby the colonial era architecture of Singapore casts a disconnected shadow of the colonial metropole. This uncanny idiosyncrasy highlights the disparate locales of these sites while their connection draws parallels between the shifting use cases of these sites from colonial projects to heritage sites housing cultural institutions.