Somos Pacifico exhibition
President Tharman opens show to celebrate 50 years of Singapore-Mexico relations
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
(From left) Asian Civilisations Museum director Clement Onn, National Gallery Singapore (NGS) curators Teo Hui Min and Cheng Jia Yun, and NGS chief executive Eugene Tan at Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Follow topic:
- Somos Pacifico exhibition in Mexico City explores historical links between South-east Asia and Latin America via the Acapulco-Manila trade route (1565-1815).
- Over 300 objects, including 80 from Singapore, showcase cultural syncretism resulting from the trade, like rebranded silver coins and Asia-made objects.
- NGS' contribution features art connecting the regions through themes like "tropika", highlighting artists like Latiff Mohidin and Cheong Soo Pieng.
AI generated
MEXICO CITY – A landmark exhibition exploring the connections between South-east Asia and Latin America opened in Mexico City on Dec 4, inaugurated during a milestone state visit by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Based on two 2023 exhibitions by the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and National Gallery Singapore (NGS) in Singapore, Somos Pacifico, or We Are The Pacific: A World Born Of The Tropics, reorientates the lenses through which people view the world order and the world map.
Shifting the centre of gravity from Europe, more than 300 objects – about 80 from Singapore’s national collection – emphasise the colonial trade route between Acapulco in Mexico and Manila in the Philippines from 1565 to 1815 as foundational to the creation of the modern world.
As Singapore and Mexico celebrate 50 years of relations, curators were also keen to stress the relationship between Asia and the Americas as a contemporary one, continuing through parallels in modern art.
The eclectic show at the Colegio de San Ildefonso – the birthplace of Mexico’s world-famous Muralist movement in the capital’s old town – is the farthest that an exhibition from Singapore has travelled.
Mexico’s Ambassador to Singapore Agustin Garcia-Lopez Loaeza, a vocal advocate of the show, said during a media preview in Spanish: “All of us are the result of the Acapulco-Manila galleon trade. It’s an axis in our identities.”
Following the announcement that Singapore would open an embassy in Mexico in 2026
Most of the show builds on ACM director Clement Onn’s 2023 exhibition Manila Galleon: From Asia To The Americas,
Curators are keen to point out the autonomous roles the two ports Acapulco and Manila, nominally under the control of the Spanish empire, played in driving a trade that brought silver – together with pineapples, chocolate and chilli – to Asia in exchange for spices, silk and porcelain.
President Tharman Shanmugaratnam inaugurated the landmark exhibition in Mexico City on Dec 3.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
The focus is on the syncretism that resulted, and there are eloquent objects: Mexican/Spanish silver coins rebranded by the Chinese, ivory Christian statues in the manner of the Buddha, and one of the exhibition’s showstoppers from ACM – a portable cabinet-cum-writing desk made in Asia probably for someone in Mexico or Spain, with Chinese guardian lions at its base and the pre-Hispanic Aztec foundation myth ornately illustrated.
NGS then extends the story in the 20th and 21st centuries through some of the art which it exhibited in its memorable 2023 exhibition Tropical: Stories From Southeast Asia And Latin America
Curators Teo Hui Min and Cheng Jia Yun had leapt at the chance to introduce South-east Asian artists to a wider audience, particularly spotlighting the mysteriously pulsating Pago Pago series by Malaysian artist Latiff Mohidin.
The Pago Pago series by Latiff Mohidin at Somos Pacifico.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
The artist had in his lifetime travelled extensively in an attempt to distil the spirit of South-east Asia, but was equally enamoured with the modernism of Mexico.
One of the frames with which curators have connected the two territories is through Latiff’s climactic consciousness of “tropika”, where things thrum with life and rapidly decay from the heat and humidity.
Other featured artists include Singapore’s Cheong Soo Pieng, Indonesia’s Hendra Gunawan, Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the Philippines’ Carlos Botong Francisco, in fruitful conversation with works by Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias.
A generous Singapore contingent, including President Tharman and his spouse, Ms Jane Ittogi, as well as Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo, Minister of State for National Development and Trade and Industry Alvin Tan, MPs Ang Wei Neng and Mariam Jaafar, and other political and business representatives were present to observe the milestone initiative.
Said ACM’s Mr Onn on another unexpected relationship between the two regions: “The Acapulco-Manila galleon trade ended in 1815. Then Singapore and the Straits Settlements rose in global significance in 1819. This was no coincidence.”
