daphne ang
London, United Kingdom.
Daphne Ang, M.A, is presently a PhD candidate in the department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London and a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum. Her doctoral research investigates the production of portraiture under the patronage of the Straits Chinese society in pre-independence Singapore. She has presented papers on the subject at conferences in the UK. Proud of her Baba roots, she also shares her passion through teaching and lecturing.
About the PhD
Painted portraits and photographs in the late 19th to early 20th centuries in Singapore narrate the cultural fluorescence from approximately 1870-1930. This dissertation assesses the social motivations of commissioning portraits during the late 19th and early 20th century within the Peranakan community, as a method to claim and reify their social significance in Singapore. This paper charts the history and production of Singapore Peranakan (Straits Chinese) portraiture and its implications on or reflections of the social milieu of that era.
This dissertation will also shed light onto the commercial industry of image-making involving artists, photographers and studios. These proponents of ‘image-making’ and pictorial representation, together with their patrons, played vital roles as ‘cultural brokers’ who mediated global currents. In this process they reworked colonial conventions to develop localised aesthetic and visual idioms particularly in photographs. I will explore the impetus behind the transition from oil and watercolour portraits into studio photography in context of the social climate of Singapore and the Straits Settlements in the turn of the twentieth century, pivotal changes driven by European colonialism, modern technology and migration. As colonial Singapore cannot be talked about separate from the Straits Settlements and other colonies, I will be using images from other colonial constructions, with some references to Indonesia. However, nominating Singapore as a locus and geographical point of reference.