Art & Design Forum | Gillian Daniel

Making Waves: Long Nineteenth-Century Maritime Pictures and the Straits of Malacca and Singapore

HDR Oral Presentation 

This dissertation will examine maritime pictures of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore made in the British empire during the long nineteenth century. By ‘maritime pictures’, Gillian Daniel will refer to artistic representations that take human activity on or with the waters as subject matter, including paintings, prints, photographs and sketches.

Analysing the works of over 50 itinerant and migrant artists, Daniel will argue that these works of art project the social, political, ecological and economic ambitions of colonialism, while equally revealing their uncertainties and contradictions.

Her dissertation will also posit that examining these works methodologically benefits study of nineteenth-century Southeast Asia, as they represent indigenous culture, ecology, industry, technology, labour and migration in the Malay World prior to independence. To analyse what maritime pictures can tell us about the communities and environments of the Straits, she will centre colonial subjects, including Malay World peoples, migrant labourers from India and China and artists themselves. She will also draw attention to nonhuman actors, such as water and weather. Through this, Daniel will argue that maritime pictures paint a rich historical picture of colonial subjects asserting agency and eluding control within extractive systems of empire and industry.

Gillian Daniel is a researcher, public programmer and curator of modern and contemporary art from Southeast Asia and its diasporas. Her writing, exhibitions and programmes share a recurrent interest in ecology, labour, intermediality and alternative futures, and are informed by questions of outreach and access.

She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Art History and Theory and Manager (Curatorial Programmes) at National Gallery Singapore. She is also the creator of @FashoftheTitans, a popular art and fashion Instagram account that has been commissioned by partners like Valentino and made the top 10 lists of Grazia Italy and InStyle Magazine.

Her writing has appeared in peer-reviewed publications like Melbourne Asia Review and TAASA Review, specialist art magazines like Elephant and general-interest publications like Harper’s Bazaar. She has curated exhibitions and organised public programmes in Singapore, Melbourne and London.