SEA STATE 2: Drift (Stay Still Now to Move)

Charles Lim’s long-running SEA State series explores how Singapore’s relationship to the sea shapes the island nation’s geo-political and territorial ambitions. In SEA State 2: Drift (Stay Still Now To Move), (2012) Lim engages with man-made boundaries in view of Singapore’s efforts to expand its physical territory through aggressive reclamation. Claiming that such activities encroached into its territorial waters and threatened to contaminate its fishing grounds, Malaysia had, over the years, raised considerable objections regarding Singapore’s reclamation projects. In this work, Lim presents a vast azure ocean where a floating figure in a life vest drifts around the imagined watery border between these two countries, guided only by the flow of currents.