A Proposal for Max Planck-NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding (CBCW)

A Proposal for Max Planck-NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding (CBCW)

Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™

July 26, 2026

The Max Planck-NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding (CBCW) is seeking to appoint Research Fellows (Curatorial Research and Practice)—a Research Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow—for a two-year term (renewable), based at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. The fellow(s) will be embedded in an interdisciplinary environment, hybrid in nature, with the Centre jointly operating across Singapore and Germany.

The fellow(s) will conduct independent and collaborative curatorial and artistic research on relevant biocultural worlding topics and forge mutual connections with other CBCW projects. The focus is on biological, cultural, and epistemic diversity, with an approach that works relationally with, alongside, and across situated, grounded initiatives of novel research, experimentation in the fields of curatorial and artistic practices, and local and indigenous knowledge traditions.

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Proposal / Application Package 

Position: Research Fellow (Curatorial Research and Practice)  

Centre: Max Planck–NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding (CBCW)  

Based at: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (hybrid with Germany)  

Applicant: Amiel Gerald A. Roldan  

Duration sought: Two-year renewable term  

 

Cover / Motivation Statement

Dear Selection Committee,

I am writing to apply for the Research Fellow (Curatorial Research and Practice) position at the Max Planck–NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding. My practice as a multidisciplinary Filipino artist, independent curator, researcher, poet, and cultural worker has long centred on the entangled relations between cultural memory, postcolonial critique, local and indigenous knowledge traditions, and the material conditions of artistic and epistemic production in Southeast Asia.  

CBCW’s commitment to biocultural worlding—understanding biological, cultural, and epistemic diversity as mutually constitutive, and producing knowledge through relational, accountable, and plural practices—resonates deeply with the core of my work: building counter-archives, fostering ethical regional collaborations, documenting situated practices, and writing critically from the peripheries of institutional art worlds.  

Over three decades I have moved fluidly between studio practice (painting, printmaking, photography, installation), independent curation, exhibition organisation, critical writing, and the often-invisible labour of cultural work—documentation, facilitation, pedagogy, and institutional negotiation. I operate primarily project-based and independently, choosing affiliations only when they honour fairness and professional integrity. A two-year renewable fellowship at CBCW would allow me to deepen this trajectory within an explicitly interdisciplinary, transnational, and hybrid institutional frame spanning Singapore and Germany.

Relevant Background and Experience

- Education & Formation: BA Fine Arts (Studio Painting), University of the Philippines Diliman. Mentorships and collaborations with key Philippine figures including Roberto Chabet, Brenda Fajardo (Jorge B. Vargas Museum), and Roberto Valenzuela.

- Curatorial Practice: Former curator of Kulay Diwa Art Galleries (Gallery of Contemporary Art, Philippines). Organised and co-organised numerous exhibitions promoting emerging Filipino artists and facilitating international exchange (including with Aboriginal artists from Studio One, Canberra; Sri Lankan sculptor Kingsley Gunatillake; Malaysian printmaker Juhari Said; Korean artist Hong Soon Myung). Worked across artist-run spaces (ARS), Hiraya Gallery, Cultural Center of the Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Australian Embassy space, Ateneo Gallery, UST Beato Angelico, St. Scholastica’s Amrhein Gallery, and UP Corridor spaces. Recent participation as artist-cultural worker in the group exhibition *Cultural Workers: Not Creative?* (ILOMOCA, Iloilo City, May 2025), which foregrounded the creative labour of documentation, administration, curation, and facilitation.

- International Residencies & Grants: 

  – Asian Cultural Council (ACC) Starr Foundation Grantee, 2003–2004 (ten-month fellowship in the United States).  

  – First Filipino artist at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, 2003 (open studios presenting prints and drawings to the international community).  

  – Chashama Artist-in-Residence (subsidised studio, Tribeca, New York, 2004).  

  My ACC experience remains foundational; my work *Bridges Beyond Borders: ACC’s Global Cultural Collaboration* was selected as the visual identity for the newly launched ACC Global Alumni Network (2026), symbolising connection across more than 6,000 alumni.

- Research, Documentation & Critical Writing: Long-term engagement with cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and the building of counter-archives. Practice includes annotating speculative poetry in the manner of Southeast Asian manuscripts, photography and research documentation, and reflective essays on the status of cultural workers. Themes consistently address dichotomies of power, socio-religious-political conditions, indigenous and local knowledge, and the ethics of collaboration across regions.

- Current Roles: Program & Marketing Art Director & Curator; Consultant Curator; CEO, Independent Curator Manila. Ongoing independent, project-based practice rooted in ethical regional solidarity.

Proposed Research Project  

Working Title: *Counter-Archives of Biocultural Entanglement: Relational Curatorial Practices and Southeast Asian Knowledge Traditions in Planetary Futures*

Core Inquiry  

How can curatorial research and artistic practice, grounded in local and indigenous knowledge traditions of the Philippines and the broader Southeast Asian / Asia-Pacific region, contribute to the plural, relational, and accountable knowledge practices that CBCW terms “biocultural worlding”?  

The project will examine the mutual constitution of biological and cultural diversity through three interwoven strands:

1. Documentation as Relational Practice 

   Systematic yet experimental documentation (photographic, archival, poetic, oral) of situated initiatives that already enact biocultural relations—community-based ecological knowledge, indigenous land and water practices, and artist-led responses to environmental and epistemic loss. Emphasis on methods that refuse extractive collection and instead generate reciprocal, living counter-archives.

2. Curatorial Experimentation Across Situated Grounds

   Development of curatorial formats (exhibitions, discursive platforms, hybrid digital–physical laboratories) that work *with, alongside, and across* existing grounded initiatives rather than imposing external frameworks. Particular attention to epistemic diversity and the politics of translation between local knowledge systems and transnational institutional settings (Singapore–Germany axis).

3. Critical Writing and Speculative Annotation*

   Production of critical texts, annotated “manuscripts,” and poetic-scholarly hybrid writings that model the kind of relational knowledge production CBCW seeks. These will draw on my ongoing practice of treating documentation and writing themselves as artistic and research forms.

Methodology  

- Independent research embedded within CBCW’s interdisciplinary environment.  

- Collaborative exchanges with other CBCW projects and knowledge-holding communities.  

- Hybrid physical–digital modes suited to the Centre’s Singapore–Germany structure.  

- Ethical protocols prioritising consent, reciprocity, and long-term stewardship of materials and relationships.  

- Outputs oriented toward both scholarly contribution and public-facing curatorial activation.

Contribution to CBCW 

The fellowship will allow me to bring a practice already deeply engaged with cultural memory, postcolonial critique, independent curation, and the labour of documentation into direct dialogue with CBCW’s focus on biological–cultural–epistemic entanglement. My experience navigating artist-run spaces, national institutions, and international residencies positions me to forge meaningful connections across the Centre’s hybrid geography and to model curatorial research that remains accountable to situated, local, and indigenous knowledge traditions.

I am prepared to relocate or work in hybrid mode as required, and I welcome the two-year renewable term as an opportunity for sustained, rigorous inquiry.

Thank you for considering this application. I would be honoured to contribute to the Max Planck–NTU Singapore Centre for Biocultural Worlding.

Respectfully,  

Amiel Gerald A. Roldan

Independent Curator | Artist | Researcher | Cultural Worker  

Manila, Philippines  

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Supporting materials to attach / prepare (recommended):

- Full curriculum vitae detailing exhibitions, curatorial projects, residencies, and publications.

- Portfolio of selected curatorial and artistic work (including documentation projects and writing samples).

- Statement on ethical research and community engagement protocols.

- Contact details for 2–3 professional references (ACC network, Philippine institutional colleagues, international collaborators).

- Any existing published essays or artist statements relevant to cultural memory, postcolonial critique, or cultural-worker labour.

This proposal is structured for direct adaptation into the Centre’s application portal or formal submission package. It aligns the applicant’s documented trajectory—curatorial independence, archival and documentary practice, critical writing, international exchange experience, and commitment to regional knowledge traditions—with CBCW’s stated focus on relational, interdisciplinary, and epistemically plural research.