Vertical Submarine
Hometown: Singapore
Based in: Singapore
Vertical Submarine is an art collective from Singapore comprising of three members - Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and Fiona Koh. They have made their mark on Singapore as iconoclasts. With humour and irony, they subvert received knowledge and popular perceptions.
The three artists met as students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Their name was inspired by an episode involving a Singaporean artist who received a prize from the French deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida. While congratulating the artist, Derrida kept repeating the word "subvert" as a commendable quality of the work, from which Koh, Loke, and Yang later playfully derived "Vertical Submarine".
The collective has participated in projects in Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, The Philippines, Mexico City, Australia and Germany, and has most recently completed their residency and research at Foundation La Roche Jacquelin, Singapour en France –le festival in Anjou, France. Collectively they have won several awards including the Celeste Prize 2011 (Installation), the Credit Suisse Artist Residency Award 2009, and The President’s Young Talents Award 2009.
