In The Mysterious Lai Teck, acclaimed Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen leads you into the labyrinthine underworld of spies, in this portrait of one of Southeast Asia’s most shadowy historical figures.
Who is Lai Teck? History, if it remembers him at all, describes him as the leader of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, and a triple agent for the French, British and Japanese secret police. Of his life, however, little is known. Rumoured to having over 30 pseudonyms, his story is full of gaps and contradictions culled from the accounts of fellow spies and traitors, and various authors of histories.
Blending fact and fictional speculation, Singapore-born visual artist Ho recreates the charged atmosphere of Lai Teck's times in an inventive staging, where the observer is confronted with a ghostly being, veiled, draped and drowning in projections, oscillating between life and death.
Offering a window into an embattled period of Southeast Asian history, The Mysterious Lai Teck is an extended reflection emerging from Ho’s long-term project, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia.
Steeped in espionage, agency and treachery, The Mysterious Lai Teck is a thrilling snapshot of the shifting face of Southeast Asia in the Age of Treason, and of a man caught between the ruthless forces of history.
(Source: Arts House Limited Website)