JOHN Z. W. TUNG

John Z. W. Tung is an independent curator, exhibition-maker, and Director of his self-initiated curatorial atelier From the Woods. In his former position as an Assistant Curator at the Singapore Art Museum (2015 – 2020), he curated and co-curated 9 exhibitions, alongside serving as a co-curator for the Singapore Biennale 2016, 'An Atlas of Mirrors', and the Singapore Biennale 2019, ‘Every Step in the Right Direction’. Three of the artwork commissions he curated for the biennales were finalists for the Benesse Prize, with one work winning the prestigious award. He is also the editor of the Singapore Art Museum’s first publication to chronicle its exhibition history, Singapore Art Museum: An Index of Exhibitions (1994 – 2018). His recent appointments as an independent curator include Festival Curator for the 7th & 8th Singapore International Photography Festival (2020 & 2022), Associate Curator for the Open House programme, For the House; Against the House (2021, 2022 & 2023), and the Curator of the first exhibition to examine the significance of the ground-breaking Singaporean artist initiative 5th Passage – 5th Passage: In Search of Lost Time. Projects he has produced include The Forest Institute (2022), a large-scale architectural art installation dedicated to secondary forest ecologies, and The Gathering:  千岁宫 (2022), a pop-up Chinese garden-teahouse experience in Chinatown, Singapore. He was also curator of the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions of the contemporary art platform S.E.A. Focus.

​

To date, his close work with artists has realised more than a hundred artwork commissions and site-specific adaptations across over 70 exhibitions. In 2023, he was the recipient of the inaugural Tan Boon Hui Curatorial Prize.

 

He holds a BA (Hons) in Arts Management awarded by Goldsmiths, University of London (at LASALLE College of the Arts) and an MA in Cultural Management from the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he graduated on the Dean’s List. He brings with him a decade of involvement across different fields in the arts, culture, and creative industry. Encompassing both creative and administrative roles, his experiences have spanned the curatorial, editorial, as well as pedagogical.