Joan Of Art

Your name is so unique! Can you tell us more about it and what it means?
It’s a Russian name, pronounced a bit uniquely: ah-lyo-nah. My godparents, who are Russian family friends, gave it to me. Since they’re older and couldn’t have children, my parents, being close friends, let them choose names for me and my sister. So both of us have Russian names.

Apparently, I’m named after a Russian Joan of Arc and people often joke that my name, style, and personality all seem to match her (laughs).

That’s so cool! We understand that you’re also a registrar. Can you share with us what that entails?
My job consists of artwork logistics and artwork management, so I handle a lot of shipping specifically for artwork loans. I do a lot of paperwork like excel sheets, but at the same time, a fair amount of on-site collections. I also visit many places to retrieve works that we bring into the museums. Besides that, I’m also a part of a team at the National Gallery that leads a youth engagement programme called Kolektif.

That’s a lot of things going on for you! How did you get into this registrar role?
My first job was at a different museum and I was doing exhibition works. Then after over a year, I decided to move over to the National Gallery—it’s slightly different role from my first job, but also somewhat related.

You mentioned going around to retrieve works on-site, does that mean you travel a lot for work?
I’m still quite new to the job, so for now it’s mainly within Singapore. I do go to people’s homes, usually private lenders, to collect artwork and bring them to the gallery. While we borrow a lot from institutions, we also work with many private collectors.

Has anyone ever approached you guys, like ‘Hey, we have this work, would you want to show it at the gallery?’ Or are you usually the one reaching out to these collectors?
Yes, it’s actually quite common to have people reach out. But for the curatorial teams, since they usually have existing lists of lenders that they’re in touch with, they already have a sense of who owns what. Sometimes, people also reach out to let us know they’ve acquired a particular artwork, so it’s a lot of word-of-mouth. Each gallery holds different pieces of information; it’s very much a ‘this person knows that person’ kind of thing, and in that way, it’s quite informal.

So you really have to build relationships to access works, especially from private lenders. For institutions, the lists are more straightforward. Sometimes, a work might have already been shown elsewhere, and then someone requests it for another show. We also work with a lot of international lenders. The National Gallery makes a real effort to bring in international works too, so that visitors don’t just experience pieces from the national collection lah, but a wider range overall.

Wow, that sounds like such a colourful job! Have you come across any interesting stories or artwork that really stood out to you?
My first exhibition at the National Gallery is City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s, which is the one that’s currently showing. It turned out to be one of the exhibitions with the highest number of loans and lenders—over 200 loans from more than 50 lenders across 10 countries! It was quite overwhelming for a first project, but I really enjoyed it, especially getting to interact with so many different people.

Meeting visitors has also been incredibly enriching—you really get to see the cultural differences and gain exposure to a wide variety of works. I have a few personal favourites from the exhibition, and I’ll admit I’m a little biased because I worked closely on the Japanese artworks, but I genuinely enjoy the range presented in the show.

What kind of Japanese artworks are you talking about?
For City of Others, most of the works are paintings, with some sculptures included. Personally, my taste leans more toward contemporary or modern contemporary art. Lately, I’ve been particularly interested in printmaking—especially because of traditional forms like Ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings. I recently took a trip to Japan, and it really sparked something in me. I’ve always known about Ukiyo-e, but for some reason, the trip reignited my interest in it.