David Teh

David Teh is a writer, curator and Associate Professor in the literature programme at the National University of Singapore. He studied Art History and critical theory at the University of Sydney, Australia, before moving to Southeast Asia and working as an independent curator and critic. Since joining NUS in 2009, David has taught introductory courses on visual culture, and more specialised ones on subjects ranging from Cold War technocultures to the video practices of Southeast Asia. In recent years his research focus has been on contemporary art and its histories, mostly in an Asian context. David’s curatorial projects have included Unreal Asia (55. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2009), Video Vortex #7 (Yogyakarta, 2011), TRANSMISSION  (Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, 2014), Misfits: Pages from a Loose-leaf Modernity (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2017) and Returns (12th Gwangju Biennale, 2018). He co-curated the 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022) with Ute Meta Bauer and Amar Kanwar, and is currently Artistic Co-director of Thailand Biennale 2025. His writings have appeared in Third Text, Afterall, ARTMargins, and Artforum. His book Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary was published in 2017 by MIT Press, and he was co-editor (with David Morris) of Artist-to-Artist: Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai 1992-98 (2018) for Afterall’s Exhibition Histories series.