11 July 2014 – The presentation of No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia at Singapore's Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Singapore, concluded after a highly successful ten week run. The exhibition brought in a record number of 7,628 visitors for the CCA. The education programme saw strong public engagement throughout, with tours and talks attended by a total of 1,226 participants, with almost 60 docent tours given by 45 trained volunteers over the duration of the exhibition. Docent-led tours were attended by almost 1,000 visitors – over two thirds of which were students.  A total of 142 teachers from the STAR academy participated in education workshops, developing CCA’s relationship with the teachers and encouraging them to book docent or self-led teacher tours and use the Teacher Resource Guide.

The exhibition – which featured works by 16 compelling artists and collectives from countries across the region – was accompanied by a wide range of programmes, consisting of docent tours, artist talks, public forums involving curators and cultural thought leaders, and was attended by a diverse audience. A key element of the comprehensive programme were the tours, providing visitors with insight into the themes addressed in the exhibition, with the aim of making contemporary art more accessible to members of the public and students. Lim Kok Boon, Programme Director (Art) at STAR Academy said, “No Country was a wonderful platform providing different perspectives for Singapore teachers and students to explore contemporary art ideas and prominent artists from South and Southeast Asia.”

Via this first phase of the Initiative, 36 artworks by 27 artists and collectives from the region have entered the Guggenheim’s permanent collection, significantly bolstering the museum’s collection of South and Southeast Asian art, to almost double. The Guggenheim hopes to exhibit these works to a variety of audiences and lend them to other institutions in future, ensuring the preservation of the exhibition’s historical and artistic legacy. The exhibition for the next phase, which charts contemporary art practice in Latin America, titled Under the Same Sun, is currently on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York until October 1, 2014.

June Yap, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator said, “The proposition of No Country is the possibility of exceeding the boundaries and habits that define us. The implications of this is brought home in its final leg in Singapore, where the artworks inspire us to look deeper into our perceptions of, and relationships with, each other within the region of South and Southeast Asia. While the exhibition has come to a close, the interconnections and dialogue continue. But this conversation also goes much further, as the MAP Initiative is an exchange and a network that extends across regions, and in its impact, it is only just beginning.”

Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the CCA, stated, “"No Country was a momentous exhibition for the CCA. As a research centre under the Nanyang Technological University, the sharing of and access to knowledge of South and Southeast Asian contemporary art has been encouraging and we are pleased by the diversity of our visitors and participants. This accomplishment as a young institution motivates us to further develop various approaches to public outreach and educational programmes in response to the growing interest in art in our communities”