Dr. Adrian Tan (b. 1980) is an artist–curator whose work explores the intersections of archives, social histories of contemporary art, and public engagement with institutions. His research investigates how contemporary art circulates across institutional and independent frameworks, with a particular focus on publicness, pedagogy, and the politics of the everyday. Working across curating, writing, artistic research, and spatial interventions, he approaches the exhibition as a methodological and pedagogical site where documents, oral histories, images, and artistic gestures are brought into relation to foreground gaps, erasure, and constructed truths.

Adrian is Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Education at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He was previously Digital Humanities Research Fellow with the National Library Board and National Archives of Singapore, and faculty at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Singapore. He received his PhD in Research (Arts) from NTU School of Art, Design and Media in collaboration with NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, with a thesis examining Tang Da Wu, the Singapore Art Archive Project, and the making public of contemporary art in Singapore. He holds a Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

As an artist–curator, Adrian works across painting, performance, writing, and installation. Recent projects include Cleanse (2026), The Strange Archive (2026) at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Rust: Echoes of Memory (2025), and OPEN END: Resonate, Re-Read and Re-Trace The Substation Archive at National Gallery Singapore (2024). His writings have appeared in ARTMargins, Southeast of Now, Wacana Seni, and Open Philosophy. He is co-editor of Questioning Museums: Art Institutions in Singapore (2019), and his forthcoming monograph, Art & Everyday Life in Contemporary Singapore: Public Space and Memories, will be published by Routledge in 2027.