David Teh was born in 1977 in Australia. He received his BA from the University of Sydney in the History and Theory of Art in 1999, and a doctorate in Critical Theory in 2005. Between the years 2005-2009, he lived in Bangkok and has been working in Singapore since 2009, teaching at the National University of Singapore where he is Associate Professor in the Literature Programme. Teh’s research focuses on Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art.

Teh’s curatorial projects include Sovereign Pacific / Pacific Sovereigns, the CIRCUIT Artist Cinema Commissions, Aotearoa, New Zealand (2020); Returns, a project for the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018); Misfits: Pages from a Loose-leaf Modernity, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017); TRANSMISSION at the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok (2014); Video Vortex #7 in Yogyakarta (2011), and Unreal Asia, 55. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2009).

David Teh has contributed to numerous magazines and journals including ARTMargins, Artforum, Afterall, Third Text and Art Asia Pacific. His book Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary was published in 2017 by MIT Press. Teh also co-edited (with David Morris) the book Artist-to-Artist: Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai 1992-98 (2018) for Afterall’s 'Exhibition Histories' series.