Singapore artist Robert Zhao’s works have always been strongly linked with the natural world and humans’ relationship with it and his latest work takes it to the next level – both literally and metaphorically. Titled The Forest Institute, it’s a large-scale architectural art installation co-created with fellow artist Randy Chan and curator John Tung that is perched atop a covered walkway in Gillman Barracks.

The new work extends on Zhao’s ongoing research into the secondary forest that surrounds Gillman Barracks and it offers a unique vantage point to peer into the greenery that is often taken for granted as the backdrop to the art galleries in the area.

There is a Forest Observation Room (where you can actually book to stay overnight) and even a river platform that overlooks a small creek within the forest. The main installation is also  accompanied by several large-scale prints of animals —encountered and observed within the forested area—scattered throughout various locations in Gillman Barracks, which are meant to expose visitors to the different realities of the area.

As their press statement says, “beyond offering a glimpse at the beauty and mysteries that nature has to offer, the artwork preempts us on what we stand to lose” – read up more about work here.

January 14 to February 14 at 7 Lock Road, Gillman Barracks

One of the most unusual shows this Art Week takes place inside a fantastical, Georgian-style HDB apartment in Bedok, owned by the visual artist and art collector Johan M. Fauzi. The richly decorated space was self-designed by the artist, and being a fan of antique art and furniture, the apartment is filled with turn-of-the-century Chinoiserie and antique English and European porcelain, as well as Johan’s own oil paintings, which explores the impact of colonialism on Singapore’s culture and history.

For the first time, Johan has opened up his apartment to be the site of a group exhibition curated by Louis Ho (Somewhere in Bedok blooms the blushing rouge of embroidered roses), featuring seven Singapore artists Adeline Kueh, Sarah Lin, Masuri Mazlan, Tini Aliman, Juria Toramae, Ian Woo as well as Johan himself. The works are site-specific and respond to the theatricality of the apartment and its baroque furnishings.

From a toilet bedecked in fake fur and shrouded in neon “clouds” to a writhing, alien-like installation winding its way, serpent-like, around precious antique vases (pictured above: Masuri Mazlan, Unho(m)mely Desires III: neither-here-nor-there-ness, 2021), this is a show to catch for its delightful subversion of domesticity with what is uncanny and carnal.

However, as it’s a residence, only five visitors are allowed per day – it’s necessary to register ahead of time. If you can’t make it down in person, the apartment has been captured in virtual reality so that you can explore it digitally – check it out here.

January 14 to January 30 at Bedok Reservoir

Art Agenda’s first show of the year is an impressive one. Titled We’re Young Once and curated by emerging artist-curator Ian Tee, it features early works by 15 artists and creatives across vastly different generations and approaches. Names include contemporary players such as Youths In Balaclavas (the streetwear label’s first artwork in a gallery setting!) and Ruben Pang to influential second-generation Nanyang artist Lim Yew Kuan, whose family has loaned a work of his from the ’50s (War and Peace) for the exhibition.

“In many ways, this project is born out of the conversations I have had with artists about their experiences and the “art scene” they grew up in,” says curator Ian Tee. “It also reflects my curiosity about the artworks I know through books or images online, but have never seen in person.”

The show represents a rare chance to see works from so many different generations, mediums and subject matter in one setting – and while they seem very wildly varied, a common thread lies in a youthful spirit of fearlessness, experimentation and vulnerability.

January 8 to January 30 at Art Agenda, 63 Spottiswoode Park Rd

In today’s context, copies and imitations have become so commonplace. Virgil Abloh lived by the mantra that an original design only had to be tweaked “three per cent” in order to qualify as a fresh design. But are copies all that bad? Bad Imitation, an exhibition curated by Berny Tan and Daniel Chong, seeks to question that complicated relationship between what is “original” and its “copy” –  the latter, they contest, can become more compelling than what birthed it.

The exhibition deliberately occupies this blurry threshold between copy and original: it features new works by artists Ashley Hi, Catherine Hu, Daniel Chong, Khairullah Rahim x Nghia Phung, Michael Lee, Moses Tan, and Pat Toh, that are “imprecise, flawed, and intentionally adjacent to the original.” And in doing so,  these imitations maintain a function – they help keep the original alive, yet remain firmly in their shadow.

January 14 to January 23 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, #05-04

Singapore is reportedly the happiest country in Southeast Asia, according to the World Happiness Report 2021, compiled by the Gallup World Poll team. Happy House, a multimedia experiential exhibition curated by Tulika Ahuja of Mama Magnet and Eileen Chan of The Council, is looking to put a new lens into how we look at that big, amorphous topic.

Happy House seeks new perspectives by combining creative output from an impressive slew of emerging artists across various fields, as well as from the community. For example, they’ve been actively calling for contributions of “happy memories” from the public, for which they’ll pay you a dollar.

Expect big things – the organisers will be taking over a warehouse at Tanjong Pagar Distripark as well as digitally, on Happy House’s Instagram page. Nor will it be a one-off event – this represents the first iteration of an ongoing study into the state of happiness, driven by Singapore’s often fraught relationship with it.

January 14 to January 23 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, #05-04

In recent years, there’s been a conscious effort to position art away from its traditional settings (i.e. museums or galleries) and into everyday spaces. It’s never been clearer than at this year’s Art Week; take Diaspora for example – a visual art exhibition helmed by Artblovk pop-up gallery and co-curated by Lim Cheng Tju, it’s staged in a bookstore familiar to most people in the arts and creative fields – Basheer Graphics Bookstore.

The exhibition features illustrators and visual artists such as A Good citizen (Dan Wong), Comet girl (Cherie Sim), Azridjokoloro and other young local talents, and it aims to investigate the movement of visual art from the physical to digital territories and into uncertain spaces (Metaverse, anyone?).

January 14 to January 23  at Basheer Graphic books, #04-19 Bras Brasah Complex, 231 Bain St 

From an investigation into our states of happiness, we come to another work exploring its cousin, unhappiness. A collaboration between The Projector and curator Louis Ho, the exhibition takes its title, It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, you would cry too if it happened to you, from that classic Lesley Gore song.

It’s set to take over the public spaces of Golden Mile Tower with a series of site-responsive installations, as well as a screening program of Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini’s work. Affirmative unhappiness is the name of the game – told through colourful inflatables, projections, cocktails and rainbow lights – fun!!!

Artists in the exhibition (Anthony Chin, Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen, Victoria Hertel, Adeline Kueh, Sarah Ninjawhee, Planeswalker, the Pure Ever collective and multidisciplinary artist Samuel Xun) take on the theme of affirmative unhappiness through the televisual medium, as a nod to Singapore’s foremost independent cinema theatre.

What does it mean to be unhappy, in this part of the world, here and now? Maybe, as Ho writes, unhappiness is a feeling of not fitting into all of those things validated by mainstream value systems – and if that’s you, head down to find an answer.

January 12 to February 6 at The Projector, #05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Rd

There’s always a lot of talk about building communities and here’s one project that has made it its mission to zoom in on the tender pleasures and joy that come naturally from attachments and friendships. Titled Fated Love Sky, and curated by artist Chand Chandramohan and arts manager/curator Racy Lim, the exhibition focuses on healing, rest and “detaching from notions of pain as integral to performance” – something everyone can benefit from, no?

All of the objects, films and site-specific installations presented are intended to nudge the audience to think more deeply about representations of care. Participating artists include Divaagar, Diana Rahim, Mysara Aljaru, Jaya Khidir, Nelly Tan and Farizi Noorfauzi. The exhibition will be accompanied by a screening of a sitcom episode involving all artists, directed by another rising star – stylist and image-maker Sabrina Elman.

January 14 to January 23 at Gillman Barracks, 6 Lock Rd #02-09

Ask anyone who’s ever moved away from Singapore for an extended period of time and in all likelihood, the thing they miss the most would be the food – found not in fancy, trendy restaurants but the everyday hawker centre. Hawker! Hawker! is a large, multi-faceted exhibition that brings together 13 Singapore-and New York-based artists, curators, and writers to explore the past and present of Singapore’s rich hawker culture, as well as to imagine its future.

Set in the historic location of Lau Pa Sat, Hawker! Hawker! will present many different works, workshops, photographic essays that all examine our relationship with this most communal of spaces – as well as the food native to it. Be prepared to come away enriched – and possibly hungry? Check out the various workshops and works here.

On now till Jan 28 at Lau Pa Sat, 18 Raffles Quay

Art organisation Oh! Open House returns with a second edition of For the House; Against the House, a unique exhibition that debates the value of art.

This year, the topic of the debate is Life Imitates Art, and the debate takes place between two holographic talking-heads (avatars of the exhibition’s curator, John Tung) arguing for and against the proposition.

The exhibition features selected modern and contemporary works from the collection of two art-loving couples – Lee Jan Hau and Katrina Heng, and the Gouws. Works from the collections include those from Chen Wen Hsi, Chuah Thean Teng, Ian Woo, Lavender Chang and Yee I-Lann.

Audiences can look forward to these works being pitted against new commissions by familiar local names such as Fyerool Darma and Jimmy Ong, and overseas artists such as Agan Harahap, Dusadee Huntrakul and Kentaro Hiroki.

Curator Tung’s framework for this year’s debate is based on art’s intrinsic role in nation-building. “I am of the mind that the everyday person might rarely think of the role art has to play within the framework of nation-building,” says Tung.

“Yet, at the very onset of self-governance in Singapore – that is, even prior to independence, in 1958 – the newly created Ministry of Culture was tasked with the responsibility of the ‘creation of a sense of national identity… On the issue of creation of national identities and nation-building, the question on whether life imitates art provides space for us to think about what it takes to get us to where we want to go.”

January 14 to January 23 at Gillman Barracks, 9 Lock Rd, #03-22