Singapore Art Week 2024 (SAW24) is set to commence on January 19, featuring an impressive lineup of over 150 events. While artists gear up for a whirlwind week of exhibits, talks and tours, we took a moment to catch up with some of the talented homegrown young creatives presenting their works at the event. Their art, spanning both digital and physical realms, offers insightful reflections on the human condition. In this exclusive, 12 under-30 year-olds spill the beans on their creative journeys and share insights into the thrilling works visitors can expect.
Hilary Yeo, a multi-disciplinary artist and sculptor, explores the notion of agency through her sculptural works, with a focus on non-human subjectivities. As a co-founder of the art collective Pure Ever, she has showcased her works locally and internationally, including exhibitions in Germany and Spain. Her latest piece will be featured at Crossroads: Random Access Memory, curated by ToNewEntities. with support from the National Arts Council. The exhibition runs from January 19 to 28, spanning across Fortune Centre (Outdoor Screen) and Wilkie Edge (Outdoor Screen).
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“The work I’m showcasing is titled Sentimental Pause (pictured). It draws inspiration from the rhythmic experience of commuting, capturing an in-between state suspended in time. The piece explores the sentimental moments of being immersed in music during various modes of transportation, evoking a nostalgic and memory-triggering experience often portrayed in films. Combining still images and moving elements, I aimed to convey time as fragments interwoven into memory. While the final piece took approximately two days to create, the process of curating footage and images that resonated with the context extended over a more extended period.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“I prefer viewers not to focus excessively on the details of my work but rather to allow themselves to be passive and immerse in the experience. I envision it as a transitional piece, providing a momentary escape from the surroundings before seamlessly reintegrating into the perpetual flow of life. Any emotional response can surface later.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“One of the greatest luxuries for a young artist in Singapore is the proximity to various resources, communities, places, inspiration, and entertainment. The accessibility enhances the creative experience. Being near everything needed can also limit one’s ability to extend beyond local boundaries, making it challenging to gauge whether your work resonates globally. Additionally, securing funding remains a persistent challenge.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“My artistic aspirations are continuously evolving, with a current focus on creating more substantial solo works. Ultimately, my dream is to be a recognised artist exhibiting in prestigious galleries worldwide, such as Good Mother Gallery, Gallery Anthony, Everyday Gallery, and Empty Gallery.”
Yeo Tze Yang is a visual artist whose primary focus is representational painting. The self-taught painter is best known for his depictions of the human experience, derived from his observations of everyday people, objects, and events in his immediate surroundings. Yeo’s solo exhibition, My Heart Will Go On and On and On, opened on January 13 at Fost Gallery as part of SAW24.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“My Heart Will Go On and On and On is the culmination of works I’ve produced since late 2022 (pictured is Reanimated Dead Rat, 2023, oil on canvas, wood, remote control toy car and remote control). If I could summarise the exhibition in a sentence, it would be about a love for the unloved. It goes a step deeper than what I have done previously with my paintings of everyday life by focusing on literally unwanted things. The subject matter I have painted consists of things I have seen lying on the street, be it an eggplant that has been driven over, a handwritten note, or a discarded cigarette box. They are viewed from above, almost like an autopsy, and often, they have the visual qualities of being flattened. Not only are they things that I encounter in daily life, but they are also things that we do not want anymore: rubbish, forgotten, unasked for. I came across these things during my travels in different cities, including Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Sydney, Amsterdam, etc. For me, the visual coherence among all these objects from different parts of the world marks a kind of universalism of experience and emotions amid the specificity of these particular things. Through a focus on these everyday things, narratives of memory, love, and death seep through each painting.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“While I’m known as a painter, the works in this show attempt to play around with how painting is presented. Something that always catches my attention while walking around cities is the different ways small businesses advertise their products and services – signboards, billboards, banners, et cetera. Some of that fascination comes through in this show. Also, the works may not be very loud or catchy at first glance, but they are packed with details and stories if one takes the time to look closely. Since this is a show about unwanted things, the way we have curated the show also encourages viewers to take their time looking at these artworks and even search for a couple of them.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Cost of living is indeed a significant factor. Finding affordable studio space in Singapore can be challenging, especially with rents skyrocketing in recent times. Even with a studio, one has to constantly deal with space constraints, given that the barely affordable studio may not be big enough, especially when shared with other artist/s.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I don’t have an ultimate dream ahead of me. I believe in just working hard, maintaining friendships in the art world, making new connections, and seeing where the road ahead takes me. As long as I can continue to sustain myself without too much financial worry, create new works every day, and push the limits of my artistic practice, that is good enough for me.”
Casey Tan is a Singaporean painter whose works focus on visual metaphors and narratives in everyday life. Tan’s paintings preserve the reality of their subjects while introducing some elements of drama and fantasy to them. The 29-year-old is exhibiting his latest paintings at Night Call, his solo exhibition at Cuturi Gallery until February 3, 2024.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“I am presenting a series of 16 paintings that reflect the experience of living and navigating the modern urban landscape of Singapore. I am inspired by the mundane and uneventful seasons of life. In comparison to my previous work, which depicted scenes of parties and gleeful moments, my current works are much more toned down and mellow in both colours and emotions. I delve into the mindscape and explore something more psychological, hence the subtle sense of surrealism. Overall, I tried to capture the sense of repression, isolation, and surrender in my paintings – characters that have succumbed to their environment, characters that are struggling to cope with their reality, and also coming to terms with their circumstances and making peace with it. Despite the sombre outlook, they hold a hint of optimism and hope.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“Instead of my usual style of hiding small elements within my works, where viewers can play ‘Finding Waldo’, my overall intention for this new series of paintings is much more emotionally driven. Thus, I would like the viewer to just be free and soak in the cold vibrant green and soft warm tones within each scene and imagine themselves sitting with the characters or spaces within the painting.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Expectations. I’m a pretty chill guy, but there’s always a soft humming sound and pressure to strive to be the ‘It’ artist, also a sense of being constantly compared with. All these challenges come while having to be consistent and, if not better, in what I do in an ever-rapidly progressing world, which presents the ultimate question: ‘Will people know or forget me over time?’ I don’t know. Sometimes I wish the only challenge is within the confines of my canvas.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“Wake up, have my usual baked beans and eggs while watching TV, turn on my playlist, wrestle with my paintings, have my meals, and enjoy a couple of glasses of beers and wines to end the day while I read whatever is on the internet. Occasionally meet my friends and play computer games. To be honest, it’s almost been like that for the past few years, actually.”
Siew Guang Hong is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice proposes new ways of understanding non-normative subjects through anatomy and biological investigations. He is only turning 24 this year and has already exhibited his works at venues such as Supperhouse, Starch, Sculpture 2052, Pulse Gallery Bangkok and Straits Gallery. For SAW24, he is participating in a one-and-a-half-month-long group residency open studio, Nothing but a Daydream【日舍】, organised by Supperhouse at GR.ID.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“The show is based on how many young artists in Singapore often have difficulty securing safe and conducive spaces to develop their craft and ideas. The space was, therefore, designed to embody ideas of transience and temporality.
During the residency, I am continuing to develop a two-year-long investigation on crabs as metaphors for queer transformation and metamorphosis. This time, I am using non-firing clay to sculpt the pincers and limbs of crabs (pictured), which I then paint and decorate using acrylic paint. The whole process of making each small 10-15 cm sculpture can take slightly over three weeks.
I read about how some crustaceans cut their pincers off continuously as they grow to stimulate the process of moulting, where the crab sheds and regrows its exoskeleton. It occurred to me that many animals put themselves in temporary states of danger and vulnerability because they look toward the potential for growth and change. I compared this to humans and organisations that hold on to dogmatic values and policies for fear of disturbing peace, not realising that human civilisation has developed through many of these moultings’. This led me to the practice of continuously sculpting the crab limbs and strewing them around my residency space, thinking about myself, the artist, as a crab messily throwing my old body parts around—meditating on how we can learn more from non-human entities that are often too small for us to care about.
I am constantly finding new ways to express my ideas, so I have been investing my energy in developing my performative practice as well. Just next door from GR.ID, I am involved in one of a series of performances at Peace Centre for Gesture Serialised. The performance I am developing revolves around my experience growing up as a queer youth feeling the need to live up to hypermasculine beauty standards. Along with the recent boom in the fitness and diet industry, the work I will be doing oscillates around themes of consumption, exhaustion, and futility. Including the formalisation of my concept and fabrication of the performance props, the work took two weeks to prepare.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“When in my space, you will be able to see me hand-stippling my sculptures with paint, using my table magnifying glass. What most people do not realise when they don’t see my entire process is that each drop of paint must be positioned less than one millimetre away from each other, which is the reason why it takes so long to finish each sculpture. I find this aspect particularly fascinating in an open studio showcase compared to a traditional exhibition, as artists can showcase specific techniques employed in their studio. This is especially important for me, as that act of careful stippling is meant to be a significant performative and meditative gesture.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“I think many young artists in Singapore put a lot of pressure on ourselves to constantly exhibit work. I remember promising myself to take a break for a few months after July last year because the first half of the year was packed, but as soon as August started, I began feeling worried that I was being too idle. I think it has a lot to do with social media perpetuating the idea that everyone is always exhibiting somewhere. What many young artists (like me) keep forgetting is that people only post about when they have shows, and not so much when they are taking breaks.
Rest is important for artists because it nourishes our creativity and prevents us from experiencing burnout. As I progress in my professional journey, I hope to eventually have a better grasp on taking time for myself and being okay with not participating in every show that opens.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I want to continue developing my artistic research in a way that makes my work important and relevant in the context of queer identity. Along the same vein, I hope my practice extends far into international institutions.”
Artist and creative coder Kimverlyn Lim is known for her explorations of materiality, form and process within cybernetic performance spaces. Working with the combined mediums of audio-visuals, creative code, and 3D software, Lim’s previous work includes posthumanist narratives, mostly in collaboration with local musicians and events. Her latest work, memory, point, cells, will be exhibited at Crossroads: Random Access Memory, curated by ToNewEntities with support from the National Arts Council, from January 19 to 28.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“My piece, memory, point, cells, is inspired by ToNewEntities’ theme for this year’s Crossroads – Random Access Memory. It’s something I’ve been contemplating – how our memories are constantly evolving, interacting, and blurring with each other with their subconscious dynamism. It’s peculiar that it all happens in our heads, and when we try to recollect it, it often gets mixed up, leading me to consider the objective truth of that recollected moment when everyone’s recollection is different. Also, when recollected, it’s not very timely or linear; it feels like a massive clump of key elements, such as a door, key, chair, glass, electric blue colour, and a particular song playing.
Memories in this era are quite often digitised as well, altering the core memory itself since we filter and curate our lives, impacting the mesh of our memories. When bringing up memories, people also mention the Mandela effect a lot, which I think is a great example of the morphing of collective memories.
In a posthumanist or futurist state, it seems like our digital memories might be retained in the virtual realm. I wonder how they might be perceived in the future. Our future remnants will be archived and perhaps saved for generations, and I wonder how they might utilise the digital memories of our past.
For the art piece, memory, point, cells, I tried to take a past memory and represent it as a massive cluster of elements, such as the building I loved when I was a kid, the sound of race cars from that building, the gaming consoles I played with my brother, the noodles my mom likes, and my grandma’s favourite orchids. It’s a personal memory but maybe something that someone else could find familiar solace in. This memory then gets transformed digitally into informational data before continuing to morph, blending between virtuality and reality.
The sound design, which I worked on with your friend, Dan, is also an important aspect of sound as memory. I recommend taking a listen and spotting the sonic elements on the Crossroads website since the billboards won’t have sound.
I used Cinema4D for the 3D build before breaking it down into point cloud data with TouchDesigner and then finally merging it with cellular automata patterns in Processing, a creative code program. For final edits, I used Premiere Pro. In total, this took about two weeks in December.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“I think it would be so rewarding if anyone could recognise the (might I dare say) modernist metabolist building in the first scene. It’s such a cool and unique building in Singapore. Also, if they can identify the traces of the main memory within the digitised point clouds, it would be reassuring.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“I think when I first started learning and doing more computational coding and 3D work, I felt pretty lonely. Most of my answers came from Reddit or YouTube when I had to troubleshoot the code or understand why something went wrong. It felt like I was screaming questions into a void. Also, it seemed quite aimless in the sense that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my creative work since we highly value pragmatism. I slowly made some friends who had similar interests, and it was heartwarming to be able to relate to them or ask them for help or support. I really appreciate the local creative community for being so friendly, inviting, and open to sharing.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“My ultimate dream is tough to define because I want to accept that I’m constantly evolving and my goals will evolve with me. However, in the short term, for 2024, I hope to work with computational sensors, robotics, sound, light, and audience participation to create an interactive, always-changing type of installation/performance. I hope the concept comes through strongly, and the code doesn’t break. And then, maybe hopefully present it to the public at a music festival or a cosy space, depending on the installation concept.”
Working primarily with sculpture and print media, Catherine Hu’s art tends to “behave like puns,” pulling multiple meanings together in one form. Her work has been exhibited not just in Singapore but also in Comfort Station, Chicago, a multidisciplinary art space centred around community-driven programs. For SAW24, Hu is part of the Eat, Play, Love show at C-1 Holland Park. Michael Lee, the curator, invited her and a few other artists to propose new work responding to this particular building, which was designed in the 1960s as a single-family home by the late architect William Lim.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“We had a site visit in early April last year to meet some of the people involved and just get a lay of the land. One thing I remember seeing was a structure in the garden built for plants to climb on. It was made of bamboo and raffia, with leaves growing over it to form a kind of canopy, and it just looked so much like a mini building to me, like four columns and a horizontal roof. What stuck with me was this idea of an architect building a structure for people to live inside, and then those people building a smaller structure for plants to live outside. I just found that to be a very compelling image – these two levels of ‘building’ going on at the same time, almost rhyming actions – so for the show, I wanted to make something like one of those bamboo structures in the garden but shaped like that very modernist house behind it. I wanted a way to sort of compress those two levels of ‘building’ into one thing, so you could look at it and see both.
We found out the application was approved around mid-August, so that was when we could get started properly, acquiring materials and stuff. We had scans of the original architectural drawings and floor plans, which were really helpful. I knew this project was a little bit out of my comfort zone – it’s on a slightly bigger scale than I’m used to, and also outdoors in the monsoon season – so I tried to prepare myself for that. I made sure to have all the pieces pre-cut so I could check everything fit correctly before I went and started digging holes in front of someone else’s house.
Tan Ngiap Heng (show producer, artist, and current resident of the house) very kindly let me set up slightly earlier, in December, so there was some buffer in case anything went wrong, and also to let the structure (pictured) weather a little bit into its surroundings. I was terrified the whole thing would just fall apart in the rain but I think it turned out okay in the end (fingers crossed).”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“The building itself is fascinating (there’s a lot more information about it on the exhibition website). The roof is designed to funnel rainwater towards the center and direct it down the pipes at just two points on either side instead of all around, which is cool – having this specific utility also gives it that very distinct shape. It’s an unusual place and an unusual venue to exhibit work, but it is also a home that people have lived in for almost 60 years, and that’s an interesting dynamic to me.
I got to know the floor plans quite well as I was working on this, and I realised the whole house is arranged on a grid (it’s easier to tell from a model). Knowing that and then going back inside to walk through the house again makes for a different sort of experience.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“I guess it goes without saying that when space is at a premium, you become very aware of the square footage of everything you put into the world. I make sculpture, which feels like a really bad idea sometimes. I second-guess the things I do a lot, especially when they exceed a certain scale. I worry about the afterlife of my projects – how they’ll be stored, if the materials can be repurposed, how people are going to live with them if they choose to take them home (like, is it going to hurt someone’s dog if it falls over); I worry if they’re going to be worth the space they will occupy, or that they’re not and people can tell.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to think about all this (it could even be useful), but it can also be hard sometimes to tell the difference between trying to be pragmatic and doubting your work into non-existence. That being said, I am truly grateful to have met people who believe in what I do, and I’m very glad to be able to do it.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I think I would want to make some kind of public sculpture at some point, just to put something somewhere and have it become part of its environment. I’ve made things that belong to other people now, work I’ve sold or given away; sometimes they send me pictures of their cats sitting on it or something, and it’s the greatest thing ever, to see something I made change the landscape of their home. I imagine it would be amazing to get to do something like that in a public space. It’s such a trivial thing, but I really like the idea that someone might be able to call a friend one day and say, ‘Hey, let’s meet at [that thing]’ and for the other person to understand where.
On a related note, I’ve always thought it would be really cool to get to design a playground, but maybe after I have some more experience handling bigger projects. I think there’s a lot that goes into it safety-wise.”
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Ryan Lim Zi Yi’s practice collects moments of encounters and activities that occur within the public and private surroundings. His installations tend to consist of images, moving images, sculpture, and text. Through his work, Lim regularly invites people to meditate on our relationships and attitudes towards the inconspicuous areas of reality. See his work in the group exhibition, Some Exercises in Futility.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“I am very fortunate to present a new work titled A Breezy Day Doesn’t Make a Winter (pictured) in the show, alongside new works by Fiona Seow, Genevieve Leong, ila, and Marvin Tang. I am very excited about this exhibition, carefully curated by Berny Tan and beautifully designed by Alex Lam and Judea Faith Cheong.
A Breezy Day Doesn’t Make a Winter comprises three works: sculptural reliefs made with wall putty, image and text; a large-scale sculpture made with wall putty and plaster; and a cassette player sound work. Like most of my works, this piece is made and presented as individual components that can stand alone independently. Still, when put together, they form a larger single-body installation. The work tells a story of a protagonist’s attempts to make sense of why we do the things we do and how we live through the recollection of encounters with the weather, skirting boards, and images taken with an iPhone.
This work marks the fifth chapter of We Will Never Have Earthquakes, a series consisting of pieces I have been working on since 2020, exploring discomfort and disruption inherent in the process of change.
I will also be presenting a work titled Diesel. This work is about a house cat that used to live in my shared apartment and it is for a group fundraiser show called Lucky Cats at I_S_L_A_N_D_S. This show is put together by Tan Pey Chuan, where 50 per cent of the sales of the artworks will be donated to the Cat Welfare Society.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“Looking back at past works, I have been particularly focused on space and material presence. However, for A Breezy Day Doesn’t Make a Winter, I have begun to think about the idea of scale and its varying degrees – from the apparent to the imperceptible. This is an important concept that I started to keep in mind, and I believe it is reflected in the physical elements of my artworks. It is also, more figuratively, embedded in the narrative I am presenting.
As mentioned earlier, the artworks are individual components of a larger installation, and individually, they can often seem like they are loosely floating and rather fragmented. This is where visitors can come in to fill in the gaps that were left between each work, piecing these components together using their own experiences and understanding. Noticing and realising something takes time, so this is something to keep in mind when viewing the works.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Speaking for myself, I contemplate the longevity of my art-making practice. I often ponder how long I can sustain a consistent and continuous engagement with art. There have been many moments where I’ve had to weigh the option of sacrificing my practice against other commitments due to time and financial constraints. However, I presume this is a challenge that most artists have to confront or have dealt with at some point.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I hope to continue making art for a long time.”
Nusantara, or the Malay World, plays a prominent role in the works of 29-year-old interdisciplinary artist and cultural practitioner Syahrul Anuar. In addition to exploring the rich narratives of the Malay World, he is deeply interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning, incorporating these cutting-edge technologies alongside traditional photography into his practice. For SAW24, he will be presenting a remix of an older artwork as part of Crossroads: Random Access Memories, curated and organised by ToNewEntities.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“It’s a ‘trailer-ification’ of an artwork titled, the only constant is an asymptotic landscape (pictured), previously commissioned and shown at Jendela, Esplanade. My inspiration for the work came from an intense global consumption of sand, not just as the material to expand land capital, but also how it drove Singapore to its current success – through the materiality of sand used across various sectors, from construction to the photolithography of silicon wafers.
I’d like to take this chance to give a special thanks to Rafi and the team at ToNewEntities for considering me to be a part of Crossroads. Crossroads is a really interesting take on commercial billboard spaces. The constant looping of advertising media gives me a sense of dread in our hyper-capitalist environment. With this constant complaint about the lack of art spaces in Singapore, exhibits like Crossroads shake things up a little bit more.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“The work will be in the queue with the advertising media slots, so it will be interesting to see people who might assume an advertisement is an artwork.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“One of the prime challenges of being a young artist in Singapore is finding the drive to pursue and be in the loop of what you call this ‘scene’ in Singapore. On a fundamental level, I have other things I’d much rather spend my time on. So, it’s one of the more difficult things they never really thought or discussed much about in art school.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I don’t have an ultimate dream. I’d say my dreams are like projects that I try to accomplish and remain hopeful that I’ll get to achieve in my lifetime. At the moment, I’d like to see if I could be in more group shows across East Asia and other parts of Southeast Asia. It would be a dream to be a part of an exhibit in South America or Africa. We share many historical affinities with those parts of the world. Apart from shows, I’d also fawn over any opportunity to do a residency with a big tech corporation such as Amazon Web Services, Azure or Google Cloud. I am interested in the geopolitics of software these days.”
The work of Hong Shu-ying is informed by her lived experience and growing up in Singapore. She enjoys a process-led method of working that often culminates in books or an ensemble of prints and videos. Her recent projects delve into informal archives that are either communal, personal or a mix of both. For SAW24, Hong will be presenting her works across three different shows.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“This year, I am fortunate to be part of three shows for SAW24. I’ll be staging my first solo presentation at Esplanade’s Community Wall – 印映 [yìn yìng] reflections impressions, looks at the ways we learn, imitate, and innovate. The project draws from the famed 1950 recording of 二泉映月 (èr quán yìng yuè; Mirrored Moon in the Erquan Spring) by 阿炳 (Hua Yanjun a.k.a. Abing) and subsequent user-contributed content on video-sharing platforms responding to this piece. The ensemble of prints and videos presented is made by screenshots, montages, and annotations of the videos (pictured). Conversations for this commission started in March last year, and I have already been very intrigued by the proliferation of these recordings by professionals and amateurs of erhu. It’s fascinating to know that something as creative and expressive as music starts with imitation as a way to learn. Abing exists as an enigmatic but iconic figure in erhu music history; little is known about him despite widespread reverence. The stereotypical appearance of a blind male beggar/busker that people often associate with erhu players is also derived from his likeness. The Taoist priest turned street busker is only survived by the 6 recordings he made in 1950 and an ID photo; this was all the documentation that exists of his life and musical brilliance. 二泉映月 was notated from the recording and never scored by Abing himself, probably one of the earliest and most successful instances of learning from a recording.
I am also one of the five artists presenting works as part of the Objectifs Curator Open Call showcase, in the show A Reservoir of Time curated by Goh Chun Aik. It’s my second time back in the Chapel Gallery, and I’m presenting two new works that consider the malleability of time. The first work 迁泉 [qiān quán], springs looks at videos as time capsules – these units of capturing what once was and what people once thought and imagined. The prints and video installation re-present footage of a body of water that no longer exists, many of which include appropriated photos of other water bodies or illustrated representations of the same place. I derived a new way of taking screenshots that extracts a column of pixels from each frame of the video – a screenshot that also reflects the passing of time in the video, a time-based format. 乍鸣 [zhà míng], creak of dawn is an audio work that features my recordings of the sounds heard at sunrise, edited together with found audio recordings of birds at sunrise. Unlike standardised units of time we now follow (i.e., seconds, minutes, hours), people of the past pegged their daily lives and activities to the rhythm of the day. I remember the phrase ‘日出而作 日落而息’, which translates to work when the sun rises, rest when the sun sets; I found it so elegant that this phrase from a folk song in the Yao period said so much about how in sync the people were with their environment then and the harmonious relationship they shared with nature.
The last show is a rather cute and meaningful one, Lucky Cats is a group show initiated by I_S_L_A_N_D_S to celebrate the independent artistic community that has supported the space and also a fundraiser for the Cat Welfare Society (50% of the proceeds from artwork sales will be donated, feline lovers please come!). There are 29 of us in this show, and I’m presenting Kucinta: Singapore’s Love Cat, which draws from photos from the National Archives of Singapore. The Kucinta was the mascot of the Singapore Tourism Board in the 90s, and there were campaigns to popularise the cat. However, the cat has since fallen into obscurity much like the missing and vandalised sculptures of them that once lined the Singapore River.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“I never tire of all the gems I encounter in found images and informal archives. I hope the works I am sharing ignite the same curiosity towards vernacular visual culture in the audiences who encounter them. These images we collect and share every day are traces we leave behind as we go about daily life. They are rich and interesting, and I wish more people will find joy and wonder in them too.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“To receive help and provide support to my friends and peers is important. Singapore is small; if you look carefully, most of us tap into the same pool of resources and spaces. It’s hard to ask for help sometimes, and it’s equally challenging to offer assistance because everyone is strained and tired. I hope we can build more sustainable systems to support and empower artists one day.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I don’t have an ultimate dream as an artist or as a person, for that matter. However, I wish to create works that are earnest and to hold myself to that standard throughout my entire artistic career.”
In Xafier Yap’s words, he is an artist who “exists mostly digitally.” He speculates and creates works usually presented via screens and/or installations. This year, Yap will be part of Refraction Index, an arts incubator programme that explores glass as a medium. Catch Yap’s and his fellow artists’ works at The Yards @ Joo Chiat from January 19 to 28.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“Working as a firefighter for two years, I’ve only recently been able to reflect on my work environment while recovering from top surgery. I re-experience my workplace through my phone, with 90 per cent of my photo album being work-related photos. I started to relook at the photographed objects and my relationships with them separated from their utility and work environment.
In firefighting, each hose coupling is assigned a gender – male and female – to teach recruits how to assemble equipment. In firefighting, the act of coupling and decoupling hoses is a constant repeated cycle. Each pair never meets, connected only by the red hose; not by physical contact. As an object, there is a certain loneliness in requiring a coupling to justify its worth.
Drawing from this, I wanted to examine other objects common in firefighting as separated from their functional purpose and as metaphors for states of emptiness, loneliness, and attempted companionship. Working with glass allowed me new material to artificially contact these gendered parts through moulding and casting. Working with the material, gave me a renewed perspective on glass panels of fire extinguisher cabinets, seemingly sturdy objects that might be surprisingly tender when made to be destroyed in use.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“I’d like to leave it up to them.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Not having the financial means to do what I want.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“It would bring me a lot of joy if I were able to practice art full-time without worrying about finances.”
Ryan Lee is a rising 19-year-old fashion creative who often navigates the realms of photography and styling. He discovered his passion for photography in 2020, using it as a platform for his unique visions of non-conformism and exaggeration in fashion. To him, every piece of clothing holds the potential to challenge convention and make a bold statement. Catch his work at Artwalk Fest Singapore during SAW24.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“As part of Artwalk Fest Singapore and SAW24, photographer Joseph Koh (a.k.a @badsoju) and I will be directing a runway showcase titled PORCELAIN. The showcase aims to spotlight garments from Lasalle Design students and various local designers and creatives. The runway’s theme interweaves thematic elements of myth and rituals with subcultures like grunge and punk to reintroduce heritage with a rebellious twist, seamlessly fusing the past and present. The runway also touches on ‘saving heritage’ as our way of highlighting the fragility of our heritage’s preservation in today’s digitally dominated landscape. This concept is reinterpreted through clinical elements in the styling, such as bandages, casts, and color schemes associated with healing. We’ve been working on the runway since November last year, constantly experimenting with the garments and how they can be presented in an extremely edgy style while staying true to the concept of heritage.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“The most intriguing aspect of our event is how raw everything is. I’ve always taken heavy inspiration from youth subcultures and adopted the DIY approach in almost all of my work; this runway is no exception. We’re all trying to make something out of nothing, and I want everything in the event to amplify this very spirit and energy.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Personally, because my work is alternative and subversive, getting gigs may not be easy, as most people would want work that is safe and appeals to the masses. In terms of monetary gain as well, many companies take advantage of up-and-coming creatives and the hunger in them. Instead of paying them what their work is worth, they get paid in ‘exposure bucks.'”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“I want to go international and style for magazines and artists driven by values and aesthetics similar to mine!”
Daniel Chong, an artist-curator who works between function and sentimentality, explores themes ranging from strength to grief and, more recently, intimacy. A graduate of Lasalle College of the Arts, he engages with materialism as a means to unearth our emotive connections through objects, centred on our understanding of them through their use. Chong is part of three exhibitions this year, and he shares more about them below. He is participating in three exhibitions during SAW24.
Tell us more about what you’re presenting at SAW24.
“I’m thrilled to be part of three exhibitions, each with different directions and themes. The first is a group show at Art Agenda titled, Do you hear the invisible sound?, where I am exhibiting an extension of my video series I want to be a plant (pictured). I’m showcasing the first video chapter alongside two new sculptures. It’s exciting to expand this body of work so soon.
Secondly, I’m organising and participating in a group showcase called Refraction Index at Refind at The Yards @ Joo Chiat. It is an incubator with a creative glass recycling studio where I and four other artists from various disciplines learned and developed works using glass. I’m excited about it because it isn’t like an exhibition but more a showcase of experiments, failures, and future possibilities. It’s more of a comma to the explorations by these artists. I’m happy to say that we enjoyed examining glass through the lens (pun intended) of our unique practices and incorporated the medium of glass into them. Many of us intend to continue expanding our explorations in glass well after SAW2024.
I will be showing some glassy meats that I’ve cast from vacuum-sealed grocery meats! They are created from the moulds of actual meats. I was quite interested in how these forms, when cast in a single material, look like these strange uncanny textures.
Finally, an exhibition-cum-fundraiser, Lucky Cats” at I_S_L_A_N_D_S. Fifty per cent of all proceeds will be donated to the Singapore Cat Welfare Society. I will be exhibiting water trays that can be used by both humans and cats, cast in pink, transparent, and black glass. They are shaped like vacuum-sealed ham and stem from my explorations of Refraction Index. As I see this more as a fundraiser, I am leaving the artwork as an open edition where pre-orders can be placed.”
What are your hopes for what visitors will take away from your work?
“I would like audiences to thoroughly consider the works in Refraction Index. Through the showcase, I hope people can reconsider their relationship with glass, whether as an everyday material or as a medium for art. Unlike ceramics, I feel we don’t really think of glass as a material and only see the finished object. Due to the proliferation and access to ceramic workshops, Singaporeans are quite familiar with and appreciative of ceramic ware. I think most people only associate glass-making with glass-blowing, but there are far more accessible (and less terrifying) techniques which everyday audiences can try their hand at. I hope this show can truly spark that interest, as it did for the artists as well, and hopefully encourage people to try glass-making for the first time.”
What’s the most challenging aspect you face as a young artist in Singapore?
“Sustainability. I think a lot of people assume Singapore is not a space built for the arts, but, to be honest, art appreciation is on the rise, and there are ample exhibition opportunities as well. Case in point, there is an exhibition opening every other week if you know where to look. But what I think is the biggest struggle is carving out a sustainable practice for oneself, and I mean this both financially and mentally. It isn’t easy to balance a paid job and creating art, let alone secure a well-paying arts job. I often see my peers getting underpaid or often all fighting for the same gigs. And burnout is frequent. I chalk this up partly to Singapore being small and, by that, having less of everything. But I also believe that there is this insidious mentality that the arts are a public good. Because of this, there isn’t a culture of paying fairly for art, be it design, fashion, craft, or performing arts.”
Share your ultimate dream as an artist.
“Honestly? To keep making art for the rest of my life. I always think I’m only as good as my next artwork, and I always have this fear of getting tired of making art. Be it the challenges I discussed above or just burnout. So I do think my ultimate dream is to still have this love for art and the ability to continuously create it for the rest of my life.”