pluralartmag.com

Benchmarks
2023-08-02 - 2026-07-31 | The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Ln, Singapore 179429, Singapore, Singapore, 179429, Singapore
Experience the Civic District afresh this August 2023 onwards, with Benchmarks, a new public art trail commissioned by the Civic District Alliance (CDA). Designed by six Singapore-based artists, Lua Boon Kai, Joyce Beetuan Koh, Immanuel Koh, Yang Jie, Jeffrey Tan and Jason Wee, the public art initiative features a series of six unconventional artwork benches inspired by punctuation marks dotted around the arts and culture precinct. Each art bench draws from the rich heritage of the district, inviting visitors to have meaningful exchanges with themselves, other visitors, or even the surroundings while appreciating the beauty of the Civic District and its colourful stories. These art benches for Benchmarks are located at key areas of the Civic District, such as the Asian Civilisations Museum, The Arts House, The Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and along the Singapore River.
Follow #CVDBenchmarks on:
Website: https://artshouselimited.sg/civic-district
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theartshouse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theartshouse

Let’s Play! The Art and Design of Asian Games
2025-09-05 - 2026-06-07 | Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM), 1 Empress Place, 179555, Singapore
Games are among humanity’s oldest shared experiences – a source of joy, challenge, and connection for thousands of years. In Asia, they have developed in remarkably diverse ways, from the lively, fast-paced rhythms of mahjong and congkak to the contemplative strategy of go and chess. They have entertained and educated, reflected power and status, and acted as metaphors for life.
This exhibition explores the rich history of Asian games and the role they have played in shaping culture, identity, and community. Some travelled widely, taking on new forms and meanings across borders. Others became tools for mental training or expressions of artistic ideals. Even today, they remain at the frontier of innovation – as seen in the rise of artificial intelligence.
Many of the games on display are also works of extraordinary beauty and craftsmanship. As you explore the exhibition, we invite you to discover how the act of play continues to inspire, evolve, and connect people across time and place.
Let’s Play! incorporates playable interactives, outdoor installations, collaborations with schools and local game associations, and a diverse line-up of programmes and talks.

Talking Objects
2025-09-12 - 2026-07-19 | Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065, Singapore, 089065, Singapore
Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents Talking Objects, its latest exhibition at the dedicated collection gallery. Drawn from the museum’s collection, the exhibition explores how everyday objects – commonplace items, familiar scenes and everyday representations — become vessels of memory, meaning, and emotion when seen through the lens of artists and their practices. Beyond materiality, Talking Objects considers how even the most everyday forms can become instruments of expression. In the hands of artists, the ordinary takes on new significance, inviting us to look again at the world around us.
Featuring works by widely recognised artists from across Asia, including Alwin Reamillo, Suzann Victor, and Christine Ay Tjoe, Talking Objects showcases a diversity of artistic voices and practices, while offering insights into SAM’s ongoing research into the material and conceptual languages of contemporary art in the region. These artworks resonate with shared human experiences while remaining grounded in the particularities of place and personal history. The exhibition invites visitors to slow down, reflect, and rediscover the quiet power of objects in shaping how we see and understand the world.
Talking Objects is housed alongside The Living Room in SAM’s collection gallery. Together, they create a reflective space where personal and collective experiences converge, offering insights into individual narratives and broader social and cultural conditions.

The Living Room
2025-09-12 - 2026-07-19 | Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065, Singapore, 089065, Singapore
Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents its latest exhibition The Living Room, as part of the final chapter of Collection Project: Communicating, Convening, Commoning—a long-term collaboration between SAM, Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Housed at SAM’s refreshed collection gallery, the exhibition brings together performance-based works from the collections of all three institutions to explore how performances – fleeting by nature – can be remembered, reactivated, and carried forward through different forms of engagement. At its heart is a central question: What happens to a performance when it ends? Where does its liveness go, and how might we make sense of what remains?
Featuring works by renowned local and international artists such as Ezzam Rahman, Chuyia Chia, Kim Garam, Brian Fuata and others, The Living Room presents a breadth of practices spanning live performances, video, installation, performance traces, re-enactments, and artist-led activations. Taking inspiration from the living room as a space for gathering and presence, the exhibition invites visitors into an evolving environment that is brought to life through activation, conversation, and exchange. By bringing together works grounded in lived experience, The Living Room opens new ways of understanding how performance lives on through objects, memory, interaction, and shared encounters.
The Living Room is showcased alongside Talking Objects at SAM’s collection gallery. Together, they create a reflective space where personal and collective experiences converge, offering insights into individual narratives and broader social and cultural conditions.

Engage with history through art at Temple, National Gallery Singapore’s first rooftop installation integrating kinetic motion and sound
2025-10-25 10:00 - 2026-10-11 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | National Gallery Singapore, 1 St. Andrew's Road #01-01, Singapore, 178957, Singapore
Embark on a meditative experience at Temple, a new participatory artwork by Vietnamese-American artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Commissioned by National Gallery Singapore for its Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission series and presented as part of Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention, Temple invites visitors to reflect on history and contemplate the impact of war through a multisensorial experience that blends kinetic motion and sound – underscoring the Gallery’s mission to connect the art of Singapore and Southeast Asia to the world and foster critical dialogue on global issues through art.
Featuring bells and mobiles crafted from recovered and defused unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the Vietnam War, visitors are encouraged to strike the defused shells, gongs, and chimes, creating a meditative soundscape. Through this transformation of weapons of war into instruments of peace, Nguyen inspires ideas of karmic balance, reincarnation, and the memories embedded within materials, offering a powerful lens for healing and reconciliation.
Temple is the eighth edition of the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission.

Peacock Power: Beauty and Symbolism Across Cultures
2025-10-31 10:00 - 2026-08-30 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Peranakan Museum, 39 Armenian Street, Singapore, Singapore 179941, Singapore
With its dazzling feathers and spectacular tail, the peacock has long symbolised beauty, power, and divinity across Asia. For centuries, its striking form has captivated artists and devotees alike, inspiring works that range from sacred images to everyday adornment.
The peacock motif travelled between cultures. Peranakan art, shaped by the convergence of multiple influences, is the starting point for this journey. Treasures from the National Collection and important lenders explore the bird’s presence in a broad range of artistic disciplines. Each object invites visitors to consider how a motif moved between regions and contexts, revealing the networks that connect peoples and how artistic traditions evolve through exchange.
The exhibition presents these connections through colourful displays, interactive stations, and lively programmes. A new work by artist Ernest Goh explores the peacock in the context of its symbolism, cultural heritage, and ecology.

Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise
2026-01-09 - 2026-11-15 | National Gallery Singapore, Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery, Concourse Level, City Hall Wing, 1 St Andrew’s Road, Singapore, Singapore, 178957, Singapore
Discover the power of art through the perspectives of five trailblazing women artists from
Southeast Asia. Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise foregrounds their lives,
perspectives, and artistic practices, featuring over 45 works by Amanda Heng (Singapore),
Dolorosa Sinaga (Indonesia), Imelda Cajipe Endaya (Philippines), Nirmala Dutt (Malaysia), and
Phaptawan Suwannakudt (Thailand) – many of which are shown in Singapore for the first
time.
Fear No Power is National Gallery Singapore’s first major exhibition connecting and
comparing the practices of women artists from Southeast Asia. This landmark exhibition
highlights the significance of women-centred approaches in shaping modern and
contemporary art across the region. With artworks spanning painting, photography,
sculpture, and performance from the 1960s to 2010s alongside archival material, Fear No
Power honours the multi-faceted roles of these pioneering women as artists, educators,
writers and community organisers – telling a larger story of women’s empowerment in
Southeast Asia.

Elia Nurvista and Bagus Pandega: Nafasan Bumi ~ An Endless Harvest
2026-01-16 10:00 - 2026-05-31 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065, Singapore, 089065, Singapore
Artists Elia Nurvista and Bagus Pandega explore how the demands of a relentless extraction, from plantations to electric futures, cast a shadow on the very “breath of the Earth.”
Elia Nurvista and Bagus Pandega: Nafasan Bumi ~ An Endless Harvest imagines the afterlives of materials that persist long after their use, outlasting our time in this age of excess. Plantations, mining sites, and the promise of electric vehicle technologies become places where the stories of tomorrow are formed, bound by Indonesia’s extractive economies whose resources sustain the pulse of today’s global demand.
From the need for oxygen to nickel’s role in lithium-ion technologies, from the cutting down of forests to palm oil’s many applications, these materials represent the state of the Earth’s breath (Nafasan Bumi) today, strained by extraction. The planet’s natural rhythms no longer move freely but are drawn into the labour of industry, breathing through the exhaustion of a harvest that never ends.
Across the exhibition, labour appears as both memory and speculation, a rhythm shared by humans, machines, and the living world. Conveyor belts, once emblems of the industrial revolution and the mechanisation of labour, now hum to the pulse of tropical plants, creating a continuous cycle of productivity. Nearby, sculptures cast in palm oil wax evoke the stillness of carved stone yet resist ideals of perfection, creating a dreamscape haunted by plantation residues. Others, made from discarded palm waste, hold the tension between fragility and endurance.
Together, these artworks trace how human and non-human life have been enmeshed in cycles of ceaseless pursuit of productivity, asking: What will the future shaped by these material conditions? Like the recurring haze that engulfs Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia during the southwest monsoon, the Earth’s breath, shadowed by an endless harvest, lingers as a reminder of what extraction conceals and refuses to let us forget. ~

Momentary Pulses: Art in the Central Business District
2026-01-30 - 2026-12-31 | Various sites across Singapore’s CBD (from Raffles Place to Tanjong Pagar), Singapore
Date: 30 January 2026 – 31 December 2027
Venue: Various sites across Singapore’s CBD (from Raffles Place to Tanjong Pagar)
Admission: Free
Presented by The Everyday Museum (a public art initiative by Singapore Art Museum), Momentary Pulses is a public art trail that invites you to slow down and encounter art in the daily flow of life. Spanning overlooked and interstitial public spaces like linkways, open plazas and MRT passages, seven newly commissioned installations by Singapore based artists respond to the sights, sounds and commercial pulse of the Central Business District (CBD) — turning routine journeys into moments of reflection and imagination.
Featuring works by Song-Ming Ang, Finbarr Fallon, Catherine Hu, Zul Mahmod, collaborative duo Teow Yue Han and Federico Ruberto, Yang Jie and Immanuel Koh, the trail reveals the textures and histories embedded within Singapore’s urban core. The works will be launched in two phases, with the first phase featuring five installations by Song-Ming Ang, Finbarr Fallon, Catherine Hu, Zul Mahmod, and the collaborative duo Teow Yue Han and Federico Ruberto. The remaining two works by Yang Jie and Immanuel Koh will be introduced in the later part of 2026. Each installation is sited within walking distance in the CBD, including stops near OUE Link (Raffles Place), One Raffles Quay (North Tower), Asia Square (Tower 1), Shenton House, and Tanjong Pagar MRT (Exit G). Look out for kinetic and sound-based installations, AI-driven works, sculptural interventions, and site-specific gestures that reframe how we perceive the city’s everyday infrastructures. Together, these works offer distinct lenses on movement, memory, technology and transformation — encouraging new ways of seeing a district in constant motion.
As part of the public art trail’s opening, The Everyday Museum launches Story Scape (30 January – 8 February 2026), a festival organised in collaboration with StoryFest. The festival extends the trail through exciting storytelling performances, artist talks and an evening audiovisual experience at RASA Space. Programme details will be announced on SAM’s channels.

SAY YES TO EVERYTHING: Origami
2026-03-07 10:00 - 2026-05-09 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay, Singapore, 238236, Singapore
Create simple origami forms inspired by Rirkrit Tiravanija’s works, Tomorrow is another fine day (2015) and untitled 2020 (extinction series) (2023).

This interactive activity, like the artist’s other participatory works, centres the shared time and experience between participants, presenting art as a social exchange between people, rather than an object.

Recommended for all ages.

Rirkrit Tiravanija: SAY YES TO EVERYTHING
2026-03-07 10:00 - 2026-05-09 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay, Singapore, 238236, Singapore
STPI presents Rirkrit Tiravanija: SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, a solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Argentine born Thai artist. One of the most widely celebrated figures in the contemporary art world, Tiravanija has pioneered participatory practices that reshaped how institutions consider audience, social connection, and art objects themselves.

Palma: The Conference of the Palm Trees | Featuring Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Curated by Virginie Puertolas-Syn
2026-03-07 12:00 - 2026-05-09 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Cuturi Gallery, 61 Aliwal Street, Singapore 199937, Singapore, 228210, Singapore
Cuturi Gallery is delighted to present Palma: The Conference of the Palm Trees. Curated by London-based French curator Virginie Puertolas-Syn, this exhibition marks the first presentation in Singapore and Asia of Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (b. 1983, Les Sables-d’Olonne), a French and Moroccan artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance. Over the past two decades, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou has developed a poetic and critical visual language addressing questions of identity, hybridity, belief systems, and the politics of representation.
For his inaugural presentation at Cuturi Gallery, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou presents a body of work previously shown internationally and here recontextualised within Singapore’s cultural, historical, and ecological landscape. The project draws inspiration from The Conference of the Birds, the 12th-century Sufi allegory by Farid ud-Din Attar, reimagined through the figure of the palm tree, one of the world’s oldest cultivated plant species.
Presented in Singapore, where palm trees are integral to the city’s urban identity and “garden city” image, the exhibition introduces a critical distance from their decorative and symbolic function. Through drawings, sculptures, photographs, and installations, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou isolates and re-frames the palm as both subject and archive, revealing tensions between nature and control, visibility and erasure, ecology and exploitation.
Palma: The Conference of the Palm Trees will be on view at 61 Aliwal Street, Singapore 199937, from 7 March to 9 May 2026.

EAST OF ABSTRACTION: SHUHARI | SHIBUMI
2026-03-24 17:00 - 2026-05-03 17:00, 2026-03-24 17:00 - 2026-05-03 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Whitestone Gallery Singapore, 39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, #05-03/06, Singapore, Singapore, 089065, Singapore
Whitestone Gallery Singapore is pleased to present EAST OF ABSTRACTION: SHUHARI | SHIBUMI, opening on 24th March 2026. Bringing together five artists from China, Japan, and Korea — Katsuyoshi Inokuma, Liu Ke, Masayuki Tsubota, Soonik Kwon, and Tetsuo Mizu — the exhibition demonstrates the evolution of Asian abstraction across generations, geographies, and philosophical traditions.
The exhibition’s conceptual framework draws upon the Japanese principle of SHUHARI(守破離), a structure of learning and mastery that translates as “to follow, to break, to transcend.” Complementing this progression is SHIBUMI (渋み), an aesthetic sensibility rooted in restraint, quiet depth, and understated elegance. Together, these concepts offer a lens through which to understand Asian abstraction — disciplined yet exploratory, minimal yet expansive, meditative yet intellectually rigorous.

Brandon Tay: Sangkalan
2026-04-15 - 2026-10-25 | Various Locations, -, Singapore, Singapore, -
Step into Brandon Tay: Sangkalan, an evolving installation of a fictional island ecosystem where fragments of a “lost” coastal culture are shaped through three species — a fruit, an insect, and a bird. Together, their rhythms of growth, flight and song weave a vivid picture of how humans and nature might share perception, memory, and meaning.
Travelling across four regional libraries in Woodlands, Tampines, Jurong and Punggol, the installation unfolds as a living archive that evolves with each presentation. Visitors can encounter new elements over time, making each stop a slightly different experience. Through vibrant textiles, sculptural forms, and archival materials, Singaporean artist Brandon Tay translates the island’s collective memories into a language of colour, geometry, and symbols. Echoing the decentralised logic of blockchain networks, Sangkalan invites visitors to reimagine information systems, their origins and how nature might inspire new ways of sensing, connecting, and remembering.
Brandon Tay: Sangkalan is held in collaboration with the National Library Board. Through the Library showcases, SAM continues to extend contemporary art beyond traditional museum settings and into civic and community spaces, encouraging encounters with contemporary art in unexpected and accessible everyday environments.
Venues:

15 April – 31 May 2026: Woodlands Regional Library
3 June – 19 July 2026: Tampines Regional Library
22 July – 6 September 2026: Jurong Regional Library
9 September – 25 October 2026: Punggol Regional Library

vOilah! France Singapore Festival 2026
2026-04-25 08:00 - 2026-06-20 17:00 (Asia/Singapore)
vOilah! France Singapore Festival returns with a vibrant season celebrating French creativity and culture, bringing the spirit of French art de vivre (the art of living) to Singapore. Organised by the Embassy of France in Singapore, the festival brings together artists, communities and institutions from both countries through a diverse line-up of over 26 programmes, spanning performances, exhibitions and other cultural experiences.

Catch acclaimed productions such as LACRIMA, alongside world-premiere concerts and dance collaborations between French and Singaporean artists. Beyond the stage, enjoy an open-air French animation marathon, marvel at masterpieces from the Louvre Museum, and indulge in some of France’s finest produce at the vOilah! French Food Market.
Presented in collaboration with 21 leading cultural partners across the city, vOilah! continues to be a key meeting point for France and Singapore. Discover the full festival programme at www.voilah.sg/.

Pressure Points by Lucas Tan
2026-04-25 17:00 - 2026-05-24 17:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Haridas Contemporary, CT Hub 2, 114 Lavender Street,Unit05-72, 338729, Singapore
Haridas Contemporary is delighted to present Lucas Tan’s (b. 2000, Singapore) debut solo exhibition with the gallery. Working mainly in figuration, Tan’s practice focuses on capturing small, fleeting moments and sentimentalities from everyday life. Influenced by his engagement with image culture, Tan constructs his compositions through orchestration and mediation, creating works that feel both deeply personal and strangely relatable. Throughout his practice, these moments form a visual language that reflects lived experience and broader emotional patterns.
Pressure Points features 14 new paintings that highlight this focus by exploring the various pressures shaping the artist’s life. Scenes of intimacy, distance, and quiet reflection unfold across the exhibition, revealing vulnerability in Tan’s work as he navigates feelings of belonging and ambition. Rooted in autobiography, the works examine the tension between revealing and controlling, and between the desire to be seen and the urge to self-present. In this body of work, Tan’s focus on the everyday becomes a form of introspection, unveiling an emotional landscape shaped by negotiation, aspiration, and the complexities of modern life.

Singapore HeritageFest 2026
2026-05-01 10:00 - 2026-05-24 22:00 (Asia/Singapore)
Discover our maritime heritage at Singapore HeritageFest 2026! Through islandwide cultural performances, scenic water and land tours, guided trails, workshops and exhibitions, SHF 2026 reveals Singapore’s deep connection to the sea and the vibrant communities that made us a global maritime hub.
Don’t miss our festival highlight, HOMEGROUND @ ACM Green, which brings Singapore’s living maritime traditions alive through a central exhibition and interactive weekend programmes. Keep an eye out for Pitta, the SHF 2026 mascot, across the island and you could stand a chance to win a limited-edition SHF keepsake at HOMEGROUND.
Tickets go on sale 22 April 2026, 12pm.

ANIMA MUNDI Solo Exhibitions
2026-05-07 09:30 - 2026-05-13 17:00 (Europe/Rome) | Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca (ACIT), Cannaregio 4118, Venice, Cannaregio 4118, Venice, Veneto, 30121, Italy
ITSLIQUID Group, in collaboration with ACIT Venice, is delighted to invite you to the opening of three remarkable solo exhibitions by Anthony Emerton, Justyna Kubica, and Rosita Fernandes. The event will be inaugurated on May 07, 2026, at 06:00 PM at the historic Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice, running until May 13, serving also as an ideal introduction to the new edition of ANIMA MUNDI 2026.
This event coincides with the opening week of the 61st Venice Biennale, the most prestigious and vibrant time for contemporary art worldwide. To mark this significant occasion, a triad of visionary solo exhibitions is presented, featuring three compelling artists who have collaborated with ITSLIQUID for several years. This long-standing relationship has allowed for a deep curation that offers the public a chance to explore three distinct creative worlds. Within the baroque elegance of Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, a unique journey is proposed: from the silent, balanced abstraction of Emerton to the structural distillation of Kubica, concluding with the profound, emotional reflections on humanity by Fernandes. It is an immersive experience designed to provide an authentic look at the international art scene during Venice’s most important week.

ANIMA MUNDI Solo Exhibitions
2026-05-07 09:30 - 2026-05-13 17:30 (Asia/Singapore) | Cannaregio, F.TA SAN ANDREA 4118, 30121 Venezia VE, Cannaregio, F.TA SAN ANDREA 4118, 30121, Venezia VE, VE, 30121, Italy

Top Award-Winning Entries Exhibition 2026
2026-05-08 11:00 - 2026-05-10 18:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Chui Huay Lim Club, Chui Huay Lim Club, Level 4 Exhibition Hall, 190 Keng Lee Road, Singapore, Singapore 308409, Singapore
Taking place from 8–10 May at the Chui Huay Lim Club, the Top Award-Winning Entries Exhibition 2026 invites the public to experience these exceptional works up close. On display are 54 award-winning pieces, including the Top 3 prize winners and recipients of the Excellent Awards across the primary, secondary and college level categories.

The works on display reflect not only technical excellence, but also the individuality and artistic expression of a new generation of practitioners.
Admission is free, offering a rare opportunity for the public to experience these exceptional works up close. From bold, expressive strokes to refined, intricate compositions, visitors can expect an inspiring and culturally enriching showcase not to be missed.

TAF Conversation Series: Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
2026-05-12 18:00 - 19:30 (Asia/Singapore) | Mondrian Hotel Singapore, Jungle Ballroom, Level 3, 16A Duxton Hill, 089970, Singapore, Singapore, 089970, Singapore
Organised and moderated by TAF’s Curator Wong Binghao, the session will begin with a short sonic composition specially conceived by Nguyen-Chi for this occasion. Drawing from their ongoing dialogue on artistic research and cultural criticism, Nguyen-Chi and Wong each selected three songs reflecting their current research and projects. These six tracks were then mixed into a unique composition by music producer LLinh Nguyen.
Nguyen-Chi and Wong will discuss the sonic mix in relation to three of Nguyen-Chi’s recent artworks, made between 2022 and 2025, where sound, collaboration, and knowledge production play a central role.
Free admission. Registration required.
–Event details
Date: 12 May, Tuesday
Time: 6 – 7.30pm
Venue: Mondrian Hotel Singapore, Jungle Ballroom (Level 3)
–RSVP: https://mailchi.mp/tanotoartfoundation/taf-conversation-series-thuy-han-nguyen-chi
–Find out more: https://www.tanotoartfoundation.org/programmes/taf-conversation-series-thuy-han-nguyen-chi/

Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2026
2026-05-15 - 2026-05-30
Revel in the arts this May through play! The Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), Singapore’s pinnacle annual performing arts festival organised by Arts House Group and commissioned by the National Arts Council, returns from 15 to 30 May with a vibrant constellation of performances, installations and encounters — from epic productions to engaging, participatory works. Led by the call-to-action “Let’s Play!”, SIFA 2026 invites audiences to explore, experiment, engage and be inspired by the arts.
Soak in the Festival vibes at the iconic Festival Village, which makes its return this edition. Free performances, public installations and communal spaces featuring local artists such as The Observatory, The Theatre Practice and Off Root Theatrics welcome festivalgoers from dusk to dawn, on the Festival grounds and beyond. This year, SIFA brings two large-scale and high-impact artistic experiences from the Festival Village to Nexus, Punggol Digital District, enthralling the community with a soaring aerial performance featuring artists suspended 25 feet in the air, and a speculative theatrical procession full of colour, texture, movement and melody.
Local commissioned productions and international works take the stage to bring together a cross collaboration of cultures and disciplines. From spotlighting homegrown cultural icons such as Jacintha Abisheganaden and Dick Lee, and the reimagining of classics such as Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler by the National Theater Company of Korea, and Hamlet by Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza and its cast of actors with Down syndrome, to dance-based productions that blur the lines of reality through holographic technology and stunning stage illusions, SIFA 2026 opens up multiple pathways and platforms for audiences to rediscover the joy and significance of coming together through art.

LACRIMA
2026-05-15 19:30 - 2026-05-17 22:30 (Asia/Singapore) | Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade, 8 Raffles Avenue, Singapore, Singapore 039802, Singapore
When the Princess of England announces her engagement, a Parisian haute couture fashion house receives an extraordinary commission and a fascinating story unfolds across continents and generations. Renowned theater maker Caroline Guiela Nguyen transforms the stage into a bustling workshop floor in this sprawling play about the hands that make the garments we covet.
Sworn to complete secrecy, craftspeople around the world embark on eight months of intricate labor in service of a single wedding dress. Marion, the overworked head seamstress of Maison Beliana, fields tough questions from her troubled daughter, while Thérése, an Alençon lacemaker, comes face to face with a complicated family past. Meanwhile, across the ocean in Mumbai, master embroiderer Abdul fastens 1,000 roses onto duchesse satin as his eyesight rapidly deteriorates. As these men and women all but obliterate themselves in pursuit of perfection, LACRIMA invites us into the space between that which destroys us and that which gives our lives purpose.

Tempo
2026-05-15 20:00 - 21:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Drama Centre Theatre, 100 Victoria St, #03-01 National Library / Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, Singapore, Singapore, 188064, Singapore
Tempo is a captivating exploration of time: its acceleration, deceleration and moments when it seems to stand still. At its core is a mundane event turned extraordinary, highlighting life’s fragility through moments of falling, stumbling and near-accidents.
Directed by visual artist and magician Kalle Nio, with choreography by Fernando Melo and music by Samuli Kosminen, Tempo blends text, movement, and mesmerising stage illusions where time reverses, gravity vanishes, and the laws of nature dissolve. Dreamlike, wordless scenes alternate with rhythmic compositions for prepared metronomes and Harry Salmenniemi’s poignant text about time’s strange elasticity.
Through magic and movement, Tempo invites audiences to pause, reflect, and truly feel the present moment.
There will be a post-show talk with the artists after the 16 May, Saturday performance.

Salesman 之死
2026-05-15 20:00 - 22:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Victoria Theatre, 9 Empress Place, 179556, Singapore
In the spring of 1983, in a groundbreaking act of cross-cultural collaboration, Arthur Miller accepted an invitation to direct his play Death of a Salesman with an all-Chinese cast in Beijing, despite not speaking a word of Mandarin.
This extraordinary encounter, which Miller detailed in his memoir Salesman in Beijing, is the inspiration for Salesman之死, which centres on a young university professor who is summoned to the theatre for a special task: to interpret for Arthur Miller, who will soon arrive to direct his iconic play – in Mandarin. Meanwhile, the Chinese ensemble has never met “a salesman”. Will they be able to find common ground?
Warm and funny, it is a multilingual tale of cultural confusion, impossible translation and unexpected encounters amid the chaos of theatre making.
Special Stage Seat Experience
What is the role of an audience member who’s on stage and in-the-know? A limited number of stage seats are available for each show, offering audience members an exclusive theatrical experience like no other. Seated on the stage of Victoria Theatre, you get to witness the entire workings of the play up close, from right beside the cast. This rare opportunity is for those who are game to play an integral part in this exclusive Singapore staging!
Please note that Stage Seats are only accessible via stairs.
There will be a post-show talk with the artists after every performance.

1983年春。
一句中文也不会说亦从来不是导演的美国著名剧作家阿瑟.密勒，竟应英若诚之邀，远赴北京执导他笔下名作《推销员之死》。一场从一开始就注定“无法对话”的相遇，就此展开。
这段跨越语言与文化的经历，后来被密勒记在回忆录《北京的推销员》里。而这场近乎不可能的合作，也成为了《Salesman之死》的灵感起点。
作品讲述一位年轻的大学教授被召入剧场承接一项特别任务；为即将来到北京导戏的阿瑟.密勒担任口译。然而，中国剧团从未见过“推销员”，他们是否能顺利找到彼此的共鸣？台上台下、排练与现实之间，反复在两种语言、两种思维和两个世界中周旋。
字里行间，剧场演变 。
温暖又诙谐，当文化错位遇上语言错意，要如何在翻译的误解里寻找共鸣？
当中国剧团对上美国导演，究竟会上演哪一出戏？
特别舞台座上体验
坐在台上、洞察全局的观众，会扮演什么样的角色？ 我们将在每场演出预设有限台上座位，供观众一次绝无仅有的独家舞台体验。遥坐在维多利亚剧院舞台另一端观众席上的你，将能在演员旁近距离见证整部剧的运作构成。如果你也想在这场新加坡首演中，成为其中一份子，就不要错过这难得的机会。
注：台上座位仅可通过楼梯进入
每场演出结束后，均设有与导演及演员的戏后交流。

Tang Maohong: Simplified
2026-05-16 16:00 - 2026-06-28 18:00 (Asia/Singapore) | ShanghART Singapore, Block 9 Lock Road #02-22, 108937, Singapore
ShanghART Singapore is delighted to present Simplified, a solo exhibition by the
Chinese artist Tang Maohong, opening on 16 May 2026 at 4pm. This exhibition brings
together a selection of the artist’s latest paintings, developed extensively over the past
year following his relocation to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It also marks his return to
Singapore after his 2019 solo exhibition, and twenty years since his participation in the
first Singapore Biennale.
Tang’s new body of work reflects a significant development in his practice, centered
around explorations into the process of painting, and its relationship with the result.
The act of painting typically results in two outcomes – the image on the canvas and the
mixed colours on the palette. The works stem from the approach of mixing colours
directly on the painting surface instead of using a palette. This simple gesture
collapses two planes into one, creating a mutually-influencing relationship within the
same pictorial space.
Originating from a period of constraint, this approach has been refined over the past
year into a more distilled visual language. Tang pares down his compositions to focus
on the relationship between the intended image and the residual colour. Deceptively
simple, the underlying tension is withheld from the apparent harmonious coexistence
of the two elements, experienced only upon prolonged inspection.
Tang’s practice has consistently engaged with the nature of images and how we
perceive them. He initially opted to work with animation for its ability to explore the
instability of images through time. Forms derived from the real world would morph,
dissolve, and reassemble, remaining familiar yet resistant to fixed interpretations.
Over time, this temporal process became increasingly condensed, leading him back to
painting. What once unfolded sequentially is now internalised, with shifts and
transformations embedded within a single, suspended surface.
Operating between abstraction and figuration across different mediums, Tang’s works
often resist immediate recognition. His forms appear familiar yet elusive, inviting
sustained attention rather than instant interpretation. At the core of his practice is an
ongoing inquiry into perception – how images are formed, how meaning emerges,
and how both remain inherently unstable.
Across two decades, Tang has continued to refine and distill his approach, pursuing
the same fundamental questions with increasing precision. This presentation marks a
pivotal moment in that trajectory. The new paintings bring together image, material,
and structure into a tightly resolved yet open-ended condition, where process and
result are held in balance. For Tang, painting is not a means of searching for fixed
answers, but a reciprocal process in which meaning emerges from the act of painting
itself.

RITUALS - ANIMA MUNDI 2026
2026-05-20 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Rome) | Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca (ACIT), Cannaregio 4118, Venice, Cannaregio 4118, Venice, Veneto, 30121, Italy
ITSLIQUID Group, in collaboration with ACIT Venice – Italian-German Cultural Association,
is pleased to announce the opening of RITUALS, the first appointment of ANIMA MUNDI
2026. The exhibition will open on May 20, 2026, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice and
will run until June 04, 2026.
ANIMA MUNDI is the vital energy that flows through all things, the subtle force connecting
every form of existence, from natural to artificial, visible to invisible. Understood since
Plato’s Timaeus as the soul of a living universe, it returns today as an intuitive awareness
of an invisible but active network that sustains transformation, coexistence, and renewal
across matter, time, and life. It is the underlying rhythm that links ecosystems, human and
non-human entities, and balances the continuous evolution of the world. Within this
framework, artists, designers, and architects are invited to explore how this universal
energy manifests today, investigating the subtle correspondences between soul and body,
humanity and nature, and organic and synthetic worlds.

Spectres: They Dream in Time
2026-05-22 12:00 - 2026-05-31 19:00 (Asia/Singapore) | Art Outreach Singapore, 5 Lock Road, #01-06 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933, Singapore, 108933, Singapore
“Spectres: They Dream in Time” is an interdisciplinary exhibition that explores the latent emotional and ecological traces embedded within Singapore’s urban landscape. Bringing together a constellation of works by Foo Hui Wen and Tan Wei, the exhibition foregrounds photography, moving image, and installation as mediums of excavation, unearthing the intangible yet deeply felt presences that haunt the city’s spaces.
Through a series of poetic gestures, the exhibition reflects on Singapore’s enduring “garden city” narrative while inviting audiences to consider the affective and material legacies inscribed within the built environment. Spectrality in the exhibition gestures toward what lingers at the threshold of perception: emotional atmospheres, ecological residues, and fragments of memory that persist despite the city’s continual transformation. Engaging with both affect (emotional resonance) and effect (material impact), the exhibition asks what remains buried beneath carefully manicured greenness. What memories resist erasure? What unseen forces shape the ways we inhabit and remember a city?
Location: Art Outreach, 5 Lock Rd, #01-06 Gillman Barracks
22 May 2026 till 31 May 2026
12:00 pm – 7:00 pm daily
Find out more about the exhibition here:
https://www.artoutreachsingapore.org/hearth-project/spectres%3A-they-dream-in-time-

Last Rites
2026-05-22 20:00 - 21:30 (Asia/Singapore) | SOTA Studio Theatre, 1 Zubir Said Dr, Singapore 227968
Bringing together five venerable performance artists from diverse Asian cultures, Last Rites is a brand new, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary theatrical experience that confronts profound themes of endings and legacy.
At its core lies a soul-searching question: “If you could envision your last performance, what would it look like?” Through in-depth interviews with these five living artistic bodies – whose average age is 74 – the piece avoids a direct depiction of death. Instead, it traces back to their original callings, the courage they found in the face of challenges and their personal understanding of art, life and immortality.
Their narratives weave together a powerful life-tapestry of perseverance, conviction and heritage: from Yang Shi Bin’s profound bond with his mentor, Kuo Pao Kun, Jung Dong-hwan’s commitment to treating every show as the last one, Nam Geung-ho’s radical street performance and arrest, Kanji Shimizu’s visceral contemplation of life and death through Noh, to Didik Nini Thowok’s “empty glass” philosophy and his cross-cultural advocacy despite facing multiple discriminations”.
In the dialogue between the virtual and the real, imagination and projection, the stage becomes a critical boundary connecting the living and the deceased, the body and the soul. This work, presented by Emergency Stairs and directed by Liu Xiaoyi, asks a vital question: After everything ends, can an artist’s spiritual legacy achieve immortality within a live performance?
There will be a post-show talk with the artists after the 23 May, 2pm Saturday performance.
