28 May 2023, I go National Museum queue for sticker ticket. Counter aunty ask me standard question: “Citizen or tourist ah?” I blur for a while, then say “long-term resident leh.” She just smile smile, pass me a sticker say “citizen.” 

Simple moment only, but this really stuck in my head sia. Like how belonging can anyhow give out in one second, or people just assume based on your face, or you negotiate through these tiny tiny actions. The Other Singaporeans exhibition feels like they expand this sticker story — dun want neat labels, but ask: how Singaporeanness actually form ah?

Maybe being foreign is not just defined as “not us” but about all the complex relationships between us. It’s relational lah! Then the artworks here — by Singaporeans who give up citizenship, foreigners who become Singaporean, and foreigners staying in Singapore — are not just random cases, more like argument about how belonging is made one. The exhibition make this argument across different levels: the homey and touchy-feely one, the time and heritage one, and the leftover aesthetics from colonial and media images we kena daily. 

Barang-barang

The show power most when making foreignness and belonging feel personal. Moses Tan’s drawings and all those British-made barang — pill box, makeup compact, army wallet – small-small only but wah, got weight one. They show us foreignness already stitch inside the things we touch everyday. The photo inside blur-blur, cannot see clear, but the feeling very sharp — bring back memory, bring back that weird closeness from hand-me-down things. So these objects not just about “local life” hor; they also carry layer upon layer — colonial manufacturing, global trade, family story all stack together.

Cynthia Delaney Suwito do cabinet piece, A Place for Things, also similar idea. When you move to a new place like her, very important to have a cabinet. Her cabinets multiply like growing plant, record how things accumulate slowly slowly, how settlement happen, how people put down roots and build home. 

Both works say foreignness and belonging not always big migration story or atas cosmopolitan dream. Sometimes just everyday small objects we touch. Foreignness and belonging are not far away concepts with no relevance to us lah, already weave inside our domestic life until feel like home.

Last time ah …

Then got themes of time, heritage, and memory also. Faris Nakamura did five small wood panels: The Arrival, The Love, The Escape, The Loss, The Becoming. Show migration story of his great-grandparents during Japanese occupation. Quiet but powerful. He himself also move to London to follow love, echo back history across generations.

Emi Avora’s paintings lagi dreamy — mix Greece and Singapore heritage, myth and living room, cosmic force and daily object, all inside one canvas. She show foreignness like a dialogue — two worlds sit down, talk talk talk, end up produce something new in-between. 

Milenko Prvački’s painting is like painting memory – image appear then disappear, become abstract, details come and go. These three together remind us: foreignness not just about moving across border, but also the history layers that stick onto us, shape our identity quietly.

Colonial images

Most drama part of exhibition? When they play with colonial aesthetics and today’s media. Weixin Quek Chong show orchid wrapped in latex, printed on silk – wah, seductive but also disturbing. Reference colonial botanical plates, those ang moh scientist last time draw flower like exotic specimen. Here the orchid flip script become subject, not just object. 

Curator Desmond Mah’s own work, Still Living Rent-Free, lagi satirical. Macaque sit there, hesitate to sketch bust of The Kiang Man (obvious lah, Lee Kuan Yew). Got AI voiceover in fake documentary style. 

This choice funny but also smart: pretend to be authority, criticise authority, but also use humour to protect self. The artwork also show how sometimes we can be scared to depict our national icons. Here foreignness multiply sia — animal is also outsider and AI voice is global tool. And self-proclaimed “former Singaporean misfit” Mah use parody as both weapon and shield.

Foreign/Singaporean

Leo Liu Xuanqi’s two paintings use Chinese proverb “near ink, one darkens; near vermilion, one reddens.” Straight away show how identity shaped by relationships, not just origin. The two canvases, black and red, like mirrors, show self always react to what is around it. 

So this concept of relational foreignness really shiok — help us see foreignness as not just about where we were born. “Foreignness” is not just exception but is everywhere. Exhibition catalogue talk about different relationships to Singapore: ex-citizen, expat, Singaporeans abroad. Good lah. But deeper idea is: “Singaporeanness” itself is built through all these foreign encounters — through objects, through time, through aesthetics.

But hor, the exhibition also got limit one. Corrective to state SG60 story — yes, solid. But when try to define who count as Singaporean, still not balance lah. Mah curate based on his friendship network, so naturally end up with artists already visible in art world. Friendly and authentic, yes, but what about migrant workers, the ones whose movement very constrained? They missing leh. Also, call everybody “other” got risk one, can still reinforce binary. And some strategy also feel like familiar international art trope — AI voice, colonial pastiche — a bit predictable lor. Lose some sharp local bite.

Still, must give credit. The show deliver emotionally: foreignness here not abstract concept, but something you can feel — in wallet fold, cabinet shelf, orchid petal. Exhibition succeed because it make us experience foreignness and belonging as something physically experienced, not just theory.

Next step ah? Curator and critic must push further: include voice of those constrained by law, labour, and class. Try co-curation, decentralise the power to choose who is “other.” Consider not just personal objects but also top-down policies that shape belonging. But for now, The Other Singaporeans already give strong corrective to SG60 official hymns. It refuse neat, essentialist Singaporeanness, invite us to imagine more complicated national story braided with everyday encounters.

That small museum sticker from the start still in my mind. “Citizen or tourist ah?” Actually, belonging not so simple. Sticker can assign in one second, but real belonging build up through decades — hands that touch, trade, remember. This exhibition ask us to see those hands, see the foreign threads woven inside. And teach us one lesson: foreignness not opposite of Singaporeanness; it is the condition that make Singaporeanness possible lah.

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The Other Singaporeans: Stories of Home and Identity is on view at JW Projects till 28 September 2025. Visit jw.projects.art to find out more. 

Header image: Installation view of Desmond Mah’s Still Living Rent-Free.