[PERFORMANCE] Sonic Sessions at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Date & Time: Fri, 26 Jan & Sat, 27 Jan

Time: 5PM–10PM (Fri), 5PM–9PM (Sat)

Venue: Stage @ Container Bay (Rear Entrance of SAM), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Full performance schedule here

Experience an exhilarating evening of art and entertainment brought to you by Singapore Art Week (SAW) in collaboration with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), and support from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

We are thrilled to showcase a series of performances at two distinct locations within Tanjong Pagar Distripark: The Spine, situated at the heart of the park, will host performances on 19 – 20 January, while the performances on 26 – 27 January will be held at the picturesque Container Bay, situated behind Block 39.

Sonic LIVE: Session #3 George Chua

Date: Fri, 26 Jan

Time: 8PM

Venue: Stage @ Container Bay (Rear Entrance of SAM), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Featuring music jam sessions across two weekends, Sonic LIVE brings you artistic duo NADA (Rizman Putra and Safuan Johari) and Indonesian collective Raja Kirik (Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi), sound artist and musician Bani Haykal; experimental musician and composer George Chua and music arts group NUS Electronic Music Lab. These performances are planned in conjunction with the exhibition Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger and aim to explore the aurality of our landscape and emergent sonic fields that extend from past and present.

[PERFORMANCE] Sonic LIVE: Session #4 NUS Electronic Music Lab

Date: Sat, 27 Jan

Time: 5PM

Venue: Stage @ Container Bay (Rear Entrance of SAM), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Featuring music jam sessions across two weekends, Sonic LIVE brings you artistic duo NADA (Rizman Putra and Safuan Johari) and Indonesian collective Raja Kirik (Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi), sound artist and musician Bani Haykal; experimental musician and composer George Chua and music arts group NUS Electronic Music Lab. These performances are planned in conjunction with the exhibition Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger and aim to explore the aurality of our landscape and emergent sonic fields that extend from past and present.

[PERFORMANCE] desert of the ocean (doldrums) by Access Path Productions

Date: Sat, 27 Jan & Sun, 28 Jan

Time: 4PM

Venue: Blk 37, Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free, by registration

Register here

How does one learn to feel natural in an unfamiliar space?

Performer Grace Lee-Khoo, musician Wheelsmith, dancer Nah Jie Ying and puppeteer Regina Foo invite audiences to participate and explore their inner journeys where ever-changing terrains and scenery can hold, hurt and heal us. In particular, the performers – inspired by the exhibition - reflect on their artistic processes which navigate through the slippery, uncharted realm of disability arts.

Inspired by the spaces characterised by liminality and stillness in Charles Lim and Simryn Gill’s The Sea is a Field, desert of the ocean (doldrums) is an accessible 45-min live performance, which features elements of spoken word, live soundscapes, contemporary dance and shadow play. Underpinned by the “aesthetics of access,” an approach to artistic production focused on accessibility, the performance includes sign language interpretation and audio description. Taking place within an industrial portside warehouse, the site-specific performance also invites audiences to engage sensorially with the space.

[RESIDENCIES] Critical Alliances: In Conversation With | Adrian Van Wyk, Jumanah Abbas, Nilanjan Das, PG Lee, Rehab Hazgui, Sungsil Ryu, Takuya Watanabe, Yvon Langué, Chong Lingying & Winnie Li

Date: Fri, 19 Jan–Sun, 28 Jan

Time: 1PM – 8PM (Fri, Sat, Sun), By appointment only (Mon–Thu)

Venue: Level 3, SAM Corporate Office and Residency Studios

Critical Alliances brings together projects initiated by SAM’s resident artists, curators, and community organisers prompted by the concept anchoring the recent SAM Residencies Cycle 2: the potential of forming meaningful collaborations amongst one another and with the diverse realities of our world.

Fostering connections through various methodologies and developed in conversation with SAM Residencies, each project provides an insight into studio-based methods, speculative visualisations and propositions at the forefront of contemporary practice. These range from urban soundscape explorations and innovative approaches to activating public space, to reimagining the use of the bellowed weed known as Lalang, and even experimenting with a “library” concept. Critical Alliances invites you to engage with and contribute to these dynamic inquiries.  

For more information about Critical Alliances and the projects featured, please visit https://bit.ly/samrescriticalalliances. 

[Tour] Curator Tour of Proof of Personhood: Identity and Authenticity in the Face of Artificial Intelligence

Date: Sun, 28 Jan

Time: 3PM

Venue: Level 3, Gallery 3

Join SAM curator Duncan Bass as he gives you an overview of the exhibition, Proof of Personhood. 

By examining forms of contemporary portraiture generated using interactive software, AI-synthesised images and genetic engineering, Proof of Personhood explores the unstable relationship between identity, agency and authenticity in a world full of online personas, fake news and biometric data capture.

[PUBLIC ART] Transmissions from the Wayang Spaceship: A Light to Night Special
Self-guided aural compositions by Ng Yi-Sheng, nor and Diana Rahim, with sound designs by Wu Jun Han

Date: Fri, 19 Jan–Sun, 10 Mar

Time: Accessible at all times

Venue: Empress Lawn, 10 Empress Pl Singapore 179555

During the day, Ming Wong’s Wayang Spaceship is seemingly dormant, its own inactivity interrupted by the occasional stray radio transmission relayed from another dimension. Decode these transmissions and access the memories of the scholar-warrior, a time-travelling consciousness and custodian of the Wayang Spaceship.

Interpreted as aural compositions by literary artists Ng Yi-Sheng, nor and Diana Rahim, with sound designs by Wu Junhan, commune with this solitary figure at the artwork in the day, before the Wayang Spaceship awakens with an operatic symphony of light, sound and image at dusk. On the opening and closing weekends of Light to Night Singapore 2024, you may even take home a customised illustration of your favourite aural composition!

This programme is organised by The Everyday Museum, a public art initiative by Singapore Art Museum.

[TALK] Behind-the-Scenes with ARTFACTORY: On the artistic practice of Ho Tzu Nyen

Date: Sat, 27 Jan

Time: 2.30pm

Venue: Level 3, Lounge, SAM Corporate Office, #03-07

Join ARTFACTORY as they share insights into the processes involved in the presentation of artworks by Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen. Follow us as we map two decades of artistic practice through a technical lens, tracing a lineage of projects that includes works such as The Cloud of Unknowing (2011), Ten Thousand Tigers (2014), One or Several Tigers (2017) and more.

[AUDIO PLAY] Sound Plot: True/South (A Collection of Audio Plays)

Date: Fri–Sun, 19–28 Jan

Time: 10AM–7PM

Venue: Level 1, Blk 39, Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Since antiquity, the southern coastline of Singapore has been known as a major maritime gateway. Today, the area houses one of the world’s busiest ports, a phenomenon that has drastically re-shaped the island’s coastline. But so are many of the city’s contemporary problems: income disparities, environmental degradation, and heritage-loss due to relentless urban development. And most obviously, this area connects Singapore to the huge open sea, inviting us to think about how this island is linked to other places. What ports of call- concrete and mythological– are part of this network?

True/South is a collection of 3 audio plays that speaks to this history of the site on which SAM resides, as follows:

1. Sea Song by Joel Tan

Laurie and Scott settle into their new expatriate lives at Sentosa Cove only to discover that not all is as it seems. Beneath the ostentatious luxuries of modern Singapore lie the sea and the land seething in their grief; and as Laurie’s connection to them grows she discovers that this loss is collective and communal.

Advisory: Contains some coarse language.

Creative Team:
Playwright: Joel Tan
Director: Cherilyn Woo
Actors: Julie Wee, Daniel Jenkins, Ching Shu Yi, Serene Chen, Tysha Khan, Irsyad Dawood, Joel Tan

2. Ghazal of the Banana Tree’s Heart by Danial Matin

A solitary banana tree remains on the shore, the sole survivor amongst its compatriots, lost to the need for the space they occupied; a lone banana tree that is the last repository of the stories of those shores - of fishermen, turtles and the sea itself. Alone it sings the same refrain - but who listens?

Creative Team:
Playwright: Danial Matin
Director: Grace Kalaiselvi
Actors: Suhaili Safari & Shahid Nasheer

3. Fragments of a Singaporean Hainanese by Wang Liansheng

At the opening of a new exhibition on the Hainanese community in Singapore, memories are excavated through the stories of three Hainanese immigrants of different generations, their connections to an island they left for another, and the sea that connects them.

Creative Team:
Playwright: Wang Liansheng
Director: Lim Shien Hian
Actors: Jalyn Han, Hang Qian Chou, Rino Junior John, Mitchell Fang