Singapore Pavilion, Level 2 of Arsenale – Sale d’Armi, Venice, Italy
Pioneering performance and multidisciplinary artist Amanda Heng and curator Selene Yap will be the artistic team representing Singapore at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (Biennale Arte 2026). The pairing marks the 12th presentation of the Singapore Pavilion, which is organised by SAM and commissioned by the National Arts Council, Singapore (NAC). Biennale Arte is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious global platforms for contemporary art and will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026.
Singapore has participated in the Biennale Arte since 2001. Since 2015, the Singapore Pavilion has been in the Arsenale, one of the Biennale’s main exhibition venues. Past presentations have featured some of Singapore’s most significant contemporary artists, including Robert Zhao Renhui (2024), Shubigi Rao (2022), and Song-Ming Ang (2019)—each bringing critical, thought-provoking works that contribute to global dialogues in art and society.
Further details on the curatorial concept behind the Singapore Pavilion will be revealed in due course. Follow the latest updates via Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (@singaporeartmuseum).
For more information about the Singapore Pavilion at the Biennale Arte, visit here
Amanda Heng (born 1951, Singapore) is a pioneering contemporary artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans performance, installation, photography, and participatory art. Emerging in the late 1980s during a pivotal shift in Singapore’s art scene, Heng is known for her body-centric works that interrogate gender roles, societal expectations, and lived memory through everyday gestures.
Heng’s long-running performance works, such as Let’s Walk (1999–ongoing), Walking the Stool (2000), and Let’s Chat (1999–ongoing), mobilise the body as a site of social encounter—using simple, quotidian acts to provoke reflection on care, connection, and resilience. Her photographic series Another Woman (1996, 2014, 2023) delicately traces intergenerational intimacy through repeated portraits with her mother. A founding member of The Artists Village (1988) and Women in the Arts (1999), Heng has been pivotal in shaping Singapore’s contemporary and feminist discourse. Her work has been featured in major biennales and performance festivals, including Bangkok Art Biennale (2024), Singapore Biennale (2006, 2019), and the First Women’s Performance Art Festival in Osaka (2001).
Heng received Singapore’s Cultural Medallion (2010) and the Benesse Prize (2020) and was inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame (2023).
|
Selene Yap (born 1988, Singapore) is a Curator at Singapore Art Museum (SAM). Her curatorial practice follows a situational approach, developing research and exhibitions in close dialogue with artists whose work respond to the contingencies and particularities of place, process and memory. Yap has curated significant solo and joint presentations of mid-career artists Pratchaya Phinthong (No Patents on Ideas, 2024), Simryn Gill & Charles Lim Yi Yong (The Sea is a Field, 2024), Ho Tzu Nyen (Time & the Tiger, 2023), and Joo Choon Lin (Dance in the Destruction Dance, 2023)—projects marked by critical engagement and conceptual depth. She was recently appointed as one of the four curators for Singapore Biennale 2025.
Before joining SAM, Yap held research roles at the Future Cities Laboratory and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She also served as Programme Manager for Visual Arts at The Substation, supporting exhibitions and initiatives that sought to defy conventional use of the arts space. As an independent curator, she co-curated State of Motion: Rushes of Time (2020) by the Asian Film Archive, exploring temporality and the moving image through film and installation. |