[FORUM] Singapore Art Week Forum 2026: FORCE·FIELDS

Date: Wed, 21 Jan

Time: 9.30AM - 5PM

Venue: Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium @ National Gallery Singapore

Ticketed

The Singapore Art Week Forum 2026 explores the theme of "FORCE·FIELDS." This edition, we invite speakers to interrogate the fundamental systems that shape our world. What forces or energies animate the contexts we inhabit? With every decision and utterance, whose interests are championed and what is being defended? The Singapore Art Week Forum 2026 is a collaboration between the National Arts Council, National Gallery Singapore, and Singapore Art Museum.

[MARKET] Memory Market

Date & Time: Fri (23 Jan) | 4PM-10PM

Date & Time: Sat (24 Jan) | 1PM-10PM

Date & Time: Sun (25 Jan) | 1PM-7PM

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

Conceptualised in tandem with Sonic Shaman 2026: Borderless during SAW at SAM, a curated Memory Market invites the public to engage their senses beyond listening, evoking memory and sensations through taste, scent and touch. Creative booths, workshops and culinary collaborations bring together Singapore-based initiatives, brands and designers in a space for experimentation, play and collective encounters.

Sonic Shaman 2026: Borderless

Date: Fri - Sun, 23 - 25 Jan

Time: Various Timings

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

Presented in Singapore for the first time, Sonic Shaman unites experimental sound, performance and contemporary art, bringing together local and global artists, musicians and thinkers. As a trans-disciplinary "music festival," it offers a space where diverse practices and traditions converge in a collective experience of listening and imagination. This edition's theme, “Borderless,” embraces the experience of sound and artistic experimentation that transcends geographical, physical, cultural and temporal borders.

Part of Singapore Art Week, Sonic Shaman 2026: Borderless is co-curated by TheCube Project Space and Singapore Art Museum, featuring Singapore Biennale 2025 commissions. This edition is a joint initiative by the National Arts Council, Singapore Art Museum and Mapletree Investments, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board.

[PERFORMANCE] The AGENDA Hair Salon by Kim Ga Ram

Date: Sat - Tue, 24 - 27 Jan

Time: 12PM - 5PM

Venue: Level 3, Gallery 4, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free (*$20 refundable deposit applies to participants)

Learn more

Step into The AGENDA Hair Salon, an ongoing project by artist and certified hair stylist Kim Ga Ram that turns the simple act of haircutting into a powerful socio-cultural statement.

In exchange for a free haircut, participants choose a cutting cape printed with a slogan of their choice – each addressing issues as wide-ranging as life, death, the arts, technology and more – then engage in conversation with the artist as the haircut unfolds. The length of hair they part with becomes a measure of their commitment to the message they wear, turning a personal grooming act into a public performance of values and dialogue. Watch as the artist engages participants in conversation about their chosen slogan.

Sessions will be recorded and may be presented in The Living Room.

[TALK] Artist Talk by Subodh Gupta

Date: Sat, 24 Jan

Time: 2PM - 3.15PM

Venue: Level 3, EX-SITU, SAM Office, #03-07, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with Registration

Register here

Join artist Subodh Gupta in conversation with exhibition curator Ong Puay Khim. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Talking Objects, featuring Gupta’s iconic work, Hungry God (2005–2006), this talk will explore his artistic practice. The discussion will touch upon the exhibition’s themes, examining how artists transform everyday objects into potent symbols to reveal complex ideas about culture and contemporary life.

[PERFORMANCE] Knitting the Future by Chia Chuyia

Date: Sat, 24 Jan

Time: 4PM - 5PM

Venue: Level 1, L-corridor facing port (between Lift Lobby B and SAM Entrance), SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with Registration

Register here

Artist Chia Chuyia will perform a closing ritual for her work, Knitting the Future—a garment hand-knitted entirely from leeks, now displayed in the exhibition The Living Room. Since its creation, the garment has gradually transformed in colour and texture, its changing form marking the passage of time and the ephemerality central to Chia’s practice.

In this performance, the artist will ceremonially “lay the garment to rest,” acknowledging both its life and its inevitable transformation. Through this act, Chia invites audiences to reflect on cycles of growth and decline, and on how museums care for works that resist permanence.

[TALK] Duration, Decay and Documentation: A Study of Chia Chuyia’s Knitting the Future

Date: Sun, 25 Jan

Time: 3PM - 4.30PM

Venue: Level 3, EX-SITU, SAM Office, #03-07, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with Registration

Register here

Following Chia Chuyia's closing ritual for Knitting the Future, this roundtable will explore the unique challenges of conserving and exhibiting works of performance art. Centred on Chia's work, the conversation considers its "afterlife" and the possibilities of its preservation within a national collection.

Offering a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the lifecycle of a contemporary artwork, the panel brings together artist Chia Chuyia, SAM Production Manager Anisah Aidid—who first realised the work in 2016, and Textiles Conservator Geraldine McClelland, who now oversees its care. Moderated by SAM curator Yen Hui, this crucial conversation will unpack the complex decisions, labour and expertise required to maintain the integrity of an artwork that resists permanence.

This programme is presented in conjunction with The Living Room, an exhibition that concludes a three-part collaboration between Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA).

[TOUR] Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) Tour of Singapore Biennale (Tanglin Halt)

Date: Sat, 24 Jan

Time: 11AM - 11.45AM

Venue: Tanglin Halt

Free with registration

Register here

Join Deaf facilitators on a tour of Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention at Tanglin Halt. Experience contemporary art in familiar spaces of Singapore with fresh eyes and new perspectives. This tour is intended for the Deaf and Hard of hearing community. SgSL interpretation will be provided by Equal Dreams. This tour is suitable for participants aged 6 and up; children must be accompanied by an adult.

[SAM RESIDENCIES] In Conversation with SAM Residencies

Date: Fri - Sun, 23 - 25 Jan

Time: 1PM onwards

Venue: Level 3, SAM Residency Studios, #03-07, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

In Conversation with SAM Residencies showcases the dynamic and collaborative nature of the processual and research-based methods which drive the work of SAM Residents. This multi-modal project will gather a wide range of research explorations and artistic experimentation by artists, curators, researchers and creative practitioners during their time in residency. Across methodologies, processes, and formats, discover new insights into a range of topical urgencies at the forefront of contemporary practice.

[MARKET] Memory Market

Date & Time: Fri (30 Jan) | 4PM-10PM

Date & Time: Sat (31 Jan) | 1PM-10PM 

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

Conceptualised in tandem with Sonic Shaman 2026: Borderless during SAW at SAM, a curated Memory Market invites the public to engage their senses beyond listening, evoking memory and sensations through taste, scent and touch. Creative booths, workshops and culinary collaborations bring together Singapore-based initiatives, brands and designers in a space for experimentation, play and collective encounters.

[MUSIC] Eatmepoptart: Never Lose That Feeling

Date: Fri, 30 Jan

Time: 6PM - 10.30PM 

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

Never lose that feeling! Join Eatmepoptart for this special SAW at SAM edition. Known for their wild, nostalgic parties, Eatmepoptart has shifted from monthly events to a focus on highly anticipated one-off nights.

Don't miss this unique opportunity! Lock in your date, hydrate yourselves and get ready for a truly loved-up evening packed with all your favourite classics and head-bangers!

[PERFORMANCE] Ehera Noara by Nam Hwayeon

Date: Wed - Sat, 28 - 31 Jan

Time: 3PM - 3.20PM

Venue: Level 3, Gallery 4, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with Registration

Register here

The act of transmitting through “proxies” beyond an artist’s lifetime allows each future iteration of a performance to embrace the potentiality of the absent origin. Hwayeon Nam, together with performer/choreographer Chung Ji Hye, will present a 20-minute performance inspired by the memoirs and fragmented records of Choi Seung-hee, one of the precursors of Korean modern dance. This programme is held in conjunction with The Living Room, the Collections Show 2025. It marks the final chapter of a three-part collaboration among Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA).

About the artist
Nam Hwayeon (b. 1979, South Korea) is an artist whose practice explores the performativity of research and the paradoxes of choreography shaped by absence. Her work engages with the fragility and contingency of presence, and with temporal interventions that disrupt linear time. Through the use of performance, installation and video, Nam examines how recorded time re-emerges in the present through shifting rhythms and cycles across bodies, nature and history. Drawing attention to the ephemeral and inscrutable aspects of existence, her practice invites new encounters with the past and the fleeting nature of the present.

Performer Bio
Chung Ji Hye is a choreographer and performer based in Korea and Germany. She works by following the reasons and impulses that build up inside the body, which turn into movement. She is interested in the paradoxes that appear when different ideas collide and translates these tensions into movement and physical practice. By observing how actions stored in the body can create social echoes, her work reimagines future bodies and explores how they evolve through dance. Her main works include Cosmic Dance (2025), Moving As Prosthetics: Machine, Affordance, and Care (2025), Nondance Dance 2 (2024), SHINSEGAE (2024), Nondance Dance (2022), A.D. 0000 (2021), Positioning Game ver.21 (2021) and Open Letter (2020).

As a performer, she has appeared in Raimund Hoghe’s La Valse (2016) and Postcards from Vietnam (2020); An Evening with Raimund (2021/2022) by Luca Schulte and Emmanuel Eggermont; Hwayeon Nam’s You Only Live Twice (2022) and Ehera Noara (2020); and Lyon Eun Kwon’s I Belong to That Street (2023) and DDR (2020). 

Production Credits:
Artist: Nam Ywa Yeon
Performer: Chung Ji Hye
Dramaturg: Kim Jae Lee
Music: Jowall

Image Captions:  Choi Seung-hee performing Ehera Noara (premiered in 1934). Photographer unknown; re-photographed by Gim Ikhyeon

[Talk & Showcase] Documenting The AGENDA Hair Salon: A Conversation with Kim Ga Ram and Teng Yen Hui

Date: Fri, 30 Jan

Time: 7PM - 8.30PM

Venue: Level 1, The Engine Room, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with registration

Register here

The AGENDA Hair Salon is an ongoing, provocative project by artist and certified hair stylist Kim Ga Ram that transforms the simple act of a haircut into a powerful socio-cultural statement.

Learn more about this unique project with an exclusive showcase of documented footage from the live haircutting sessions. Following the screening, join artist Kim Ga Ram, and curator Teng Yen Hui, for a conversation that delves into the themes and impact of The AGENDA Hair Salon.

[PERFORMANCE] Talking in Tune: A Lunchtime Piano Recital

Date: Sat, 31 Jan

Time: 1PM - 2PM

Venue: Level 3, Gallery 4, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

In this bi-monthly recital series, Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project by artist Alwin Reamillo comes alive with chosen melodies that resonate with the artwork's profound themes.

The first session will feature the NTU Piano Ensemble, a student-run music club based at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

This programme is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Talking Objects.

[TOUR] Singapore Biennale Curator Tour, Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Date: Sat, 31 Jan

Time: 2PM - 3PM

Venue: Level 1, Gallery 1, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

Go beyond the surface and uncover the stories, ideas and intentions shaping pure intention. Join us for an in-depth tour of the Biennale’s artworks, led by the curators behind their very selection. Each tour will take you through a different cluster of the Biennale, offering unique insights into the artists’ practices and the threads that bind them.

[TOUR] Behind the Scenes: Biennale Bus Tour

Date: Sat, 31 Jan

Time: 2.30PM - 6PM

Venue: Singapore Art Museum and citywide venues

Meeting Point: Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Ticketed, $8 per participant

Register here

Hop on for a special journey that takes you behind the scenes of the Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention. Led by Mok Cui Yin, Head of the Singapore Biennale team, this exclusive bus tour covers various locations—starting from Tanjong Pagar Distripark, then heading to 20 Anderson Road, Far East Shopping Centre and ending at Lucky Plaza—offering insights into how the exhibitions come together across Singapore.

Gain insider insights into the planning process, installation stories, and the unique character of each venue as you travel through the city.

All participants will receive an exclusive Biennale-branded merchandise!

About the Guide
Cui is an arts producer and facilitator. Since 2008, she has produced, consulted on, and managed projects across different disciplines, scales and contexts. These include independent artists in contemporary art, dance, music, literary arts and theatre, for organisations such as Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, The Substation, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Asian Film Archive, Arts House Limited, DesignSingapore Council and the National Arts Council, and for festivals and platforms including Archifest, the Arts x Tech Lab, Singapore International Festival of Arts and Singapore Writers Festival. Cui joined Singapore Art Museum in 2024 as Head, Biennale, working with the Singapore Biennale team.

[GAMES] Safe Shores

Date: Sat, 31 Jan

Time: 6PM - 10PM

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Ticketed

From Post-Museum comes an exciting new speculative game experience, Safe Shores.

It is 2050 in Southeast Asia and the climate crisis has radically reconfigured the region: sea-level rise, deadly diseases and a collapsing food system have pushed people from their homelands. I

n this 150-minute role-playing game, participants will work together to reach Safe Shores and build a community capable of surviving.

This unique experience requires imagination, collaboration and open dialogue. Don't miss this one-time session at SAM during Singapore Art Week!

About Post-Museum
Founded in 2007 in Singapore, Post-Museum is an independent cultural and social space which aims to encourage and support a thinking and proactive community. It is an open platform for examining contemporary life, promoting the arts and connecting people. In addition to their events and projects, they also curate, research and collaborate with a network of social actors and cultural workers.

[WORKSHOP] Rasa Sayang (Songs of travel and care)

Date: Sat, 31 Jan

Time: 3PM - 5PM

Venue: The Spine (Between Blocks 37 and 39), Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

This participatory workshop by the Critical Craft Collective draws on Singapore’s history as a harbour city, using song as a medium for crossings, care and kinship. Focusing on two songs—Rasa Sayang (a Malay folk song) and Cempaka Biru (by Zubir Said)—the session explores how songs have travelled across the Nusantara (the Malay Archipelago) through collective listening and memory. Critical Craft Collective invites participants to experience collective singing as both sonic and haptic. Voices resonating in shared spaces produce a tactile, vibratory awareness that recalls the handwork of craft—rhythmic, embodied and shaped through repetition and presence.

About Critical Craft Collective
Founded by Adeline Kueh and Hazel Lim, the Critical Craft Collective (CCC) reexamines craft in the 21st century through the lens of contemporary art and technology. It aims to be a platform that enables partnerships, collaborations and curatorial projects, where expanded dialogue and conversation at the intersections of craft, design and contemporary art practices can take place.

[SAM RESIDENCIES] In Conversation with SAM Residencies

Date: Fri -  Sat, 30 - 31 Jan

Time: 1PM onwards

Venue: Level 3, SAM Residency Studios, #03-07, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free

In Conversation with SAM Residencies showcases the dynamic and collaborative nature of the processual and research-based methods which drive the work of SAM Residents. This multi-modal project will gather a wide range of research explorations and artistic experimentation by artists, curators, researchers and creative practitioners during their time in residency. Across methodologies, processes, and formats, discover new insights into a range of topical urgencies at the forefront of contemporary practice.

[DROP-IN ACTIVITY] Singapore Biennale Stamp Rally

Date: Ongoing - 29 Mar

Time: 10AM - 7PM

Venue: Singapore Art Museum and citywide venues

Collect your special Singapore Biennale 2025 postcard and complete your stamp journey across Blenheim Court, 20 Anderson Road, SAM, and Fort Canning Centre. Visit all the locations and bring home a little piece of your Biennale experience!