SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds

What does it mean to imagine a world otherwise?

How To Dream Worlds, the second edition of SAM Contemporaries, brings together six artists whose practices span installation, moving image and materially driven forms. Their works emerge from diverse concerns—body-machine intimacies, the uncovering of dominant and erased narratives, and the politics of cultivated space—each grounded in the specificities of their own research and lived experiences.

The exhibition’s title proposes a reading of these practices, approaching dreaming as a method and form of resistance, gesturing towards other ways of living, relating and perceiving from within the conditions of the now. Some works speculate on possible futures; others dwell in the traces of what was. Many attend to the present, paying close attention to the undercurrents that shape daily experience. These are not visions of utopias but propositions in motion, open-ended and continuously unfolding. Rather than offering solutions or conclusions, they linger in uncertainty and possibility.

As you move through the exhibition, you are invited to journey alongside the artists in asking what it means to imagine something otherwise. Here, dreaming is not about arriving at a final, perfected “elsewhere,” but about staying with the process—the slow, ongoing work of questioning the world as it is, and imagining what it could still be and become.

about the artists

Chok Si Xuan
Chok Si Xuan (b. 1998) is driven by a deep fascination for the complex relations that enmesh technology in the everyday blurring the lines between the human, the organic, motors and machines. Exploring cybernetics, the feminine, and the ways in which technology and industrial materials shape contemporary subjectivities and corporealities, her growing body of work features composite sculptures and kinetic installations that coalesce odd circuitries, feedback systems, found electronics, and material components of common technological devices into uncanny symbioses between intimacy and automation. With a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaborations, she has contributed her technical skills in 3D modelling and prototyping, microcontroller electronics, and coding to various projects ranging from performance arts and fashion and technology.

Complementing her practice, she is also pursuing a Bachelor's in Electronics Engineering (BEng Electronics) as a means of understanding the inherently material nature of electronics and electricity. From semiconductors, frequency responses to integrated circuits, she aims to uncover the deeply embedded ways these energy conversions are into the way we live.

In Singapore, her work has been shown in and commissioned by institutions such as ArtScience Museum, Singapore Art Museum and Esplanade, as well as independent art spaces. Outside of Singapore, she has exhibited at the Science Gallery Melbourne, Australia.

Chu Hao Pei
Chu Hao Pei (b. 1990) is a visual artist whose practice explores the shifting physical, sociological and emotional connections with our natural and urban landscapes. His works shed light on the overlooked and accidental by interweaving the processes of engagement, documentation and research to examine the complexities of environmental and cultural loss (or resurgence) that have been shaped by political, economic and social factors. Chu’s methods tether between concealment and revelation to draw attention to what cannot or has yet to be communicated or understood.

Chu’s works have been exhibited at the Asian Art Biennale (2024), Esplanade Singapore (2022) and Taipei Fine Art Museum (2021), amongst others. His participation in the Serendipity Arts Festival (2023) and the Practice Tuckshop residency (2024) kickstarted Nasi Goreng Diplomacy , which he continues developing today. Chu also participated as a resident with both Singapore Art Museum (2021) and the National Arts Council-Cemeti Institute for Art and Society (2019).

Lee Pheng Guan (PG Lee)
Lee Pheng Guan (b. 1974, also known as PG Lee) is an artist and educator who works mainly with the mediums of sculpture and installation. His practice examines the temporal nature of human existence and the instinctive—and often futile —desire for transcendence. Building on research developed during his 2023 residency at Singapore Art Museum, Lee has turned his attention to the quiet politics of gardens and landscapes, and how they reveal deeper societal impulses towards order and control.

Lee holds an MA from LASALLE College of the Arts and a BA in Fine Art (Hons) from Goldsmiths College, University of London. His past solo exhibitions in Singapore include GRAVITAS (2020) and Weight/less (2015). Lee has also completed the Artist Studio Residency at Objectifs – Centre for Photography & Film, Singapore (2022) and the Asia Culture Center Arts Space Network Residency in Gwangju, South Korea (2018).

Masuri Mazlan
Masuri Mazlan (b. 1990) is an artist and cultural worker whose practice spans sculpture, found objects and photography. His mixed-media installations translate innate desires of intimacy, longing and belonging into uncanny but familiar vignettes of domestic and everyday life. Transforming industrial materials into amorphous forms, Masuri moves between the boundaries of hardness and softness, control and vulnerability, personal memory and collective experience—creating environments that operate as quiet sites of reckoning with inherited trauma and the ambiguities of identity.

Masuri graduated with a BA in Fine Art (First Class Honours) from LASALLE College of the Arts, accredited by Goldsmiths, University of London. He was a recipient of the Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise Scholarship (2016), 38th International Takifuji Art Award (2017), Winston Oh Travelogue Research Award (2018) and the LASALLE Award for Academic Excellence (2019).

NEO_ARTEFACTS (Fazleen Karlan)
Fazleen Karlan (b. 1993) is an artist whose practice lies at the intersection of art-making and archaeological methods. She makes works under the auspices of NEO_ARTEFACTS, an experimental initiative that investigates the intersection between art and archaeology. Drawing on Fazleen’s experience as a post-excavation technician, NEO_ARTEFACTS seeks to reassemble fragments of material from different timeframes to construct personal and cultural realities. Growing up as a millennial, NEO_ARTEFACTS also draws from a variety of influences including internet culture.

NEO_ARTEFACTS has presented solo showcases such as d3ar succ3ss0r (2022) at the Esplanade Community Wall and has participated in several group exhibitions including OH! Open House Kampong Gelam: Palimpsest (2024), Between the Living and the Archive (2021) at Gillman Barracks and Time Passes (2020) at National Gallery Singapore. In 2022, NEO_ARTEFACTS was artist-in-residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art.

Syahrul Anuar
Syahrul Anuar (b. 1995) explores the notion of merantau (Malay for “migration”), drawing inspiration from his family's diaspora across the Indo-Malay world. By e ngaging with the rich contemporary narratives and histories of the Indo-Malay world, Syahrul examines human movement, the built environment and the geographical landscape. Through his research-driven practice, he explores the spaces between fact and fiction, blending past and present, reality and fiction.

Syahrul has a background in photography, but his interdisciplinary practice probes emerging technologies, exploring artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer graphics. These tools serve not only as mediums but also as frameworks for reimagining and reconstructing photography within the complexities of Southeast Asia's dynamic contemporary landscape.

A graduate of Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, with a BFA in Media Art (Photography), Syahrul was honoured with the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in 2021. His artistic endeavours have been showcased in exhibitions across Singapore, China, the Netherlands and the United States.