Wild lalang (Imperata cylindrica) forms a core component of PG Lee's Pretty, Please (Sleep Tight) (2025), featured in SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds. Though native to Southeast Asia, lalang is often treated as a weed to be culled to maintain Singapore’s manicured beauty since its push to become a “Garden City” in the 1960s.

This impulse to control the cityscape reflects broader systems of order shaping how we live and move in Singapore, often extending into our homes and personal lives. PG sometimes likens himself to a “gardener,” compelled to clear away undesirable elements such as lalang. From this perspective, he engages landscape architect and educator Bronwyn Tan, who also “curates” and engineers the cityscape—yet in contrast, seeks to work in harmony with both urban systems and natural growth.

In bringing together PG’s artistic reflections and Tan’s practice in landscape architecture, the conversation opens up the tensions between control and coexistence, inviting us to reconsider what it means to live within a garden city—whether we choose to tame nature, or learn to embrace its unruly growth.

This programme is free for all participants. We request a refundable deposit of $8 to book a slot. The deposit will be returned upon attendance of the event. There will be no refund in the case of a no-show.

About the Artist
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 Centre Arts Space Network Residency in Gwangju, South Korea (2018).