[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.

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, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board.

[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

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.

[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

Artist Kim Ga Ram's The AGENDA Hair Salon transforms a free haircut into a powerful socio-cultural statement. Participants choose a slogan-printed cape and engage in a dialogue with the artist. The length of hair cut becomes a measure of their commitment to the chosen message, turning a personal act into a public performance. 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, The Main Deck, SAM Office, Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free with Registration

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 (general admission fees apply)

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, The Main Deck, SAM Office, #03-07, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark

Free (general admission fees apply)

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).

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.

[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

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).

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). 

[SHOWCASE & TALK] The AGENDA Hair Salon by Kim Ga Ram

Date: Fri, 30 Jan

Time: 7PM - 8.30PM

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

Free with registration

Learn more

Catch Kim Ga Ram’s The AGENDA Hair Salon with this showcase of documented footage, followed by a conversation between the artist, curator and participants.

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!