Singapore Art Museum presents new exhibitions to transform the familiar and reimagine the fleeting, turning memory into a living experience. Discover Talking Objects and The Living Room in this photo tour.
New exhibitions at Singapore Art Museum
Opening on 12 Sept 2025 at Singapore Art Museum’s Tanjong Pagar Distripark Gallery 4, Talking Objects and The Living Room invite you to explore how art preserves memory, reshapes meaning and continues to live on, even after its first encounter.
Talking Objects and The Living Room Photo Tour
Both exhibitions are held in the same gallery, I’d say most people will take up to an hour to fully immerse and engage with the works. There’s no official “first” exhibition – you can start with either.
But your eye might just wander right away into Talking Objects – as the works there are out in the open and naturally draw you in.
Over here, familiar items and everyday scenes are reimagined – as containers for memories and identity.
Literally one of the most striking works here is Hungry God (Subodh Gupta), a sculpture comprising stainless steel pots and plants – taking the form of a metallic waterfall. These everyday kitchen staples have transformed, reflecting economic and social transformation in a globalised world.
Alwin Reamillo’s Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project (3rd Movement: Manila-Fremantle-Singapore) is a centerpiece of the main area. This piano sculpture is reconstructed with discarded parts from Reamillo’s father’s defunct piano workshop. It was once the only maker of grand pianos in the Philippines, but the rise of affordable electronic and mass-produced pianos led to its closure.
This interactive artwork, a tribute to artist Reamillo’s family legacy, invites you to become part of the experience. Visitors are encouraged to sit down and play the piano. By doing so, you help carry forward a spirit of community and connection.
If Your Work Speaks For Itself, Don’t Interrupt (Nilo Ilarde) is a piece you read as much as you look at. Instead of painting words on the wall, the piece is created “According to Artist’s Instructions”: Carefully scraped into the surface, revealing the raw wall underneath.
The most eye-catching work literally dazzles, until you discover the true meaning behind Third World Extra Virgin Dreams (Suzann Victor). A bed suspended from the ceiling is draped with a 10-metre tapestry of blood-stained Fresnel lenses. At once fragile and haunting, it reminds us of the desires and vulnerabilities.
It goes deeper if you see that a bed goes beyond a place for an individual’s private moments. It is also the site of beginnings and ends, like where conception, birth and dying take place.
Within a dark chamber lies Lama Sabakhtani #03 (Christine Ay Tjoe), a stripped-down typewriter with long keys that look like they are reaching out. As you press certain combinations of keys, the ambient music morphs, creating unique soundscapes.
Washed Up (Simryn Gill) forms a neat pile of glass washed in the sea. These worn-down fragments – all that’s left of their original forms – each have a word engraved on them, inviting you to contemplate their possible meanings.
There are more works to explore in Talking Objects, but rather than completing them all at once, you might wander into The Living Room for a while, before heading back to the other exhibition again.
While Talking Objects focuses on the tangible, The Living Room explores performance – the art form that resists permanence. So what is actually shown here?
This unique show reimagines the museum space as a cozy and inviting “living room”, as the name suggests – a place that is private yet shared. Even the apple green shade for the walls is specifically chosen as it was commonplace in Singapore’s public housing.
Among archive exhibits, interactive elements and ephemeral performance, the exhibition invites you to become part of the art by activating the space through conversation and shared encounters. Look out for cards around the custom-built furniture in the gallery, as they offer you an opportunity to engage with the space.
In its entirety, the exhibition demonstrates that performance art never truly ends, but instead changes its form.
Performance Journal Scroll (Jeremy Hiah) is a massive, hand-drawn account of performance art over two decades. Using charcoal, Hiah created a visual journal that mixes real memories of his work with whimsical, dream-like creatures.
Some may recall Chia Chuyia’s Knitting the Future, which was performed at Singapore Biennale 2016. Over five weeks, for six days a week and six hours a day, Chia sat inside a glass gallery knitting green threads of leek. A full-length garment was formed as her “body armour”.
A video and audio log of Chia’s performance entered SAM’s collection as a record of the work – preserving a form of the art. But the fragile organic garment has since dried and darkened, witnessing its unmaking despite resistance of nearly a decade.
During Singapore Art Week 2026 (in January 2026), Chia will return to “lay the work to rest” in a closing ritual.
ACS#2: The AGENDA Hair Salon, 2016 Düsseldorf-Project (Kim Ga Ram) is a documentation of Kim’s 2016 staging of the work in Germany.
In this hair salon, participants choose a cutting cape with a slogan of their choice – addressing issues from as life, death, the arts, technology and more. And they then decide how much hair to part with. The haircut unfolds as they engage in conversation with the artist (a certified hair stylist). A seemingly everyday, simple task of getting a haircut becomes a symbolic gesture of personal belief and a space for conversation and vulnerability.
Kim Garam will be performing this work 24 – 27 Jan 2026, and if you are keen, look out for registration details from SAM later this year. The sessions at SAM will be recorded and eventually be presented within The Living Room itself!
In this corner is a performative installation of Allow Me to Introduce Myself (Ezzam Rahman). Comprising glass bell jars filled with talcum powder and white furniture, it is revisited as Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself by the artist – not to restage the past, but to renew while reflecting how time changes both the body and memory.
Events and Programmes for Talking Objects and The Living Room
Over the exhibitions’ opening weekend (13-14 Sept), there is already a line-up of activities under A Weekend with SAM. Find out more here.
Throughout the exhibition period until July 2026, both Talking Objects and The Living Room will include events, workshops, and performance activations by participating artists. Latest information on these programmes can be found on SAM’s website when available.
Talking Objects and The Living Room at Singapore Art Museum
SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
From 12 Sept 2025 to 19 July 2026
Free Admission for Singaporeans and PRs. General Admission required for all other visitors.
For more information, refer to the official pages of Talking Objects and The Living Room.
Together with Learning Gallery (Level 1) and SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds (Level 3, beside Talking Objects and The Living Room), there are 4 exhibitions to experience when you visit SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark.
The Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention will open later this year, making the museum an essential destination for art lovers.
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