WHAT'S ON
ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Artist Bios
SABRINA SNG
Sabrina Sng 孙雅皪 (her/she) is a theatre artist and a movement trainer who adopts a multidisciplinary approach towards investigating and expressing concepts around culture and the body.
She was awarded the National Arts Council Undergraduate Scholarship and graduated from New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing with a BFA (Hons) in Theatre Arts.
She has collaborated and toured internationally in productions such as The Female Role Model Project by Transforma Theatre NYC (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), The Dream Series by Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia), Long Distance Affair by PopUp Theatrics x Juggerknot Theatre Company. Part of the experimental theatre company Emergency Stairs (Singapore), she collaborated with the team in Offstage 3.0 presented at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. What is the value of theatre? What does it mean to be an art-maker in the ever changing landscape of the arts in Singapore? What does the autonomy of the artist look and feel like in the creative process?
Alongside those burning questions, she continues to research various philosophies and methods of training the body, hoping to realise its boundaries as well as its expansive possibilities. In the process, getting out of her comfort zone alongside growing an evolving practice at the intersection between art and physical training that continues to develop over the years.
RANICE TAY
Ranice is a performer and theatre-maker; voyager of the inner wilderness. She received her BA Theatre Studies (Honours with Distinction) from the National University of Singapore, where she was also a recipient of the Performing and Visual Arts Scholarship (2015-2019).
Ranice’s creative encounters include performing in the titular role for The Silly Little Girl and The Funny Old Tree directed by Ang Gey Pin (YPPAE), performing in A Mouthful of Birds (World-in Theatre), Benches (Poetry Festival Singapore), and receiving the Special Mention Young Actress recognition from Five Continents International Film Festival in Always Let Me Go (Lens Rebel). She was the dramaturg for The Peculiar Tra La (Intercultural Theatre Institute), a movement director for Antigone (LASALLE College of the Arts), and the director for cross-cultural applied theatre project Heartland of Cherry Blossoms (Taipei Arts Festival and Shigang Mamas Theatre Festival). Ranice underwent several intensive practical sessions guided by the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. Amongst which, she was selected to participate in the Actor’s Pedagogy Program in Wuzhen Arts Festival in Beijing, China.
Ranice is an associate artist of Sourcing Within and has been working as a collaborator and creative assistant to Ang Gey Pin both locally and internationally. The pair was invited by the SabinARTi Cultural Association to develop the duet Dreamtalk as part of the artist-in-residency program, and afterwards presented at LabPerm e L.U.P.A in Italy and the NUS Arts Festival 2020 in Singapore. Ranice is presently developing a new creative opus, That Day That Book That Fell, with Sourcing Within.
Sabrina Sng, Ranice Tay, and Vanessa Toh
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Part 1: 20 May - 5 June 2021
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Part 2: 4 - 16 July 2021
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Part 3: 17 - 30 October 2021
Residency: The Gathering
A gathering of three women beginning with the body as the point of communication and understanding each other’s process. The collective, consisting of emerging theatre practitioners and performers Sabrina Sng, Ranice Tay, and Vanessa Toh, will gather at three points during the residency, drawing upon dblspce and Peninsula Shopping Centre as a site and catalyst for their exploration. This gathering aspires towards brewing a physical experience alongside visual elements and materials to realise a world in the doublespace. Their collective interest of starting points / themes include, the contemporary self in relation to our collective history and past; as well as sub themes of memory, nostalgia, and progress.
VANESSA TOH
A freelance theatre practitioner and film actor based in Singapore, Vanessa graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore with a first-class BA (Hons) Acting degree in 2015.
She discovered her passion for theatre and the performing arts after graduating from secondary school with an O Level in GCSE Drama. After junior college, Vanessa decided to pursue acting full-time at LASALLE College of the Arts. Whilst at LASALLE, Vanessa appeared in Sarah Ruhl's In The Next Room, directed by Samantha Scott-Blackhall, Liao Yimei’s Rhinoceros in Love, directed by Natalie Hennedige, Botho Strauss’ Seven Doors and Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda, directed by Stefanos Rassios, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Adam Marple and Pao Kun and the Dreamtime, directed by Aubrey Mellor.
Since graduating, Vanessa's recent theatrical credits include All in a Summer's Day (Act 3 International), The Flying Dutchman (The Finger Players) and Landscaping a Personal Myth (Transit 8 Festival. Beauty as a Weapon - Theatre, Women, Conflict. Odin Teatret (Denmark)).
Vanessa recently joined an internationally star-studded cast in Canadian-based production company Unveil Studio’s stage-to-film adaptation feature She Has A Name, playing the character Mae, which premiered in the fall of 2016.
Trained in a variety of different physical and traditional asian forms such as Bharatanatyam, Contemporary Dance, Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Kalaripayattu, Vanessa is interested to explore the immediacy and intimacy of the human body through these forms and bring these qualities to both stage and screen.Vanessa believes in the importance and power of storytelling. She hopes to work with other artists from varied disciplines to create works with a strong social and political conscience that will provide a platform and an insight into worlds that are seldom explored.
ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
RejectsAsylum
19 June - 2 July 2021
Residency: Demise of Space
A space is both tangible and intangible, abstract and physical, but does a space only exist in human memory? What exactly is space and how does it actually work? We are currently living in an era where the rules of space are slowly being renewed; space can now be both virtual and physical because of technology and the internet. The rise of technology not only divides space but also minimises it. We are interested to uncover what defines space, as each individual perceives the same space differently, its narratives informed by memories and personal encounters.These memory fragments serve as a marker for the boundaries of their space intended, and these markers are unique.
During this residency, we hope to take on the role of an investigator, to discover the idea of space and also its countersite. Using this idea, we are also interested in the sociopolitics of our contemporary society and will be looking into topics such as surveillance and space, modern day squatters, and also the idea of memory relics left behind by the space itself.
Artist Bios
RejectsAsylum is a multidisciplinary artistic collective consisting of three members, Kai Ting, Weihan, and Mirul Adli. The collective is often associated with the notions of serving forms of protection to minorities that are often discriminated against within their society. They seek to create an inclusive society which can break down and dissolve the structure of hierarchy, to restructure into a whole artistic community.
RejectsAsylum has participated in various projects locally and internationally, such as 11F Art Week (2021) in Malaysia and Loudlab (2019) in Fuzhou. They are also an official member of the Shanghai Youth Photographer Saloon.
Kai Ting (b. 1996, Malaysia) is a visual artist and curator based in Singapore. Her works have shown in numerous exhibitions locally and overseas. She was a recipient of UOB Painting of the Year, Malaysia (2018) and Malaysian Emerging Artist Awards (MEA), Malaysia (2019) and Mellow Art Award, Japan (2020).
With a keen interest in socio-political issues, she has participated and curated various socially engaged art projects, such as Bamboo Art Festival (2019) in Chengdu and a year-long residency in Pulau Ketam(2019), Malaysia. Her works were collected by Lim Lian Geok Foundation, in Malaysia, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand.
Weihan Fong (b. 1992, Singapore) is a practicing artist working in a photographic medium. He graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts with a Diploma of Fine Art in 2019. His work has been exhibited in Cav Gallery, Singapore (2021) and Streets of Hope, Singapore (2021).
Muhammad Amirul Adli (b. 1994, Singapore) is a visual artist working in the photographic medium. He graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts with a Diploma in Fine Art in 2018. His practice takes many inspirations from music, including the use of poeticism being instilled in his work. He has participated in “Streets of Hope” (2021) organised by the National Arts Council and Gilman Barracks. He has also been running workshops for local artists.
PAST PROJECTS
Veiled Intimacies
1 February - 21 March 2021
Veiled Intimacies presents early textile explorations by multidisciplinary artist Sabrina Koh, in a series of constructed silhouettes and re-engineered garments imbued with personal stories and narratives.
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Hiraeth
25 April - 4 April 2021
Imprints of the Self
8 - 18 April 2021
Presented in a series of showcases, the works of these emerging artists dive into various perspectives, practices, and opinions to embrace the nature of their incompleteness, relying on each other to fill in the void of comprehensive conclusions: encompassing subjects from love and loss to religion and race.
Hiraeth is the Welsh term for nostalgia. Named as such, this exhibition was conceived to look closely into the intimate spaces of three artists, whose personal stories provide room for boundless discussion. The works presented generate aloof narratives and conversations between the framework of the artists, the works, and the audiences. By juxtaposing the context of absence in the context of presence, the artworks present a dynamic combination of methodologies, research, concepts, and materials while portraying subjects with mixed emotions.