From Palais to Pulau: Practices for Re-existence
In their curatorial rationale of the exhibition From Palais to Pulau: Rethinking “Home” and “Oddities”, curatorial duo CCC (Critical Craft Collective) describes the show as an exploration of where knowledge originates, transitions and translates within the context of Southeast Asia and Singapore, regions that still “bear the burdens of our colonial past”[1]. It is thus curious that the show draws inspiration from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management—a widely recognised guidebook, first published in 1861 that provides detailed instructions on cooking recipes, the use of homewares, and the principles of managing a household. The influential manual reflected British Victorian domestic ideals of its time, and today, serves as a historical compendium that offers insights into the social norms and practices of 19th-century Britain, particularly in relation to the roles and expectations of women.
Reflecting on the burdens of colonial pasts also necessitates the interrogation of the colonial experience. In the case of Singapore, two particular views might be relevant: one of aspiration, and another of re-existence. Sociologist Aníbal Quijano describes the encounter between European culture and the Other as the "colonisation of the imagination of the dominated." This process shapes modes of thinking, influencing knowledge production through the introduction of its thought and image systems. Rooted in the perceived allure of the coloniser's culture, this dynamic made European ideals aspirational, and European culture entrenched its “paradigmatic image” and cognitive frameworks as the standard for cultural development in colonised societies. This influence can extend to their intellectual and artistic domains, resulting in the reproduction of colonial imagery and the colonial imaginary.[2]
Walter Mignolo provides an entry point to decoloniality, and one that is grounded in pluriversality and multiple truths that translates into a process of breaking away from colonial thought frameworks and striving toward what he terms “re-existence”—a reimagining of existence beyond colonial influence. As he elaborates, “Re-existing is something other than resisting. If you resist, you are trapped in the rules of the game others created, specifically the narrative and promises of modernity and the necessary implementation of coloniality. There cannot be only one model of re-existence.” Although Mignolo's framework for formulating his propositions attends to regions that experienced the more severe impacts of colonialism, his rhetoric of resisting versus re-existing can still be applied in the analysis of the post-colonial experience. We begin to see how the works of some artists in the exhibition embody the pursuit of "re-existence"[3], using artistic strategies that reimagine and, at times, subvert conventional domains of knowledge. Other works negotiate with the allure of the colonial imaginary by incorporating personal and relational elements. By reinterpreting Mrs. Beeton’s conception of the ideal home and expanding it into a diverse range of domestic idioms, they establish new artistic positions that resonate within a local context. The exhibition features the works of 12 artists who explore the concept of home, delving into themes of labour, gender, cross-cultural encounters, and the colonial experience.
What insights can we gain from the domestic sphere? According to Victor Buchli, it is a space where the dynamics of relationships, identity and gender play out, extending to how political and economic realities unfold, reflecting broader human experiences. It is within this realm that essential boundaries between the public and the private is being defined. To Buchli, the establishment of the domestic sphere as a form of institution is a politically charged process, influencing the core structures of social life and determining which forms of life are acknowledged, supported or marginalised.[4]
Using everyday domestic objects and tasks as a starting point in their work that relates back to their personal experience are Ian Woo and Joanne Lim. Woo’s painting Nutrition uses a 43-inch TV monitor as a foundation to explore new forms of abstraction. The work is made in the same size as the monitor, reflecting the artist's intention to create a piece that could fit within the home of an average Singapore household. This choice may be seen as an effort to democratise the concept of art ownership, challenging the view of art collection as an elitist activity. Omelette, a sculptural installation of four components in gradations of yellow by Woo functions on two levels: On the one hand, they reflect ongoing interests in his painting practice that explore relationships between form and rhythm in painting. On the other hand, the work reflects his role as a father, cooking omelettes for his sons at breakfast.
In Gentle Cycles (2024), a video piece by Joanne Lim, explores the concept of dapur—the kitchen as the “heart of the home”—and translates this idea into sound and narrative. The work captures the ambience and poetics of an idyllic day spent in work and rest at home, where daily rituals like having breakfast seamlessly blend with household chores. These moments are interspersed with the ping of a mobile phone, followed by the sounds of food preparation for the day ahead. For Lim, there is a quiet joy embedded in the humdrum of labour that positions the home as a site of "quiet resilience". This echoes what feminist philosopher Maria Puig de la Bellacasa proposes, that embedded in "the mundane doings of maintenance and repair" is an ethico-political significance in the practice of overlooked things.[5]
The works of Hazel Lim, Adeline Kueh and Daniel Chong not only engage with their respective subject matters but also resonate with an intangible sensibility that might be characterised as an aesthetics of care. This sensibility goes beyond visual or thematic expression, and can be found in a form of attention to subtlety, and the prioritisation of relational and emotional resonance in their work. Curator Laura Craig describes the manifestation of care as a sensitivity that is “flexible in the ability to allow things to flow through in and out, whether that’s hurt or pleasure, negative or positive emotions. It’s somewhere between vulnerability and boundaries, it’s through breakdowns and breakthroughs, nourishment of the mind, nourishment of matter.”[6] We can see a correlation between Craig’s conception of care and Hazel Lim’s work Perpendiculiar Asymptotes. This series of drawings emerged during a particularly demanding period for Lim as she prepared her daughter for the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE), assisting her with mathematics. Elements from homework sheets and math formula diagrams transformed from a symbol of stress into a creative exercise, as Lim began using these motifs in her work that overlapped thread on paper to weave lines and layers of colour and pattern. Through this process of art-making, Lim—herself an educator—discovered a sense of resolution while navigating the rigidities of the Singapore education system.
In their discussion of care ethics, Jacqueline Millner and Zsuzsanna (Zsuzsi) Soboslay propose the notion of the “minor” as a critical inflection, offering a shift in how we can perceive the advantages of conscientious acts of care. While events are often recognised for their major outcomes, care ethics places value on the "minor gesture" as a potentially transformative force. According to them, this perspective invites us to think differently—through a “minor key”. The “major” operates along established principles, following prescribed trajectories. In contrast, the “minor” advances with flexibility, responding dynamically to circumstances and opening new possibilities for renewal.[7]
The qualities of the aesthetics of care—flexibility, nourishment, and the minor gesture—can be gleaned in Adeline Kueh’s mix-media installation Interludes: idle matters and spaces of care comprising fragrance and homeware. Kueh created two fragrances (Cempaka Biru and November Breeze), inspired by the cultures of Southeast Asia. The former references a Zubir Said song of the same title that refers to serumpun, a Nusantara ideal of shared cultural and linguistic roots. The latter alludes to the Northeast Monsoon, carrying the winds that traverse the region. Another component of the installation Bawang membawang uses French milk glassware and transforms them into sculptural objects with the addition of corset boning and decorative trimmings. While these items are not typically part of Southeast Asian domestic cultures, Kueh likens her sculptural intervention to peeling the layers of an onion—a task often shared among women as they exchange stories, their camaraderie a form of female solidarity, and offering a moment of respite from the demands of housework. A third component of the work Glimpses of/from the window, seeks to counter conventions of painting, canvas and stretcher by reframing the genre from the perspective of feminist care ethics in the use of material.
The inclination to turn to gestures of care in art-making can be linked to a global systemic crisis observed by Daniel Chong, where social mobility is increasingly impeded in a world marked by widespread unemployment, rising income inequality, and housing that is becoming increasingly unattainable for a new generation of adults. His work Practices for the Permacrisis considers rituals as affirmative acts, and it comprises a series of sculptures designed as ritualistic objects–a wreath of freshly-picked weeds with a sprinkle of rose quartz, a glow-in-the-dark dreamcatcher to welcome dreams of better days. Created to be situated alongside conventional objects that are part of a home, they are akin to geomancy charms, embodying the belief that objects, imbued with intention, can bring transformation. Chong’s works are paired with poetic musings that introduce found objects with a sensory appeal. At times self-deprecating yet touched with a restrained optimism, they weave notions of healing into the fabric of the everyday—where even the unruly sprawl of weeds finds its rightful place in the world.
Exploring the poetics of cross-cultural encounters, memory and hybridity are Andrea Danker, Susanna Tan and Divaagar. In her work kenti, kenti, sabrozu!, Andrea Danker reflects on her Eurasian identity and the inter-generational memories that the family shares. Using the grago cutlet, a popular Eurasian snack as a central motif, it also serves as a symbol of the communal way of life in Eurasian culture. Susanna Tan’s Blooming Heirlooms presents the interplay between Victorian and Southeast Asian cultures, centred on the themes of transformation and coexistence. For the artist, the work embodies memories of colonial histories interwoven with local culture. The piece consists of a photographic series of floral arrangements inspired by practices from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, recontextualised within a tropical setting. It also features a display of vintage drinking vessels commonly found in Southeast Asia, adding another layer to the fusion of cultural histories and practices. In the work Fine Malaya, Divaagar draws inspiration from the humble banana leaf, reflecting on its dual function as both a form of food, and a packaging material, commonly used in Southeast Asia. By placing them in a china cabinet, typically reserved for homeware and ornament of value, the artist elevates their significance with this juxtaposition that encourages a reconsideration of domestic norms beyond a colonial context.
The reality of Singapore’s location in the humid tropics as a conspicuous aspect of home is one that From Palais to Pulau acknowledges. This tropical context, particularly its temperature, is a focus that the artist duo Zeharn and Zeherng, and Wyn-Lyn Tan explore in their work. Temperature can be felt but generally not seen, and the former’s work Seeing Temperature attempts to illustrate its fluctuations through a compilation of found images that conjure their sensation. In Particulate: Heat and Home, Tan draws a parallel between heat, and the processes of her artmaking that relate to oxidisation and corrosion from the effects of heat. Her work features a copper sheet exposed to cooking ingredients such as vinegar, salt, and lemon, producing patina dust which is then extracted and collected in spice jars. Another set of vessels contain moisture produced during the oxidisation of her copper works. Her approach reflects the ongoing themes in her practice, while establishing a dialogue between domestic cues and abstraction.
Confronting colonial legacies also involves adopting a decolonial perspective—an approach that challenges entrenched ideological structures shaped by colonial experiences, and re-examine systems of knowledge production in order to redefine institutions and reimagine power structures.[8] We can see strands of this thinking in the works of Zarina Muhammad and Shubigi Rao. Muhammad’s Pharmacopeias for Accredited Agents of Poisoning can be seen as the artist’s attempt to reclaim the legitimacy of local knowledge that colonial perspectives have long dismissed. The work responds to John Gimlette’s 1915 text Malay Poisons and Charm Cures, in which he writes, “Malay women are generally held to be the accredited agents, at any rate, in many cases of poisoning, because naturally the cooking is left almost entirely to them.” Through her mixed-media assemblages, the artist draws on speculative footnotes, folkloric narratives and myths, using their archetypal elements to challenge the devaluation of these cultures and restore them with renewed agency.
Shubigi Rao’s works extend beyond the Singaporean context to address issues in Armenia, a region burdened by histories of conflict and trauma. Although Armenia is not traditionally categorised as a colonised region, its history is marked by domination under various empires, including the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Soviet Union, which have significantly influenced its progress in social, cultural and political domains. Linear AyB was filmed in Armenia in 2022 during a time of war. In the work, Rao incorporates archival footage, maps, texts, and images related to the region, employing techniques of distortion and glitches, compressing them into a linear narrative to evoke the flow of a data stream. Through removing and reordering of information, this approach aims to dismantle and challenge entrenched notions of power. The work also reflects on how geopolitics—particularly concerning oil, land, and resources—intersect with issues of humanitarian aid.
Palmprints and Palimpsests (from “These Petrified Paths”) offers a sombre counterpoint to the assumption of home as a sanctuary. Rao explores the legacy of the Armenian genocide by reconstructing the efforts of conservators working to preserve remnants of the region’s lost heritage and cultural ephemera, embodied in prints on lace and cloth. Her work serves as an act of solidarity with those displaced from their homes, featuring evocative images ranging from a banned book by a murdered author to more personal impressions such as a locket pendant with photos of cherished persons and lace motifs tattooed on the arm of an exiled granddaughter. These impressions, gathered from the witnesses of war whom Rao interviewed reminds us of how personal stories and the fragments of cherished memories, bear the power of “the minor key”, to draw from Millner and Soboslay’s discourse on aesthetic modes of resilience.
Returning to the concept of “re-existence,” From Palais to Pulau offers a collective reimagining of life and identity that disrupts singular notions of truth and reclaims spaces for alternative imaginaries. Drawing from personal histories, domestic practices, and cultural memory, the artists present perspectives that reframe dominant paradigms and offer multiplicity. In her exposition on the practice of care, Craig employs the analogy of “invocate/exvocate” to describe a form of internal advocacy that upholds meanings and values through introspection. Another manifestation of this is the act of silent invocation that complements with external forms of creative expression.[9] This characterisation helps us to see how some of the artists in this exhibition have carved out respective positions to navigate and engage with underlying dimensions of tension or disquiet in their work. Through this lens of art-making as an ongoing journey of practicing re-existence, the exhibition becomes a platform for envisioning alternative futures, and where art functions as both a catalyst for transformation, and a testament to forms of endurance.
Endnotes
[Adeline Kueh and Hazel Lim, Curatorial Proposal, unpublished.
Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” trans. Sonia Therborn, Cultural Studies 21, no. 2-3 (2007): 169–70.
Walter D. Mignolo, “Coloniality Is Far from Over, and So Must Be Decoloniality” in Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Spring/Summer 2017, Vol. 43 (Spring/Summer 2017), 41.
Victor Buchli, Households and ‘Home Culture’ in The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, Dan Hicks, Mary C. Beaudry (eds), (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010), 502-3.
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds, (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2017), 170.
Laura Craig, “Care Beyond Curation” in Curating with Care, eds. Elke Krasny and Lara Perry (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), 41.
Jacqueline Millner and Zsuzsanna (Zsuzsi) Soboslay, “Cultivating Care Ethics and the Minor Gesture in the Curatorial” in Curating with Care, eds. Elke Krasny and Lara Perry (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), 197.
Pamela Corey, “The Digital Voice as Postcolonial Proxy” in The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History, eds. Tatiana Flores, Florencia San Martín, Charlene Villaseñor Black, (London: Routledge, 2023), 355.
Laura Craig, “Care Beyond Curation”, 41.
About Michelle Ho
Michelle Ho is the director of the ADM Gallery at the NTU School of Art, Design and Media. With more than 15 years of curatorial experience in Southeast Asian art, some of her exhibitions include Vertical Submarine and the Amusement of Knowledge and Illusion (2022), Reformations: Painting in post-2000 Singapore Art (2019) and Exceptions of Rule: Counterpoints to Truth (2018). Formerly a curator at the Singapore Art Museum, she led the acquisition strategies of its contemporary art collection from 2013 to 2015, and co-curated exhibitions with museums like Queensland Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and Kunsthaus Zurich. She was co-curator of the 2013 Singapore Biennale, and was appointed curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.