SINGAPORE.- Singapore Art Museum announced that pioneering interdisciplinary artist Amanda Heng will represent Singapore at the 61st International Venice Biennale in 2026. She will work with curator Selene Yap to realise the presentation. This marks Singapore’s 12th participation at the Venice Biennale, commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), supported by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) and organised by SAM.
Since the late 1980s, Amanda Heng has been a pioneering force in Singapore’s contemporary art landscape. Her practice emerged during a pivotal moment of cultural shift, expanding discourse on modernity and identity through new modes of expression. In 2010, she was conferred the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest arts accolade. Her practice spans live performance art, installation, photography, and participatory works, characterised by a sustained negotiation between art and life. Central to her practice is the body as both medium and metaphor, underscoring the potency of simple, quotidian acts as modest proposals for examining social norms and personal histories. Audience participation also serves as a hallmark of her practice, inviting the public to be part of the artistic process and encouraging communal reflection.
Her works foreground the body as a site for intimate and social reckoning, explored through ritual, duration, and collaboration. This emphasis on embodied knowledge and social encounters resonates with SAM’s support for experimental practices that propose new ways of understanding global topicalities.
Heng’s work has been presented at major biennales, performance art festivals, and exhibitions across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including the First Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan (1999), Werkleitz Biennale, Germany (2000), Singapore Biennale (2006, 2019), and Bangkok Art Biennale (2024). She was also awarded the prestigious 12th Benesse Prize in 2020 and inducted into Singapore’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 2023. Internationally recognised as a key voice in performance art discourse, her continued relevance lies in how she bridges personal narrative with broader cultural urgencies, offering new modes of engagement for audiences worldwide.
Curator Selene Yap brings a practice grounded in sustained artistic collaborations and discursive research. Her approach—marked by close attention to the conditions of artistic production—focuses on works that negotiate the complexities of place, process and memory, making her particularly attuned to Heng’s exploration of the body as a site where ritual, memory and lived experience converge. Yap has curated exhibitions and research-led projects across Southeast Asia and beyond, including presentations with artists Pratchaya Phinthong, Simryn Gill, Charles Lim Yi Yong, and Ho Tzu Nyen.
Eugene Tan, Co-Chair of the Commissioning Panel, Chief Executive Officer and Director of SAM, says, “Over four decades, Amanda Heng’s artistic career and contributions have critically shaped Singapore’s art history and development. Her sustained and evolving practice offers compelling ways of engaging the world through the body, performance, and lived experience. Her work resonates with the urgencies of our time while being grounded in personal truth and poetic clarity. Heng’s selection of Selene Yap as curator reflects a collaborative relationship that brings together distinct artistic and curatorial sensibilities, promising a thoughtful and resonant presentation that will shed fresh light on contemporary global concerns pertinent to today's international art world.”
Low Eng Teong, Co-Chair of the Commissioning Panel and Chief Executive Officer of NAC, added, “Amanda Heng is a pioneering force in performance art, whose interdisciplinary practice uses the body and movement as a universal language to create new pathways for international audiences to engage with Singapore art. As part of our continued efforts to nurture artistic excellence and support our artists on the international stage, the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale serves as a vital platform for our artists to build meaningful global networks and foster cross-cultural dialogue. Together with the Commissioning Panel, we are proud to support this artistic team as they represent Singapore on the world stage in Venice next year.”
