Speaking of which – A pop-up activation features the valued contributions by five literary artists, curated by the editorial team behind creative practice journal PR&TA. The full list of literary submissions can be found below:

1. By Alvin Pang
   FREIGHT 
   Rediffusing
   Moving Words
   
2. By Hong Xinyi
   Lili’s Revolution
   Snow in Singapore
   Daisy’s Web
3. By Melizarani T. Selva
   questions for my past, present and future ancestors (Past Ancestor, Present Ancestor, Future Ancestor)
4. By Mohamed Shaker
   Where It Happened
   Singapore at Night
   Refused to be Moved
5. By Theophilus Kwek
   Hearing Voices
   Mr Wong Foo Nam Goes to the Metropole
   Notes from a Field

Love stories – An ode to Singapore’s musical cityscape
by Critical Craft Collective (Adeline Kueh and Hazel Lim)

Session 1: Sat, 3 May 2025
Session 2: Sat, 17 May 2025
2–5pm | Guoco Tower Level 1 Atrium (1 Wallich Street) 
Free (registration required)

This two-part activation and workshop explore the collective experience of listening to vernacular and popular songs from an era when popular forms of entertainment helped shape the cultural fabric of the nation. These popular forms of entertainment included the Rediffusion cable radio service and Singapore’s cinematic landscape. Selected based on the themes of “love and emotions” as well as “weather and nature”, four songs are revisited in each session of the workshop to honour their enduring legacy and reflect on their lasting cultural impact. 

The workshop invites participants to move away from a familiar reliance on our visual perception of space. Participants will instead embrace the learning of sonic and textual narratives in multilingual songs as an act of care, fostering openness to differences. 

In a round-robin format, participants will learn about each of the four selected songs in groups, sharing memories, stories and facts in the spirit of recollection and exchange. Participants will then collaboratively create a zine about an additional song of their choice, adding their personal versions of oral traditions to a growing repository that will be safekept by Critical Craft Collective (CCC), thus ensuring the preservation of the ways in which song connects us universally.  

CCC will be presenting these zines as part of Speaking of which – A pop-up activation, which runs until 25 May. Photographic and video documentation of the entire workshop will also be taken, potentially contributing to CCC’s production of a reimagined music video, intended for release at a later date. Full details will be shared with registered participants prior to the commencement of the workshop sessions. 

Disclaimer 

• Successful registrants will be notified in advance via e-mail to prepare a song of their choice, along with any additional materials needed for the workshop.  

• We value creating a supportive and inclusive environment for all participants. To ensure a positive experience for everyone, Singapore Art Museum reserves the right to respectfully decline participation from registrants whose behaviour may disrupt the smooth facilitation of the workshop. 

• Please note that there will be photography and/or video recording (audio and/or video) during the workshop for the purposes of SAM and CCC’s publicity, marketing, archival, and/or the latter’s potential music video project. Successful registrants will be asked to sign a release form before workshop commences. If you prefer not to be photographed or recorded, please inform the workshop facilitators on the day of the event. 

• By participating in this activity, you consent to contributing towards the growing repository of zines under the safekeeping of Critical Craft Collective, and their use for exhibition, marketing, publicity, educational and archival purposes pertaining to the workshop and its related projects. Please refrain from including personally identifiable information in the zines.
• By participating in this activity, you consent that Singapore Art Museum and Critical Craft Collective will not be liable for any injury, loss or damage that you may sustain during this programme.

About Adeline Kueh
Adeline Kueh makes installations and socially embodied works that reconsider our relationships with objects and rituals. Using drawing as a conceptual tool, she maps historical trajectories with craft and oral tradition. As a co-founder of the Critical Craft Collective (Singapore) and the pan-Borneo Serumpun Collective, her artistic and curatorial research examines the entanglement of craft, kinship and the politics of care. A Senior Lecturer with LASALLE’s MA Fine Arts programme, Adeline has exhibited internationally, including World Architecture Festival, Venice Biennale, Hermes, NTU CCA IdeasFest and Asia NOW. She is a 2024–2026 Ewha Womans University’s Global Fellow. 

About Hazel Lim
Hazel Lim is a visual artist with a background in painting who weaves text, craft and drawing to explore narrative, displacement and history. Her research examines painting through text, paper folding and audience participation. Through needlework and papercraft, she explores the aesthetics of care, questioning craft’s ties to the domestic and feminine. Hazel leads the BA(Hons) programme at LASALLE’s McNally School of Fine Arts and has exhibited widely. In her practice and as co-founder of the Critical Craft Collective, she has been active in exhibitions and curatorial projects, including commissions for the Singapore Biennale and Children’s Biennale. 

About Critical Craft Collective
Founded by Adeline Kueh and Hazel Lim, the Critical Craft Collective (CCC) explores craft’s role in the 21st century at the intersections of contemporary art, design and technology. The collective reexamines the home as a site of radical domesticity, highlighting communal practices and storytelling in the making process. CCC creates space for diverse ideas, conversations and a reimagining of care and nurturing through partnerships, collaborations and curatorial projects. 
 

HO HO Biscuit and General Store
by Wong Lip Chin

1–25 May 2025  
12–8pm | HarbourFront Centre Level 1 Atrium (1 Maritime Square) 
Free

Through material culture and digital artefacts, artist Wong Lip Chin expands his exploration of contemporising Southeast and East Asian histories to reimagine Ho Ho Biscuit Factory for the modern day. Once a beloved household name, the brand had a rich history since its humble beginnings in 1898 as the first machine-made biscuit producer in Singapore, founded by Mr. Chew Boon Lay.   

At HarbourFront Centre Level 1 Atrium, step into HO HO Biscuit and General Store, a new artistic collaboration between the confectionery and Wong. Explore artefacts and archival material that reflect on Ho Ho’s impact on economies, social practices and everyday culture in early 20th century Singapore. On select weekends, the artist’s creations—doubling as memorabilia and merchandise—will be distributed for free. 

Sitting at the intersection of contemporary art, visual narrative and cultural memory, HO HO Biscuit and General Store also invites you to further enrich your journey by accessing the digital catalogue available online throughout the period of activation (access and scan the QR code onsite). Through Wong’s installation, experience the revival of an ordinary biscuit store’s forgotten heritage and its promise of an enduring legacy. 

HO HO Biscuit and General Store is Wong’s response to Speaking of which – A pop-up activation by The Everyday Museum, a public art initiative of Singapore Art Museum. It seeks to present an alternative look into the lesser-known or often-overlooked social practices and oral traditions, reflecting on art’s longstanding role in examining and shaping everyday life. 

About Wong Lip Chin 

Wong Lip Chin is an interdisciplinary artist and the creative director of CHITO, a research lab that revives the cultural history and material culture of Southeast Asia and East Asia. His painting, installation and performance create inventive and immersive experiences that renew histories of the Sinosphere, with playful appearances by his signature characters, Lilou and Oomoo. His recent works include interactive art installations that breathed new life into a 14th century apothecary (The Island at the End, Singapore Night Festival) and a winding stream party (The Gathering, National Arts Council Public Art Trust), as well as a series of paintings (Mother Flippin’ Heavens, Yeo Workshop) that married pop art and classical Chinese ink painting.