Sim Chiyin 沈绮颖

I’m excited to be showing ten glass works and a two-channel video installation at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt @hkw_berlin , in a group exhibition “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”, till 8 December 2024. It is the first time I have been able to show a whole series of glass plates from “The Suitcase Is A Little Bit Rotten” (2022/3) and “The Mountain That Hid” (2022) as a projection — as I’d imagined. These two series of works also featured in my recent @esplanadesingapore theatre performance “One Day We’ll Understand”: /whats-on/festivals-and-series/series/the-studios/events/one-day-well-understand With so many thanks to curator @cosmincostinas and @paz__guevara , and HKW director @bonaventurendikung ! And to the HKW team including @may.may.a “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” shows the works of 50 artists dealing with multiple forms of trespassing and belonging. /programme/forgive-us-our-trespasses-vergib-uns-unsere-schuld My work specifically contemplates the trespassing of colonial archives, historiographies, generational lines and memory. @zilbermangallery Installation views by @hanna.wiedemann / HKW and André Carvalho @chroma.studioberlin . This work was originally commissioned by @autographabp and @tba_21 Fortuitous timing that this show opened soon after we arrived in Berlin as a family for @iandenisjohnson to begin his fellowship at the @wissenschaftskolleg_zu_berlin

Announced today: My monologue performance “One Day We’ll Understand” goes to Melbourne for four shows 27 Feb - 1 March 2025 as part of @asiatopa , the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts. I will also do an accompanying solo exhibition on the project, titled “Chronotopia”, at @footscrayarts , 4 Feb - 22 March 2025. Excited to be part of what looks like an amazing programme for the three weeks of the Triennial! And looking forward to different conversations with audiences in Australia about issues of colonialism, memory, history, forced migration, and methods of remaking the past for future generations! .au/event/one-day-well-understand .au/event/chronotopia With many, many thanks to the multiple teams of people working to bring this work on tour: my whole performance team including executive producer Goh Ching Lee @culturelink.sg , director Tamara Saulwick @tamsaulwick , dramaturg Kok Heng Leun @hengleun , musician/performer Cheryl Ong @cheryleatschips , video artist Nick Roux @enjay.are , lighting designer Andy Lim, technical manager Yap Seok Hui @sssseeeeooookkkk + CultureLink Singapore @culturelink_sg , ChamberMade @chamber.made especially @kylie.mcr , ArtFactory SG @artfactorysg , and the teams at Asia TOPA, Footscray Community Arts. The performance is a @culturelink_sg production in partnership with @chamber.made and commissioned by @esplanadesingapore . It received its world premiere on 31 August 2024 at the SingTel Waterfront Theatre, Singapore. It is being presented for Asia TOPA by Footscray Community Arts. The exhibition is being created with Sam I-shan @samishan curatorial consultant, Benjamin Bannan as exhibition designer, and support from Zilberman Gallery @zilbermangallery Berlin’s Lusin Reinsch @lusinsch , Lotte Laub @lottelaub , Gizem Demircelik @gizemdemircelik . It will be many weeks on the road leaving the boys here on the other side of the earth, so thank you too to my husband and little one! Onward! Photo from performance by Joseph Nair @roundthebout , detail of artwork “The Suitcase Is A Little Bit Rotten” by South Ho @southho66 .

It still feels surreal that we made this hour-long monologue performance! Here is the trailer we have just cut from our world premiere at Esplanade Waterfront Theatre Singapore in August/Sept. With so so many thanks to the whole team + CultureLink Sg + Chamber Made, and Esplanade Singapore! Could not have done it without each and everyone of you. Onwards to Melbourne for four performances end of Feb 2025! -———— This new multimedia performance explores memory, inheritance and the family history of visual artist Sim Chi Yin against the setting of the Malayan Emergency. Part documentary and part a speculative look at how we might deal with the past, One Day We’ll Understand excavates hidden histories, Chinese diasporic experiences and the long legacies of colonialism. Through the lens of Sim’s life and camera, we time-travel into her family archive, recovering traces left in the wake of the anti-colonial war in British Malaya and beyond. Drawing on Sim’s large body of evocative photographic and filmic work, probing questions both personal and universal, One Day We’ll Understand transcends the autobiographical to a larger canvas that speaks to memory, loss, trauma, restitution and repair. Led by a Singaporean-Australian creative team, One Day We’ll Understand combines haunting imagery with narration, archival footage, and a driving live score by percussionist Cheryl Ong, giving voice to Sim’s multiple personas as artist, historian, writer, mother and granddaughter, opening up ways to think about our pasts and futures. One Day We’ll Understand is a Culture Link Singapore production in partnership with Chamber Made and commissioned by Esplanade -Theatres on the Bay. It received its world premiere on 31 Aug 2024 at the SingTel Waterfront Theatre, Singapore. Concept / Performer Sim Chi Yin Sound / Performer Cheryl Ong Director Tamara Saulwick Dramaturg Kok Heng Leun Video Artist Nick Roux Lighting Design Andy Lim Technical Manager Yap Seok Hui Executive Producer Goh Ching Lee

Friends in Berlin, an installation of my “Shifting Sands” work will open in a group show next Saturday 23 May, at Zilberman Gallery @zilbermangallery . Cruising Territories 26.05 – 11.07.2026 Artists: Heba Y. Amin, Janet Bellotto, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Fatoş İrwen, Sim Chi Yin, Wie-yi T. Lauw, and Cengiz Tekin Curated by: Ece Ateş @edgethefridge & Lusin Reinsch @lusinsch /cruising_territories-en-e414.html Congrats to all gallery colleagues and participating artists! Congrats and thanks to curators Lusin Reinsch and Ece Ates! Pictured are Lusin and Ece installing my work last week. Very sorry to have to miss the opening — I’ll be in Singapore! But will be back after for anyone who might like a short tour. Look forward to seeing everyone’s work! ———— A larger installation of this “Shifting Sands” work was shown at the @gropiusbau ’s “Indigo Waves” exhibition in 2023. Text by Lusin Reinsch: Sand has become the silent architect of our age: the bones of cities, the hidden currency of progress. In Shifting Sands (2017–ongoing), Sim Chi Yin transforms this material into a visual inquiry into its looming scarcity and the uneven economies of its extraction and trade. Rooted in her connection to Singapore—the world’s largest importer of sand per capita—the project traces the global circuits through which land is dredged, transported, and reassembled elsewhere. Moving between aerial, near-abstract landscapes and intimate documentary encounters, Sim connects sites of accelerated development with those of erosion and loss, particularly in the Mekong Delta, where entire communities face the collapse of their ground. Oscillating between the monumental and the personal, Shifting Sands unfolds as both elegy and investigation, foregrounding the human and ecological costs embedded in the foundations of modernity, and alluding to how the promise of progress for some is inextricable from dispossession for others.

Flying to Singapore to reunite with Tamara Saulwick @tamsaulwick to pitch our performance “One Day We’ll Understand” to delegates gathered there for the ISPA International Society for the Performing Arts annual congress. Produced by CultureLink Sg @culturelink.sg / Goh Ching Lee in collaboration with Chamber Made, @chamber.made our performance is one of ten works selected to make these pitches. /news/724850/Ten-Projects-Selected-for-Pitch-New-Works-at-ISPAs-2026-Singapore-Congress.htm The performance premiered at @esplanadesingapore in August 2024 and toured to @asiatopa in Melbourne in March 2025. The hour-long monologue won "best multimedia design" in The Straits Times' theatre awards last year for Nick Roux's work! And two nominations for theatre awards in Australia. Here goes! Director Tamara Saulwick Dramaturg Kok Heng Leun @hengleun Musician Cheryl Ong @cheryleatschips Multimedia artist / sound engineer Nick Roux @enjay.are Executive producer Goh Ching Lee @culturelink.sg Production manager Yap Seok Hui @sssseeeeooookkkk Lighting design Andy Lim With production and support from Kylie McRae @kylie.mcr Photos from Esplanade / Singapore premiere by Joseph Nair @roundthebout and @bryanvanderbeek @nacsingapore @ispaglobal

What memories do everyday objects carry with them? In 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴, from 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘺 𝘞𝘦’𝘭𝘭 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥, artist Sim Chi Yin reflects on memory, absence, and the traces people leave behind. Pairing photographs of belongings with cinematic landscapes, the work reveals how ordinary objects can hold unrecorded stories. Once used in everyday life and struggle, the belongings are presented alongside landscapes shaped by absence and remembrance. Together, the images create spaces suspended between past and present, inviting us to consider how memories linger quietly within places and things. See 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 as part of 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴, on view through 2 Aug 2026. In celebration of International Museum Day on 18 May, enjoy free admission to all exhibitions. Plan your visit at the link in bio. ___ Presented together in Gallery 4, 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘮 invite you to discover how art is experienced, interpreted, and carried across time and space. #SingaporeArtMuseum #SAMCollection #SAMTalkingObjects

Friends in Hong Kong, final weeks to catch this group exhibition at @taikwuncontemporary Tai Kwun Contemporary 大館當代美術館 “Stay Connected: Supplying the Globe, Art and China since 2008”, curated by Pi Li hi_pi_li and Ying Kwok @yingkwoks , with associate curators Jill Angel Chun @jilllangel , Shuman Wang. https://www.taikwun.hk/en/programme/detail/stay-connected-supplying-the-globe/1714 I have a couple of works in the show, “Remnants” and “Requiem”, from my long project around the memory of the anti-colonial war in Malaya. I won’t get to see the show but here are some installation views by Kwan Sheung Chi, Courtesy of Tai Kwun Contemporary. 「保持在線：全球供應」展覽場景，大館當代美術館，香港，2026 相片由大館當代美術館提供，攝影：關尚智 Exhibition view of Stay Connected: Supplying the Globe, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, 2026. Thank you too to Tai Kwun for having me speak at your two-day forum around archives and memory last weekend. It was precious to be in conversation with Susan Pui San Lok , moderated by H.G. Masters @hgmasters8888 . Very sorry to not have made it there in person! Congrats to all other artists in the show! @zilbermangallery @hanarttzgallery

Opening at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art @kempermuseum , this group exhibition with some of my “Shifting Sands” work. /exhibition/second-nature With many thanks to the curators Jessica May @karenjaynoah , Marshall N. Price @mnormanprice and team(s) who have looked after this touring show. -— May 21st, 2026—September 12th, 2026 Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene The first major exhibition to examine the Anthropocene through the lens of contemporary photography, comprised of 45 photo-based artists working in a variety of artistic methods from studios and sites across the globe, Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene explores the complexities of this proposed new age. Collectively, these artists offer compelling visual imagery necessary for picturing the Anthropocene: aerial views of beautiful but toxic sites, collages that incorporate archival photographs to counter colonial narratives, depictions of urbanism on an unimaginable scale, and imagined yet precarious futures. In doing so, they address urgent issues such as vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the deeply rooted and painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma. The exhibition is organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, The Trustees of Reservations, Lincoln, Massachusetts. The exhibition is curated by Jessica May, Executive Director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. A traveling exhibition, Second Nature has been shown at the Nasher Museum @nashermuseum (August 2024 – January 2025), Cantor Arts Center at Stanford (February – August 2025), and the Anchorage Museum (October 2025 – April 2026). @zilbermangallery

Looking forward to being back in Singapore briefly for the opening of “After The Monsoon” 21 May at @nationalgallerysingapore . I will be showing some 20 works from my project around the memory of the anti-colonial war in Malaya, including this image from my “Interventions” series which is in the collection of the @singaporeartmuseum — a reinterpretation of the archival photographs of the Malayan war in the Imperial War Museum, UK. With so many thanks to curator Kathleen Ditzig @k_tanwilson and all involved! —— https://www.nationalgallery.sg/sg/en/exhibitions/After-the-Monsoon-Art-War-in-Southeast-Asia.html After the Monsoon: Art and War in Southeast Asia After the Monsoon: Art and War in Southeast Asia offers a thematic exploration of how war has been remembered and reconsidered. It surveys works made during and after the storm of conflicts caused by World War II and the Vietnam War to chart the evolving roles of art and artists in times of crises. Whether for propaganda or protest, official memorialisation or private meditation, these works of devastation portray a powerful message of healing and hope that still speaks to us today. Moving beyond social, historical and political dimensions, After the Monsoon highlights invisible or overlooked aspects of war, ecological ramifications, historical erasures and systemic legacies in the environments around us. When: 22 May – 18 Oct 2026 Where: City Hall Wing, Level 3, Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries 1 & 2, Special Exhibition Gallery 3 and City Hall Chambers. Image: Sim Chi Yin, “Interventions: Farming, 2018”. Pigment print, foil on glass (set of 13), 60.5 x 43cm. Collection of Singapore Art Museum. ©Sim Chi Yin. Courtesy the artist and @zilbermangallery , Berlin, Istanbul. Original archival image: @imperialwarmuseums , UK.

Friends in London, it doesn’t look like I will make it over soon but I have three glass works on lightbox stands in the group exhibition “I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies” at @autographabp which is in its final weeks now! Closes 21 March. .uk/exhibitions/i-still-dream-of-lost-vocabularies But I will give a talk on Zoom next Tuesday March 10, with artist Arpita Akhanda @arpitaakhanda and curator Bindi Vora @bindi_vora . Memory, Time Travel and Reparative Storytelling Tuesday 10 March || 6:30pm - 7:30pm (GMT) Registration: .uk/events/memory-time-travel-and-reparative-storytelling @zilbermangallery Installation photographs by Kate Elliott. Art work detail photographs by South Ho.

My video work “Requiem”, 2017, continues to tour with the “Disobedience Archive” @disobedience_archive group exhibition curated by Marco Scotini @marco_scotini , this time at the Migros Museum @migrosmuseum in Zurich, in collaboration with Raqs Media Collective @raqsmediacollective . First shown at the Venice Biennale @labiennale in 2024 in this single-channel form, “Requiem” continues on its own path, in fine company, in different iterations as the “Disobedience Archive” journeys on. With many thanks to all involved! -—— https://migrosmuseum.ch/en/exhibitions/disobedience-archive-canopy-for-broken-time https://migrosmuseum.ch/storage/exhibition-images/Ausstellungen/2026/DOA/DOA_Booklet_EN.pdf @zilbermangallery

Last month, in Singapore, I gave two talks as part of winning the inaugural Women in Focus Art Prize from Objectifs - Centre for Photography and Film @objectifscentre in Singapore. The prize acknowledges mid-career women artists making lens-based work — a particularly laudable focus, given the industry’s interest in “emerging” or “established” artists. Mid-career — or middle-aged, as I’ve been (half)joking — is often an unsexy but crucial phase. Thank you for the support! Congratulations to all finalists and runners-up! .sg/women-in-focus-art-prize-2025/ On Jan 21, I gave a lunchtime talk to patrons, curators and supporters — doing a short performance lecture, after which an engaged conversation followed. Thank you to all who attended. I also gave a public lecture in the evening on my 20-year career, starting out as a writing journalist doing photo-based social advocacy projects on the side, to becoming a documentary photographer and eventually a research-based artist. With many thanks to the jurors Dr. Charmaine Toh @charmaine.toh , Yvonne Tham and Lourdes Abela-Samson @materialitygirl , the Objectifs team led by Emmeline Yong @emmeyong , as well as to curator Sam I-shan @samishan for nominating me. With gratitude, 🙇.