Salty - Xi Jie Ng - 黄晞竭

miracles breed themselves and become responsibilities, which are always bigger than ourselves, esp when deeply guided by the unseen 🍋 made it back to my ancestral village recently. steeping in family history and diaspora teaches me about joy and sorrow, obligation and freedom. the three of us would agree that whenever we’re together my late grandparents are with us too. discovering my long lost aunt (ultra nurturing grandma constantly filming her life) & uncle (funny brash caring super strong pomelo farmer) show me what family love can be, instantly. i adore our chemistry. she and i take turns filming each other. he barks endearingly at me to put on more layers, i concede like a teenager. he is disappointed i have a cough and strongly suggests i THROW AWAY MY CHINESE MEDICINE TO GET DRUNK WITH HIM ON HOME-BREWED RICE WINE 🍻 乾！ 92-year-old grand uncle has me write my name, then repeatedly exclaims, “good name!” in hokkien. everything is in hokkien and mandarin; english is but the strange embodied proof of migration. i start saying yes and exclaiming in their hokkien: heh, hio, heh wu naw! almost everyone in the village is surnamed like me and hence a distant relative. the men are just like my late grandfather - hands softly resting on legs gently crossed, cigarette held between fingers made rough by labour, warm hokkien tones emitting from a smiling weathered face. and pomelos everywhere all the time. downright grateful to be combining deep ancestral work with my creative practice, although it calls for so much on some days. thank you infinitely. learning deeply what it means to trust the unfolding - guided by the fragrance of pomelo, and that light, refreshing taste. love to everyone who shares in the unfolding and on your own ancestral paths.

Dreams -that fill your heart and drive your gut- do come true. A deep conviction to find my family’s ancestral village in pomelo land Fujian -and making my father come along- led to the arms of newfound relatives, ensconced in the memory of my late grandparents. [Insert 成语/idiom that means blessed by ancestors af on magic quest tracing trail of water leading to source in mysterious hills] My grandpa, a weathered Hokkien labourer-turned-businessman and darn nostalgic cancerian like me, had built roads, a school, pavilion for farmers and schoolkids, renovated the village’s dragon god temple. He found the place his parents had painfully left for a better life, and I knew I had to too. He kept returning, and I know I will too. Thank you to KC Tan of Hokkien Huay Kuan for helping us reunite with our long lost relatives. We met the rebuilt ancestral house, in a village where many share my surname 黄, where fat, yellow, world famous pomelos grow everywhere. I was spontaneously invited -ordained- to stay with my uncle thrice removed (expert pomelo farmer) and his jolly loving wife. So much red tea and cigarettes. So many stories of my grandparents. So much joy at reunion. Intergenerational healing from decades-old misunderstanding. Curiosity, care and constant reminders to drink hot water (evidently found my people). Meal after meal clinking of chopsticks on porcelain bowls. Speaking mandarin and hokkien everyday. Sunrises and sunsets of my ancestors. Grandpa’s adorable 91-year-old cousin and his old style house. Interviewing him in hokkien (then subtitling it for my younger cousins). Late season pomelos, a lil dry and tart. Drinking more alcohol than I ever have in my life, in honour of my grandpa’s times there. Post-dinner entertaining my relatives by singing karaoke by myself for 1.5 hours 😭 家谱 appearing from nowhere. Piecing history together. All the questions and mysteries. Praying and more praying. Knowing who I am and who I am not (english so foreign). Time travel. A gift for life. If you listen (and embody improbable belief), your smiling ancestors can guide you to repair and rebirth. Grateful beyond words and forever changed. 🤍 浮坪村，崎岭乡，平和县，漳州，福建🤍

On Friday April 17th (5-7:30p) we will welcome Salty Xi Jie Ng @saltythunder13 to facilitate an Ancestor Dream Circle gathering here at the shop. This is an intimate gathering and palliative portal at the intersection of dreams and ancestral connection. Intentionally being held during Qing Ming Festival (the Chinese ancestor worship festival), we will meet in the cozy hearth of Fumi to discuss lineages, dream visitations, and share ancestral objects, followed by creating personal ritual objects that can be used to connect with ancestors known and unknown, then end with a guided meditation-dreaming. Dream tea and materials are provided. We have been excited to bring Salty to the Fumi space. We cannot think of a better facilitator for this work. We hope you can join us. See the link in our bio to sign up. Keep in mind there are a limited number of spots available for this event.

just like that half a year went by in Nusantara home. particles of time stream through my small bones. in this cleaved life it’s time to float to the other side. at 39 life feels like honey ageing. a smouldering to amber. all the quiet moments where trees endlessly, slowly, dance beneath a late afternoon ang mo kio sky. one more bike ride in my neighbourhood. one more hug with grandma. one more dunk underwater at yishun swimming pool. one more whiff of the cool tropical night air after a long scorching day.

thank you sacred sparkling springs 💦 ~ water guardians 🐉 ~ grandma guardian of springwater collection point 👵🏻✨ ~ infinite shrines ~ frog god ~ winding mountain paths ~ roadside restaurant uncle cook of cosiest tamago-don ~ grandma indigo🔹 ~ goddess Amaterasu 🌞 ~ old healing onsen waters ~ happy forest spirits gathered around wild onsens ~ toilets that whisper their grace and those who maintain them ~ multifunction bidets and warm toilet seats 🚽 ~ wacky tv ~ surprise march dusting ❄️ ~ my parents for this road trip of our precarious combination which i couldn’t have afforded (including all the fights which were lessons) ~ faith in family-ness so let’s go onsen-hopping alone in the snow for $11sgd while covering up all the tattoos with ridiculously obvious stickers. so cherish every last darn drop of sparkling spring water. so sleep in the deep earth energies of Mt Aso, held in dreams by Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto. blessed astro new year and spring equinox ~ Eid Mubarak ~ peace ~ がんばりましょう ~ 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🫀🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Meet the performers: Salty Xi Jie Ng is an artist, educator, and akashic records practitioner based between Singapore and Turtle Island. Serving an enchanted process guided by the noumenal and divinatory, her transdisciplinary practice is a collaborative, alchemical site tending to the erotic, ancestry, end-of-life, dream imaginaries, and relationships with the spirit world. She has performed at Goethe-Institut Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, Shedhalle (Zurich), Taipei Artist Village (Taiwan), Mi Hak Gwan (Korea), as well as the 2nd PDX International Butoh Fest. Salty is the 2024 recipient of the Chamberlain Award for social practice artists and a proud member of the Singapore Butoh Collective. [saltythunder.net] Salty will perform on Saturday, May 16th. Tickets and info at: https://northwestbutohfestival.crd.co/ Images by Sailesh Aswath, Mune and Seva Baskin

𝙋𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙡𝙖 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙚 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝘿𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 Artwork activation by Salty Xi Jie Ng 📅 Saturday, 21 March, 3pm - 4.30pm 📍 dblspce (Peninsula Shopping Centre, 02-20) 💔 Please bring an item from an experience of heartbreak that you wish to let go of. It will not be returned. What are you heartbroken about? Drawing from Salty Xi Jie Ng’s @buangkok.mall.life.club project (2020-21), this session considers what it might mean to collect, circulate, exchange, and aid another in the release of heartbreak. Attendees are invited to bring an item from an experience of heartbreak for a temporary altar, engage in a participatory score around the mall, before a circle for exchange and delegated release. --- Salty Xi Jie Ng is an artist, performer, researcher, and educator based between Singapore and Portland, Oregon. Serving an enchanted process guided by the mantic and divinatory, her transdisciplinary practice is an alchemical site in collaboration with people and their lives. In hopes of uncovering hidden selves and histories in kinship with the other-than-human, she tends to the erotic, ancestry, ageing, the inner worlds of older women, the end-of-life, and relationships with the departed and spirit worlds, while examining artistic labour and what gets to be called art. Image: Salty Xi Jie Ng, Buangkok Mall Life Club (2020-2021) 🔗 Registration link in bio or head to dblspce.com/circulations

Day 2 of 𝘊𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 unfolds through a series of walks, activations, and collective listening experiences across Peninsula Shopping Centre and beyond. 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝟬𝟭: 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗻𝗴 📅 21 March 2026, 11am – 12pm This guided walk with Susie Wong retraces the site of tickleart, an art space in showcases at CityLink Mall, co-ran by the artist between 2004 to 2008. By reflecting on tickleart’s presence within a commercial retail environment, the walk connects site with memories and archival materials, and will point to ways in which tickleart inhabited and negotiated this space – foregrounding questions of visibility, display and public mediation. 𝗣𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝗮 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆 𝗫𝗶 𝗝𝗶𝗲 𝗡𝗴 📅 21 March 2026, 3pm – 4.30pm What are you heartbroken about? Drawing from Salty Xi Jie Ng’s @buangkok.mall.life.club project (2020-21), this session considers what it might mean to collect, circulate, exchange, and aid another in the release of heartbreak. Attendees are invited to bring an item from an experience of heartbreak for a temporary altar, engage in a participatory score around the mall, before a circle for exchange and delegated release. 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 / 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗗𝗝 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗩𝗶𝗸𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗵 𝗞𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 📅 21 March 2026, 6pm – 8pm This workshop invites a small group to collaboratively record, collect, sequence, and mix Peninsula Shopping Centre's ambient textures into a live listening party and performance. After a brief introduction to DJ software and hardware, participants will head out individually to capture field recordings using their phones, focusing only on sounds emerging from the people and spaces in and around the mall before gathering back at dblspce for a live group mix and shared listening experience. Limited capacity. Registration required for each programme by 18 March. 🔗 Registration link in bio.

“Grief is perhaps the last and final translation of love” - @ocean_vuong These tender pieces are looking for gentle homes. I hope they can accompany you with softness in this time. Weeping Together / Grandma Mould Hankies 一起哭/ 奶奶霉菌手帕 Digital print on cotton voile, embroidery (2024) Approx. 20 x 20 cm each (with variation) Open edition - currently 113 pieces 77 SGD each (including registered local mail) [70 USD each with intl registered mail] Link in bio “I always carry one of my father’s handkerchiefs. Should I be sad, he is the one to console me.” - Vinciane Despret, Our Grateful Dead A few weeks after my paternal grandma’s transition, I rubbed her personal items on bread to make mould, so as to prolong her existence through fungi as carrier. The items were tissue paper, spectacles, TV remote, lipstick, hairbrush, & compression socks from her deathbed. Embroidered is the symbol of a circle enclosing a dot - a mark once used by the illiterate to sign paper offerings burnt for departed loved ones. The practice prevails out of superstition, even though signatures are considered more sincere. “Recast here, the symbol opens a passage between the human and spiritual realms: an imprint of identity that reunites by crossing the boundaries of life and death.” [@leehonghwee ] Commissioned for required by sorrow at Winter Protozone 17, @shedhalle , Nov ‘24 - Jan ‘25 Exhibited at Towards Happiness, Prosperity & Progress, @theprivatemuseum , Oct - Dec ’25 🎐 Images 1, 7, 8 courtesy @theprivatemuseum

[Merch alert ✨] Singapore Minstrel was made by dogged DIY dreamers. I remember feeling like I could not die before I finished making it. Busking is freedom is art is invention is ancient is raw is genius is street is life. It cannot be controlled, needs space to be what it is, and reflects the state of freedom, expression, and originality in a country. How did we fare then, and now? 🌴 A lil story to share: [slide 3] a cool lil boy from Tampines, Chindian like Roy, loved rocking out to Roy’s show with his guitar. Eventually he acted in the film, as little Roy -who taught himself juggling, acrobatics, fire eating- and with Roy as a mini Pierrot clown. Thank you Nesty ❤️ 🤡 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗵 which just about sold out a decade ago! Remaining stock will be sold after the screening - DM if you’re interested and I’ll be in touch. ♦️ Tote - $18 ♦️ Shirt - $22 (2XS to 2XL) ♦️ Film poster - $11 ♦️ Street Found - $22 Street Found is a 60-page collection of Roy’s philosophical outsider poetry, drawings, and pareidolic studies consisting phone photos of shapes found in street corners. He contemplates everyday life, busking and art: from Ah Bengs and Ang Mo Kio St 12 laksa to his busking trishaw. 🎪 10th Anniversary Screening 27 Feb, 730-930pm [sold out but will share here if more tics open] @objectifscentre 🎂 Thank you to all these memories and everyone who was part of the film ❤️‍🔥🎐

when i received an impossible vision in my mid 20s to make this film i knew in my bones there was nothing to do but follow it. because @royrocketstar is art and is life and is heart and is soul - truly one of the wildest supremely cosmic things this strange, sterile country does not deserve. i’ve learnt so much from him about art, freedom, expression, belief, kindness, spirit, street-ness, and busking - a profound labour of joy and pain. and from the other buskers -people being themselves- with guts on the streets against the odds of state control and changing public appetites. our bonus features include a fruity Dancing Uncle MTV 🍒- now still busking at 80! likely to attend! it was our deepest honour that the late Lee Wen @rocilila gave us access to his entire raw original music collection, of which i was a big fan, and told us to use anything we wanted 🎐 this film is many hearts, is a bygone era, and i’m immensely grateful it found me🫀 it was made on a low budget, edited on a macbook which died halfway. thank you everyone who believed in this film, helped out, crowdfunded us, programmed us, esp Esmonde @earthwalkerssg for everything you gave, Zu Boon @worthless_dispatch who gave us our premiere at @sgiffest , Viknesh @bbbbbbbbaloo who brought us to @theprojectorsg , @pyleong6 @iamchelseachua to @objectifscentre then and now, and @kirstentan and @amandaleekoe who helped me with the final push. 🌴 Special 10th Anniversary Screening 27 Feb, 730-930pm [full but will notify if there are dropouts] @objectifscentre ❤️‍🔥 With bonus features, post-show dialogue, merch and STREET FOUND, Roy’s 2022 book of poetry and images 🌀 Registration link in bio 🤹🏼‍♂️ Trailer - bit.ly/minstreltrailer & prev post Director/producer/editor - @saltythunder13 Asst director/producer + Art Director - @earthwalkerssg Music direction - Azmy + @saltythunder13 Sound design - Dennis Tan Colourist - @isnordzulkarnain singaporeminstrel.com 🎪 Rest in peace Beads Uncle, Uncle Mas, & Lee Wen 🤍

Listening to the mysteries as I molt and pray, as the ouroboros world crumbles and rebuilds 🌊 Thank you 🐍snake🐍 year; I bow to the pain, burrowing, shedding, the songs the wise grandmas and crazy aunties give us always. Sisterhoods are the eternal soup. Make medicinal music with your friends by the ocean. Grandma’s powdered neck is the cosiest place. Romance is a practice, a marathon, a hope, a non-linear space-time surprise. Loving isn’t perfect, but love is. Does the dusky pink spotted moray eel have a name? May the seagrass and dugongs return to Ko Libong. It is done. It washes its centuries-old tresses. It sings new songs. I am ready for tomorrow 🤭🧧🐎 Love to the most hopeful corners of your hearts🎐