*exhibition extended to 3 dec
across the way gathers the constellations of Salty Xi Jie Ng’s interdimensional practice and presents her long-term body of work as Baibai Research Group, a transdisciplinary lab that encompasses spirit studies embedded in the everyday vernacular. The exhibition unfolds as portals between realms, in a conveyance of whispers and creative manifestations that reverberate through the lush, mystical landscapes of the living and the dearly departed. In this multiverse, we are invited by the artist to engage in acts of remembrance, foregrounded by her research experiments with the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository and her ongoing relationship with religious good merchant Ban Kah Hiang, and activated as performances, rituals, and intimate encounters through individual and collective journeys across the cosmos.
This exhibition is curated by Kimberly Shen, and supported by starch, Ban Kah Hiang and the National Arts Council. With collaborators: Jaria Ramakisoon, Anise, ila, Shawn Creeden.
11 Nov - 3 Dec
Fri 4-8pm (except 1 Dec), Sat & Sun 1-8pm
starch - 81 Tagore Lane, Tag A Building, 02-11 Singapore, 787502
<><><><><><><>
COSMIC SUNSET PORTAL OPENING
11.11 - 6pm with performances
a vast ((((shimmer))))
XUE
A butoh choreography that dances the language of distance and estrangement, lingering along the axis of four sighs. Through this deeply personal sharing, XUE crosses thresholds in search of the ghosts of four rooms within their ancestral home, dancing through vacancies left by familial denials and absurd dislocations towards an impassable epilogue.
Breathing, Gasping, Words Stuck In My Throat: Iteration II in honour of your lingering spirit
Zheng Jialei
Struggling to convey the entirety of personal embodied feelings of displacement and fragmentation as a diasporic individual, the artist sought to create an alienated language derived from contemporary vernacular of English, Mandarin, computational codes and emojis. In an absurd yet honest jest, this second iteration of the work is a private ritual in which the artist reads out loud a second letter, written in the script, for her great grandfather. She hopes to reconcile with family histories.
sky is dark, the ripened fall away
Salty & Ruby Jayaseelan
Sitting with the ancestors in a timeless space, gathering, decaying. Is it possible to stay without breaking apart? What grows out of death? This ritual-performance-prayer unfolds as a weighted portal of love and remembrance by two living descendants, in communion with crumbling ancestral inheritances.
<><><><><><><>
PROGRAMS
MORE INFO & REGISTRATION: bit.ly/acrosstheway_EB
by hand across realms - joss paper mobile workshop I
12.11 (Sun), 3–5pm In traditional Chinese ancestor worship, standardised combinations of joss paper are sent by descendants to the departed through utilitarian fire rituals. Rethinking this practice as well as the inherent capitalist afterlife it points to, participants are invited to discuss the meanings of joss paper (while referencing Salty’s glossary), the religious industry, remembrance, afterlife, and prayer, before selecting their own joss paper and making mobiles/sculptures that alchemize their intentions.
Spirited gatherings and dream visitation candy-making with ila, Salty, XUE and Kimberly Shen
18.11 (Sat), 3–4.30pm
Join artists ila, Salty and XUE in a conversation over cooking, in a dialogic crossing of artistic practices in communion with the other-than-human. Moderated by curator Kimberly Shen, the conversation dives into personal and collective acts of remembrance, through cultural histories, embodied identities, spiritual lineages and kinship. While in dialogue, the artists will prepare dream visitation candy, with the guidance of Salty. This food-based artwork is in constant experimentation, borne from Salty’s research and dreaming as part of the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository.
by hand across realms - joss paper mobile workshop II & ancestor worship ritual
26.11 (Sun), 10am–12pm
Like workshop I, participants are invited to discuss the meanings of joss paper (while referencing Salty’s glossary), the religious industry, remembrance, afterlife, and prayer, before selecting their own joss paper and making mobiles/sculptures that alchemize their intentions. The session concludes with an ancestor worship ritual burning the sculptures made.
ancestor dreaming circle #3
26 Nov (Sun), 3–4.30pm
Where did your ancestors walk and pray? What skies did they dream under, and leave behind? How are their visits to you? What does ancestor mean?
This intimate gathering is a space for sharing and discussing lineages, ancestor dream visitations, and ancestral objects. We will then create ritual objects that can be used to connect with ancestors known and unknown, as well as enter into a porous space of guided nap-meditation-dream.
she was radiant: dream visitation teatime and return procession
3 Dec (Sun), 530pm
Gather for a communal activation of the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository (bit.ly/advr), languidly reading dream visitations over tea and sweets previously offered to the 土地公 God of the Land installation. To close the exhibition, we walk to the Tagore forest at sunset to return a thriving Alocacia Wentii plant to the land from which it came. Come with a tea mug.
<><><><><><><>
Salty Xi Jie Ng is an artist and educator co-creating semi-fictional paradigms for the real and imagined lives of humans within the poetics of the interdimensional intimate vernacular. Often playing with relational possibilities, her transdisciplinary, constellational practice proposes a collective re-imagining through humour, care, subversion, discomfort, institutional critique, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal, in hopes of uncovering hidden selves and histories in kinship with the erotic and other-than-human. She is the lead artist of Both Sides, Now 2023-24 and an akashic records practitioner.
saltythunder.net | http://baibairesearch.art | instagram.com/saltythunder13
Kimberly Shen is a curator and arts educator based in Singapore. Her practice research engages with feminist thinking and consciousness, and seeks to affirm the gendered gestures and vocabularies that transcend bodies, spaces, and institutions of knowledge. She is co-founder of dblspce, an integrated studio and incubator dedicated to artistic practice. She is currently Programme Leader (Fine Art) at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London.
www.kimberlyshen.com | instagram.com/kimberlyshen
poster design by XUE
across the way gathers the constellations of Salty Xi Jie Ng’s interdimensional practice and presents her long-term body of work as Baibai Research Group, a transdisciplinary lab that encompasses spirit studies embedded in the everyday vernacular. The exhibition unfolds as portals between realms, in a conveyance of whispers and creative manifestations that reverberate through the lush, mystical landscapes of the living and the dearly departed. In this multiverse, we are invited by the artist to engage in acts of remembrance, foregrounded by her research experiments with the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository and her ongoing relationship with religious good merchant Ban Kah Hiang, and activated as performances, rituals, and intimate encounters through individual and collective journeys across the cosmos.
This exhibition is curated by Kimberly Shen, and supported by starch, Ban Kah Hiang and the National Arts Council. With collaborators: Jaria Ramakisoon, Anise, ila, Shawn Creeden.
11 Nov - 3 Dec
Fri 4-8pm (except 1 Dec), Sat & Sun 1-8pm
starch - 81 Tagore Lane, Tag A Building, 02-11 Singapore, 787502
<><><><><><><>
COSMIC SUNSET PORTAL OPENING
11.11 - 6pm with performances
a vast ((((shimmer))))
XUE
A butoh choreography that dances the language of distance and estrangement, lingering along the axis of four sighs. Through this deeply personal sharing, XUE crosses thresholds in search of the ghosts of four rooms within their ancestral home, dancing through vacancies left by familial denials and absurd dislocations towards an impassable epilogue.
Breathing, Gasping, Words Stuck In My Throat: Iteration II in honour of your lingering spirit
Zheng Jialei
Struggling to convey the entirety of personal embodied feelings of displacement and fragmentation as a diasporic individual, the artist sought to create an alienated language derived from contemporary vernacular of English, Mandarin, computational codes and emojis. In an absurd yet honest jest, this second iteration of the work is a private ritual in which the artist reads out loud a second letter, written in the script, for her great grandfather. She hopes to reconcile with family histories.
sky is dark, the ripened fall away
Salty & Ruby Jayaseelan
Sitting with the ancestors in a timeless space, gathering, decaying. Is it possible to stay without breaking apart? What grows out of death? This ritual-performance-prayer unfolds as a weighted portal of love and remembrance by two living descendants, in communion with crumbling ancestral inheritances.
<><><><><><><>
PROGRAMS
MORE INFO & REGISTRATION: bit.ly/acrosstheway_EB
by hand across realms - joss paper mobile workshop I
12.11 (Sun), 3–5pm In traditional Chinese ancestor worship, standardised combinations of joss paper are sent by descendants to the departed through utilitarian fire rituals. Rethinking this practice as well as the inherent capitalist afterlife it points to, participants are invited to discuss the meanings of joss paper (while referencing Salty’s glossary), the religious industry, remembrance, afterlife, and prayer, before selecting their own joss paper and making mobiles/sculptures that alchemize their intentions.
Spirited gatherings and dream visitation candy-making with ila, Salty, XUE and Kimberly Shen
18.11 (Sat), 3–4.30pm
Join artists ila, Salty and XUE in a conversation over cooking, in a dialogic crossing of artistic practices in communion with the other-than-human. Moderated by curator Kimberly Shen, the conversation dives into personal and collective acts of remembrance, through cultural histories, embodied identities, spiritual lineages and kinship. While in dialogue, the artists will prepare dream visitation candy, with the guidance of Salty. This food-based artwork is in constant experimentation, borne from Salty’s research and dreaming as part of the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository.
by hand across realms - joss paper mobile workshop II & ancestor worship ritual
26.11 (Sun), 10am–12pm
Like workshop I, participants are invited to discuss the meanings of joss paper (while referencing Salty’s glossary), the religious industry, remembrance, afterlife, and prayer, before selecting their own joss paper and making mobiles/sculptures that alchemize their intentions. The session concludes with an ancestor worship ritual burning the sculptures made.
ancestor dreaming circle #3
26 Nov (Sun), 3–4.30pm
Where did your ancestors walk and pray? What skies did they dream under, and leave behind? How are their visits to you? What does ancestor mean?
This intimate gathering is a space for sharing and discussing lineages, ancestor dream visitations, and ancestral objects. We will then create ritual objects that can be used to connect with ancestors known and unknown, as well as enter into a porous space of guided nap-meditation-dream.
she was radiant: dream visitation teatime and return procession
3 Dec (Sun), 530pm
Gather for a communal activation of the Ancestor Dream Visitation Repository (bit.ly/advr), languidly reading dream visitations over tea and sweets previously offered to the 土地公 God of the Land installation. To close the exhibition, we walk to the Tagore forest at sunset to return a thriving Alocacia Wentii plant to the land from which it came. Come with a tea mug.
<><><><><><><>
Salty Xi Jie Ng is an artist and educator co-creating semi-fictional paradigms for the real and imagined lives of humans within the poetics of the interdimensional intimate vernacular. Often playing with relational possibilities, her transdisciplinary, constellational practice proposes a collective re-imagining through humour, care, subversion, discomfort, institutional critique, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal, in hopes of uncovering hidden selves and histories in kinship with the erotic and other-than-human. She is the lead artist of Both Sides, Now 2023-24 and an akashic records practitioner.
saltythunder.net | http://baibairesearch.art | instagram.com/saltythunder13
Kimberly Shen is a curator and arts educator based in Singapore. Her practice research engages with feminist thinking and consciousness, and seeks to affirm the gendered gestures and vocabularies that transcend bodies, spaces, and institutions of knowledge. She is co-founder of dblspce, an integrated studio and incubator dedicated to artistic practice. She is currently Programme Leader (Fine Art) at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London.
www.kimberlyshen.com | instagram.com/kimberlyshen
poster design by XUE