Local artists seed grassroots networks across borders

Home-grown artists Ernest Goh and Alecia Neo spearhead a visual arts residency on Nikoi Island in Indonesia, while The Artists Village collective explore collaborations with Johor-based artists

- Shawn Hoo

Artist Veronyka Lau (foreground, right) with Nikoi Island staff and the sculpture inspired by the expressive hand gestures of the island's service staff. The Artists Village collective launched the trans-jb translocal agenda and staged a show at Senso Art Gallery Cafe in Johor Bahru involving Johor Bahru-based artists and Ireen Tan (left). Tulisan Nusantara's writer-in-residence Khairani Barokka (seated, right) holding a talk with Cempedak Island staff.

(PHOTO: COURTESY OF VERONYKA LAU PHOTO: THE ARTISTS VILLAGE PHOTO: TULISAN NUSANTARA)

For four weeks, Singaporean artists Veronyka Lau and Jennifer Teo studied the hands of the service staff at Nikoi Island and turned the women's delicate gestures into a sculpture.

The work now sits in the gift shop of the private Indonesian island, as a reminder to visitors of the labour behind the making of an eco-resort.

Lau, who had earlier made a work observing the hands of Singapore's hawkers, says: "I feel that the hands are very expressive. There's a beauty in them."

She made her latest work under the auspices of the Ubah Rumah Residency, located off the east coast of Bintan, which has allowed her to make unexpected connections to neighbouring islands.

"You're looking in between state narratives and finding experiences on the ground, synthesising that with your own experience of how you're living on your side of the border," she adds.

The artist-led residency, created by Singaporean artists Alecia Neo and Ernest Goh in 2022, has hosted close to 30 Southeast Asian artists to date and is located about 85km from Singapore. Goh met Nikoi's Singapore-based Australian hotelier Andrew Dixon through the nonprofit Conservation International, which both parties had worked with on environmental projects.