The Artists Village in Singapore: Open Studios as Counter-Cartography and Critical Spatial Practice

This article re-examines The Artists Village (TAV) as a contemporary artist grouping in Singapore that emerged in response to the country’s rapid urbanization and evolving socio-political landscape in the late 1980s. Rather than viewing TAV solely as a marginal or oppositional enclave, I argue for its reappraisal as a form of critical spatial practice and counter-cartography—a provisional community that negotiated the constraints of a tightly regulated Southeast Asian city-state. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre, Grant Kester, and Joanne Leow, I frame TAV’s early “open studio” practices at Lorong Gambas (1989) as dialogical, para-curatorial gestures that enacted new modes of inhabiting, making, and presenting art beyond institutional norms. I further explore how TAV redefined the role of the artist and public engagement with contemporary art, emphasizing performativity, materiality, and—most crucially—social cooperation.

ARTMargins, Volume 14, Issue 3, pp. 74-96.

doi:10.1162/ARTM.a.6

https://direct.mit.edu/artm/article/14/3/74/133849/The-Artists-Village-in-Singapore-Open-Studios-as

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