SINGAPORE ART WEEK 2026: THE REGION’S PINNACLE VISUAL ARTS SEASON TO EXPERIENCE THE BEST OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN ART
Singapore’s premier visual arts season, Singapore Art Week (SAW), ignites the city from 22 to 31 January 2026. Organised by the National Arts Council, Singapore (NAC) and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SAW 2026 serves as a vital meeting point for the local and international visual arts community.
With opportunities for exchange of ideas and networking between artists, curators and thought leaders, SAW’s growing presence in the region reflects an increasing market potential. Yet, SAW continues to offer accessible and unique art encounters as the island transforms into a canvas for the arts over ten days, with an array of programmes from landmark exhibitions, art fairs to vibrant activations and installations across Singapore.
Shining the spotlight on Southeast Asian art
SAW 2026 continues to bring together artists, curators, thought leaders, professionals and art lovers in the region and the world for network building, artistic engagement and discourse. Through this platform, the visual arts community will reach new audiences, highlighting Singapore’s role as the gateway for artistic exchange in Southeast Asia.
Among the key international showcases is the exclusive Southeast Asian staging of Wan Hai Hotel: Singapore Strait (translated as “Circumnavigating the Sea”), presented by international art fair ART SG and Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum, and curated by X Zhu-Nowell. Exclusively featuring Southeast Asian artists, this unique iteration will transform the lobby of The Warehouse Hotel, a restored heritage property on Robertson Quay into an immersive exhibition space that combines institutional-level curation with a seamless hospitality experience. In this hybrid environment, visitors are drawn into a dynamic world where film and video programmes, site-specific interventions, installations, performances, and artist-led gatherings unfold. Art Outreach presents Digging Stars by Ibrahim Mahama, curated by Clémentine de la Féronnière and Francesca Migliorati, marking the Ghanaian artist’s Southeast Asian debut with new fabric-based works, collages, photographs, and video reflecting on systems of labour, trade, and collective memory.
[Isang Dipang Langit: Fragments of Memory, Fields of Now] Bahay ng Mangingisda (Image courtesy of Oca Villamiel)
Major presentations on Southeast Asian art and artists are also part of SAW 2026’s line-up. Isang Dipang Langit: Fragments of Memory, Fields of Now showcases ten contemporary Filipino artists exploring the boundaries between memory, place, and identity, and chapalang co-curated by Gunalan Nadarajan and Roopesh Sitharan exploring the contemporary practices of ten regional artists that intertwine art and technology. Commissioned by NAC, these presentations invite visitors to delve deeper into the diverse practices of Southeast Asian art.
Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention also continues into SAW 2026, inviting audiences to see Singapore in a new light as local, regional and international contemporary artists present critical artworks that dialogue with the city’s urban fabric – from pre-colonial and colonial landmarks to shopping malls, historic housing estates and greenspaces. The Biennale showcases the vigour of artistic practices and encourages visitors to reflect on our rapid urban development, and speculative futures.
Exploring new frontiers with art and technology
In the realm of art and technology, local, regional and international artists push boundaries of art-making and immersive art experiences. SAW Open Call project Ground Loops presented by Feelers in collaboration with the School for Poetic Computations – a New York-based alternative school exploring art, code, hardware, and critical theory – brings together an eclectic mix of Singapore and New York-based new media artists exploring technology as a tool for art-making. Reworlding, curated by Debbie Ding, investigates the history of virtual reality through the eyes of female contemporary artists from Asia, creating new worlds that foster dialogue around gender, memory, and power in digital space.
The 6th VH AWARD by Hyundai Motor Group returns to SAW for its second Singapore edition, with five commissioned artworks by emerging media artists, selected for their experimental and transcultural approaches. Visitors will soon have the opportunity to experience the new IMBA Theatre at Gardens by the Bay. IMBA will present David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not Smaller and Further Away) in partnership with Lightroom, alongside Botero in Singapore. These immersive exhibitions provide cutting-edge experiences that seamlessly blend art with technology. The former is a production by Lightroom, crafted in collaboration with the celebrated and iconic artist David Hockney, and spans six decades of his work. In contrast, the Botero exhibition is jointly presented with the Fernando Botero Foundation, featuring a multi-format display including the largest exhibition with paintings and sculptures from the family’s collection, the world’s first Botero immersive experience, and monumental sculptures displayed throughout the garden, exclusive to Southeast Asia.
Beyond these presentations, this year’s SAW also includes an “Arts and Tech” focus to foster thought leadership in an emerging sector within Singapore’s visual arts landscape. This includes a panel discussion with international speakers such as Sabine Himmelsbach, Director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel and Victoria Ivanova, R&D Strategic Lead at the Serpentine Galleries in London as well as networking opportunities at Artspace @ Helutrans.
Reinforcing SAW’s regional and international presence
SAW brings together local and international artists, institutions, galleries and audiences, fostering a connected and evolving visual arts ecosystem that further anchors Singapore’s role in the region.
As part of this ecosystem, international platforms such as ART SG and S.E.A. Focus have become key touchpoints for artists, collectors, and gallerists at SAW. ART SG plays a central role in convening the international art world in Asia, extending Singapore’s position as an arts hub the region. This year, S.E.A. Focus joins the leading art fair for the first time within the Sands Expo and Convention Centre. With John Tung remaining at the helm as curator, S.E.A. Focus will continue bringing its distinct curatorial lens on Southeast Asia for the upcoming edition. This collaboration is a powerful convergence of global and regional perspectives – offering visitors a single-ticket, seamless journey through both international presentations and the most exciting voices from Southeast Asia.
Commercial galleries and not-for-profit organisations based in Singapore will also present exhibitions and collector shows, offering an insider’s look into the rigour and diversity of private collections and art-buying in Singapore. Highlights include Human Being Human at The Private Museum featuring selections from the collectors John Chia and Cheryl Loh that examine the human condition through contemporary art. Tanoto Art Foundation will present a group exhibition featuring 23 international artists whose practices centre presence, tactile attention, and the rhythms of the body, while Gajah Gallery’s milestone 30 Years of Gajah: A Retrospective celebrates three decades of artistic exchange in Southeast Asia.
Beyond showcases and presentations, SAW Forum 2026, themed FORCE•FIELDS, invites thought leaders of the visual arts community to engage critically with contemporary artistic practice and discourse. Organised by NAC, National Gallery Singapore (the Gallery) and Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the upcoming edition features three keynote sessions by leading international voices including British art historian Claire Bishop and Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa who examine how individuals navigate and influence complex systems that, in turn, shape contemporary art and society.
Arts organisations will also be hosting their own symposiums, such as STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery’s The Print Show Singapore and Symposium: The Politics of Print, and Art Outreach Basecamp 2026, contributing to the overall growing thought leadership presence at SAW. Withers KhattarWong LLP will be holding an intimate forum about building family legacies through art.
Diverse and accessible experiences for all across the island
Visitors from all walks of life will be able to enjoy and engage in a range of art experiences from well-loved favourites to exciting new programmes.
Light to Night Singapore 2026 marks the Gallery’s 10th edition of the festival and will be extended across 4 vibrant weekends for the first time from 9-31 Jan 2025. With the theme “The Power in Us“, it explores the profound connections forged when people and communities unite through art to reflect, converse, and create. Audiences are invited to shape experiences in fresh, unexpected ways with interactive art installations, crowd-favourite façade projections, and novel programmes and performances. The festivities complement National Gallery Singapore’s ongoing major exhibitions, including Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, which connects the practices of five remarkable Southeast Asian women artists, and Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the largest French Impressionist exhibition ever seen in Southeast Asia.
Tanjong Pagar Distripark will host the debut of Sonic Shaman, Taiwan’s first interdisciplinary sound festival, complete with experimental music performances, sound art installations and art lectures with international artists from the region’s experimental music community. Gillman Barracks will be transformed into a creative playground with The Last Tree Was a Building, large-scale inflatable monkey sculptures by ANTZ complementing the diverse exhibitions presented by its resident art galleries.
Marina Bay Sands’ Where Art Takes Shape will return for its fourth edition with culinary experiences across the property and two exhibitions at ArtScience Museum – a solo showcase by Lawrence Lek, one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, whose works probe the relationship between humans and the machines we create; and a photography exhibition by award-winning British artist Levon Biss which showcases high-magnification portraits of insects from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. At its heart, Where Art Takes Shape brings together the worlds of art, food and culture through seamless experiences that unite people of all ages through the universal language of art.
Art activations will take place on people’s daily commute with Next Stop: Together! by SAW and ART:DIS (Arts & Disability) Singapore featuring artists with disabilities and contemporary practitioners. This initiative extends NAC’s ongoing partnership with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) that include presentations at eight MRT stations and a themed train. SAW is also partnering SMRT and ART:DIS for the first time to introduce an interactive Art Bus, transforming the city and heartlands into lively hubs of creative exchange through tactile artworks and participatory activities.
In addition, OH! Open House presents their 12th art walk, OH! Moonstone: Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same, a walking tour that takes place in and around a decommissioned factory and features four site-specific artworks across the Moonstone Lane Estate. Self-guided trails, including the Public Art Trust‘s new routes, will also invite audiences to rediscover Singapore’s cultural landscape through art in public spaces. In partnership with Gardens by the Bay and Marina Bay Sands, STB will also be introducing Art in the City, a new programme during SAW that seeks to profile everyday art through trails that will start with the Civic District and Marina Bay, inviting locals and tourists to discover and engage with Singapore’s vibrant public artworks.
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