Introducing: The Ubah Rumah Residency
Affordable Art Fair Singapore 2025 presents the Ubah Rumah Residency, highlighting emerging Southeast Asian artists exploring ecology, identity, and community. Get to know the seven artists, and collaborative video work, to be inspired.
Alan Koh
Tuesday 30 September, 2025
What is the Ubah Rumah Residency?
This year, we’re proudly presenting the Ubah Rumah Residency, an initiative by Nikoi Private Island which shines a light on emerging Southeast Asian artists. Rooted in ideas of ecology, care, and hospitality, the residency draws inspiration from the nomadic culture of the Orang Laut and the shared maritime history of the Singapore–Malaysia–Riau region. Its name, Ubah Rumah, or “home of change”, reflects its ethos: exploring what it means to host, adapt, and create in a shifting world.
Conceived by and hosted on Nikoi Island, the residency is an ongoing programme designed to foster artistic growth while deepening cultural and ecological connections across the region. In doing so, it trailblazes a new path for hospitality – one that actively supports the arts and helps preserve local culture for future generations.
What will the Residency look like at the fair?
At Affordable Art Fair Singapore, you’ll be able to discover seven visual artists and a collaborative video work selected from the residency programme, which captures artistic responses to place, identity, and community. The residency is co-founded by Ernest Goh and Alecia Neo, who was the first winner of our local Young Talent Programme. We really want to build on our long-standing role in championing Southeast Asian voices, and one artist will be selected for a solo show at Blueprint Art Space in 2026, offering a tangible next step in their artistic journey. We can’t wait to see it all come to life this November!
Who are the artists?
Djuwadi Ahwal
Djuwadi is a self-taught artist from Blora district Central Jawa, Indonesia, who is well-known for his woodcut prints and highly skilled in Javanese wood carving.
His art reflects strong political and social activism, seeking to raise awareness of human rights through the culture of sharing and exchange, particularly around themes of nature and ecologies. Alongside his work with wood, Djuwadi often uses found objects and performance art to engage communities with how they can maintain their water resources. He also uses organic materials such as bamboo, scrapped recycled timber, recycled plastic rubbish to create art installations and carnival costumes.
Ireen Tan
A textile artist based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, Ireen’s creative journey has been deeply influenced by her upbringing and has a deep respect for nature and the cycles of growth and renewal. Growing up with her mother, a tailor, Ireen often played with fabric scraps, sparking her passion for experimenting with various media and materials in her artwork. Her practice reflects her unique background, passion for natural materials, and desire to foster connections through her art.
At the fair, Ireen will be facilitating an interactive workshop that’ll introduce you to the art of creating natural pigments from minerals and earth. Through hands-on practice, you’ll learn how to grind, filter, and prepare raw stones and soils into usable colours for painting and dyeing.
The session explores the relationship between land and craft, emphasising sustainable practices and the cultural traditions of working with earth-based materials. You’ll leave with your own handmade pigments and a deeper appreciation for the natural palette that surrounds us.
Florence Cinco
The possibility of recovery from a Precolonial history is a cornerstone of Florence’s practice. Found objects serve as receptacles of memories that might’ve been forgotten after centuries of colonial acculturation.
By presenting scratched layers of paint, faded varnishes, aged frames, rusted corners, and rusted galvanised iron sheets as traces of colonial history in a metaphorical sense, Florence slowly peels off layers of treachery. By exploring his work at the fair, you may discover an alternative narration hidden beneath the official storyline of local history.
Lusiana Limono
An artist and textile crafter who has a high interest in environmental issues and handmade tradition, Lusiana aims to use craft as a language of expression. She’s interested in the role of cloth and domestic objects in creating opportunities for deeper connection between people, place, wellbeing, and identity.
During your visit, expect to see a series of collage works made of knitted paper yarn derived from abaca fibre; the perfect medium for recording memories and knowledge. For a textile artist and crafter like Lusiana, “notes” (as in written messages) can take the form of knitted collages, archives of tactile colours, faded colours, and the influence of excessive light. We can’t wait to see her work and all its intricacies at the fair!
Wendy Zhang
A self-professed entomophile (insect-lover), Wendy is a Singapore-based who works primarily in watercolour. She often finds herself in quiet pockets of nature surrounded by the strange, dead and unseen.
Her particular fascination with insects drives her to learn more about them and understand the role they play in our ecosystem.
The intention with the work you’ll see at the fair is to invite you to reconsider how you see insects, not as pests, but rather as intricate beings with a grace of their own.
Exploring Insects Through Art | Facilitated by artist Wendy Zhang
Wendy’s workshop at the fair will invite you to slow down, observe closely, and bring the hidden beauty of insects to life through illustration and painting. Through guided exercises, you’ll explore the unique forms, patterns, and colors of insects while learning practical techniques for accurate observation and artistic interpretation. Practice sketching from both life and reference materials, experiment with line, shape, and texture, and develop skills in watercolor or mixed media to capture delicate details.
Ricky Yeo
Ricky’s works are wabi-sabi, free-form, exuberant, with the intention to offer viewers surprise, beauty, joy. His creations are designed to be encountered in a singular experience: then, long after the work is no more, it exists in visceral memory.
Rooted in Southeast Asian impetus, Ricky uses ingredients grown in tropical gardens, fruit and green grocery from local farmers’ markets, equatorial floral from suppliers; and assembles them into a clay vessel or onto a tampah (split-bamboo tray), made by Asian craftspeople. It’s not to be missed!
Yeo Lyle with Thain Siew Kim
Following a series of interviews and site visits to local communities on Bintan Island, Yeo Lyle and Thian Siew Kim co-created a site-specific performance that delves into the complexities of the co-existence of humans and nature in the context of Nikoi Island. The artists involved Nikoi’s staff in the development of the movement and music score for the performance and creating live creative captions for the audiences. Now, you can discover the piece at Affordable Art Fair Singapore.
We’re really excited to bring the Ubah Rumah Residency to the fair this November. Alongside the Residency, you’ll be able to explore thousands of contemporary artworks from over 95 local and international galleries – all priced below $15,000. Whether you’re a seasoned collector or buying your very first piece of art, the fair is the perfect place for you to come to see, love, and own art!
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