Amanda Heng to Represent Singapore at 2026 Venice Biennale

Amanda Heng, a pioneering Singaporean feminist artist, will represent Singapore at the 61st Venice Biennale with her exhibition 'A Pause' (9 May – 22 November 2026). The show features a new commissioned video of the same title (2025–26) filmed with Venetian participants, alongside her early photographic series 'Parts of My Body' (1990). Heng, now 74, is known for performance works like 'Let's Chat' (1996–), where she cleans mung bean sprouts with audiences, and 'Let's Walk' (1999), where participants walk backwards with a shoe in their mouths. She was a member of The Artists Village alongside Lee Wen and Tang Da Wu, but left due to its male-led hierarchy. In 1999 she founded Women In The Arts (WITA), Singapore's first artist-run women's collective. Her work often addresses female labour, body autonomy, and ageing, as seen in the series 'Another Woman' (1996–97) with her mother and 'Always By My Side' (2023). She won the Benesse Prize in 2020 and showed at Benesse House Museum in Naoshima in 2023. The Singapore Pavilion is curated by Selene Yap.