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The Art World in Focus
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Sarah Choo Jing

SARAH CHOO JING

Dancing Without Touching Yeo Workshop 7 January–12 March 2023 Singapore
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Press Release

2023 — Yeo Workshop will spotlight Singaporean artist Sarah Choo Jing with an immersive presentation of new works for her solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition explores an alternative discourse of movement and dance in the context of Singapore’s 20th century ‘Entertainment Worlds’ – amusement parks that offered the public diversion through athletic contests, performances, games, rides and food fairs. Choo presents her subjects plucked from these worlds and immersed in deliberately constructed situations, allowing them to interpret, respond, and perform within the site. Playing with notions of performativity and chance in the process of creating these works, Choo offers her performers the opportunity to challenge traditional and preconceived stereotypes associated with their respective historic characters: a Chinese opera performer, singer, cabaret girl, boxer, and jester. Staged at a moment when the world is still working through physical separations, personal anxieties, and the social strangeness of increased distancing enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, this work offers a hallucinatory resemblance to our current reality. The isolation of the characters combined with their range of movements from confident and controlled to introspective, pitiful, and awkward creates an uneven rhythm that offers a view of their unreality in perpetual pure repetition.

Sarah Choo Jing’s practice purposefully activates image-making and photography that teases the boundaries between historical truth and speculative fiction. Often juxtaposing and interspersing staged, found, and borrowed media to uncanny sensibilities, she brings novel perspectives on society and history through her earnest observation of human behaviour and relationships. This project explores fantasy and reality through a contemporary interpretation of what Entertainment Worlds previously offered as alternatives, escapes, and wonderlands. The work materialises at the intersection of technology and analogue mediums through an immersive architectural sound and video installation that takes an innovative format comprising a video sculpture, digital prints and NFTs of the performers.

**Works are available for sale, prints & video sculptures with price range SGD 9,200 - SGD 25,000. Please contact gallery for more information. **

**FINISSAGE PROGRAMME | Thursday 9 March 2023, 7pm **

****Join us for a closing programme beginning with a conversation about the diverse creative processes behind Dancing Without Touching with artist Sarah Choo Jing and curatorial advisor Dr Karin G. Oen.

The artist’s research, staging, and vision for the five video works and the exhibition’s architectural environment have allowed visitors to immerse themselves in a carefully constructed experience. One goal of creating this experience was to incite reactions and invite reflections on our own relationships to the contemporary entertainment worlds we all inhabit, dominated by screens and the ever-finer line between the real, the unreal, and the surreal.

In addition to hearing from the artist and discussing the work on view, the programme will include sharing and reflections by several members of the exhibition’s public who submitted creative responses after viewing the show. Marking the end of the exhibition, this programme hopes to instigate future conversations inspired by the subjects, atmosphere, and open-ended possibilities of the show. To be part of the discussion, please submit your own creative response by 1 March 2023 to info@yeoworkshop.com

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About the Artist

Sarah Choo Jing​ (b. 1990, Singapore) is known for her interdisciplinary approach to photography, video and installation. Her work depicts identifiable moments and characters within contemporary urban society suggesting a plethora of private and often solitary narratives. The artist is concerned with the gaze of the flaneur, voyeurism and the uncanny.

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Also Exhibiting at Yeo Workshop

All Exhibitions
Martin Constable, Debbie Ding, Charles Lim, Ha Ninh Pham
MARTIN CONSTABLE, DEBBIE DING, CHARLES LIM, HA NINH PHAM Fearsome Engines Yeo Workshop 30 May–28 June 2026 Singapore
About the Gallery

Yeo Workshop is a contemporary art gallery based in Singapore’s Gillman Barracks, dedicated to showcasing Southeast Asian artists who push the boundaries of visual culture. From traditional painting and sculpture to cutting-edge digital media, the gallery fosters a bold and diverse program that engages with pressing socio-cultural issues, encouraging critical dialogue and fresh perspectives.

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Address
47 Malan Road, Lock Road 01-25
Singapore
Singapore
Opening Hours
Opening Hours:
Tue to Sat 11 am – 7 pm
Sun 12 pm – 6 pm
Closed on Mondays & Public Holidays
(1)
Singapore 47 Malan Road, Lock Road 01-25
Yeo Workshop contemporary art gallery in Singapore
Yeo Workshop
47 Malan Road, Lock Road 01-25, Singapore, Singapore
+ 65 6734 5168
http://www.yeoworkshop.com

Opening hours
Opening Hours:
Tue to Sat 11 am – 7 pm
Sun 12 pm – 6 pm
Closed on Mondays & Public Holidays
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