What if an artist worked a shift at your neighbourhood minimart before making any art about your town? That is roughly the premise behind the Associate Artist Programme (AAP) by OH! Open House, the independent Singapore arts organisation known for telling alternative stories of the island through art rooted in place. Its 2026–2027 edition, presented in partnership with Art Outreach, is centred on Punggol and runs from 26 July 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Six Artists, One Punggol Minimart
Six artists are taking part: Goldie Poblador, Wantanee Siripattananuntakul, Bridget Tay, Genevieve Ang, Rizman Putra and Woong Soak Teng. Rather than working towards a predetermined outcome, they are encouraged to let their relationships, research and everyday encounters in the neighbourhood shape their practice. Part of that immersion involves taking shifts behind the counter at Hoseh Global, a minimart in Punggol, joining a homestay programme with residents, and walking the same routes as the people who live there.
The choice of a minimart is deliberate. As OH! puts it, a minimart is where daily neighbourhood life plays out, where regulars stop by, routines unfold and strangers become familiar faces. It is a neutral, accessible space that draws a genuine cross-section of the community, offering artists an honest encounter with the people they are there to understand.
How the Programme Works
AAP opens with a two-week Curatorial Intensive of site visits, talks and conversations with residents and businesses, helping artists identify the questions they want to pursue. That is followed by a six-month residency from August 2026 to January 2027, during which artists conduct independent research while becoming part of everyday life in Punggol. The programme concludes with a Public Presentation in March 2027, where the site-responsive works are shared alongside public conversations about the research and process behind them.
Why Punggol?
Punggol is one of Singapore’s newer towns, yet it carries layers of social, environmental and historical memory. Pig farms, fishing villages and even a private zoo once stood where housing estates are today. Those places have largely disappeared, but the memories remain with the people who lived them. OH!’s work asks a deceptively simple question: in a city that changes as quickly as Singapore does, who decides what a neighbourhood gets to remember?
Since 2009, more than 70,000 people have experienced OH!’s work, not in museums or galleries, but in strangers’ homes, void decks and neighbourhood spaces they thought they already knew. The Public Presentation is slated for March 2027; in the meantime, you can follow the residency’s progress through OH! Open House. For more things to do around the island, see our Singapore Night Festival highlights and the reopening of the Singapore History Gallery, or browse our Things to Do section.
