Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore is pleased to present The places we carry, a meditation on place, belonging, culture and the lives we build across borders and between worlds. Bringing together five women artists across generations, the exhibition weaves together a remarkable diversity of medium and material: charcoal and rattan, soil and mycelium, and textile and sculpture. Yet despite these differences, a common thread runs quietly through every work. For each of these artists, movement is not simply biography, but also method. Travel, hybridity and the experience of living and working between places have shaped not just who they are, but the backbone of their practice.

For this fascinating exhibition Sullivan+Strumpf artists’ Yanyun Chen and Kanchana Gupta are joined by Malaysian contemporary fibre artist Cheong See Min, French Indonesian artist Ines Katamso, and Singapore based Indian artist Madhvi Subrahmanian, who each bring a distinct visual language and cultural perspective to shared questions of identity and memory.

Cheong See Min’s works draw on textile and cultural symbolism to trace how objects and their meanings are passed down through generations, carrying layers of both personal and collective history.

Ines Katamso’s paintings are composed of sourced biological material like soil and mycelium, embedding the physical traces of different places directly into the work.

Kanchana Gupta’s sculptures condense the breadth of lived experience into physical form, with unexpected bursts of colour emerging from otherwise soft and muted surfaces.

Madhvi Subrahmanian draws from windows and streetscapes of the surrounding Tiong Bahru neighbourhood, grounding the exhibition in its immediate context even as the other works range across geographies and histories.

Yanyun Chen’s drawings and writings take reference from the gestures and phrases of childhood, exploring how early experiences of place and discipline shape our sense of self beyond the domestic sphere.

Together, the five artists open a conversation about what we inherit, what we accumulate, and what we continue to carry as we move between places and across time.

Coinciding with Singapore’s National Day, as the nation turns 61, The Places We Carry feels especially timely as a reminder to stay rooted even as we reach outward, and to recognise that the places we have loved and left are never truly behind us.