This article first appeared in the Berlin Art Week 2025 special issue of Monopol Magazine.
Artist Charmaine Poh is instantly recognizable when we enter the meeting room at Palais Populaire in Berlin. She looks just like the deepfake avatar in her video ›Good Morning Young Body‹. During the pandemic, in 2021, she unexpectedly learned that the TV detective series she had starred in as a child some twenty years ago (she played the nerd in the trio) would be made freely accessible online. Suddenly, there was a risk that she would once again experience the same nasty comments, objectification, and sexualization she had been subjected to as a child actor. It wasn’t something she thought she would have to face as an adult. As a young person, she was left to deal with it alone. But she retaliates in ›Good Morning Young Body‹. »What would happen if I created a superhero version of my 12-year-old self? What would she have to say today?« She allows her wise digital alter
ego to deliver an incisive feminist polemic.
Born in 1990 in Singapore, Poh studied international relations in the US before changing direction during a year-long course with British war photographer Gary Knight. »That’s when I began thinking about what stories I want to tell. I saw photography made it necessary to confront the world. It demands your presence.« In particular, she considers ethical questions around documentary photography, such as the widespread colonial gaze in photojournalism. »My question is: Do I try adapting to the industry? Or do I forge my own path? I chose the latter.«
»My question is: Do I try adapting to the industry? Or do I forge my own path? I chose the latter.«—Charmaine Poh
Her piece ›What’s softest in the world rushes and runs over what’s hardest in the world‹ was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2024. It features interviews with same-sex couples in Singapore who have a child—something prohibited in Singapore, as are same-sex marriages. Sometimes calmly, sometimes full of emotion, they describe their experiences of rejection, happiness, and shame. In tandem, Poh offers visuals at once airy and poetic yet full of intimacy, even as no individuals are explicitly depicted. We see billowing curtains, shadows on a wall, and branches tossing in summer light. No one is forced to make confessions they will later regret, nor does anyone have to display their body. Yet the message is crystal clear, even as an ethical balance is maintained.
»Queer parenthood means so many things to me. What is life, what is nature, what is legal? This was the right time.« Given she was the first Singaporean artist invited to show at the main exhibition in Venice, she could be sure her piece would be noticed by politicians. Yet her work was only officially acknowledged well after the opening weeks and the first rush of interest. In Singapore, the film was assigned the highest possible age restriction of 21.
Jury member Stephanie Rosenthal recommended Poh for Deutsche Bank’s prestigious Artist of the Year prize. She is the youngest winner yet and will show a new three-channel video in Berlin, ›The Moon Is Wet‹. It uses three female figures from mythology, history, and the present day to tell the story of migrating to take up a Jury member Stephanie Rosenthal recommended Poh for Deutsche Bank’s prestigious Artist of the Year prize. She is the youngest winner yet and will show a new three-channel video in Berlin, ›The Moon Is Wet‹. It uses three female figures from mythology, history, and the present day to tell the story of migrating to take up a tropolises, oceans, and data centers. Who is profiting from technology and who bears the brunt of progress?
Singapore has strict rules on language and ethnic identity. Mandarin and English are supported while other languages are repressed. Drawing on her experience of censorship, Poh chose to use three languages in ›The Moon Is Wet‹ that aren’t covered by censorship: Indonesian, Taiwanese Hokkien, and Cantonese; Palais Populaire is adding German subtitles. Poh herself has distanced herself from the rules of her country of birth and now lives in Berlin.
›Charmaine Poh: Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take‹, PalaisPopulaire, 11 SEP 2025—23 FEB 2026