Charmaine Poh—Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take

At the heart of ›Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take‹, her first institutional solo exhibition worldwide, is a newly commissioned three-channel video installation titled ›The Moon is Wet‹. It focuses on three female figures:

The first is Mazu, a Daoist sea goddess, honored as a protective mother deity in southeastern China by Hokkien-speaking communities. The second is a ›Ma Jie‹, part of the wave of female migrants who, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, left Guangdong, China, for Singapore to work as housekeepers and nannies. These women, who had taken vows of chastity, lived in communal homes or clan groups until the 1970s, supporting one another like a chosen family.

The third figure is a present-day migrant domestic worker from Indonesia who has travelled to Singapore to work in wealthy households. These modern domestic workers also form close-knit, familial networks within the diaspora.

Though they live in different eras and never meet, these three figures are bound by parallel experiences. Their voices—speaking different languages—transcend time and geography, weaving a shared narrative in which they examine identity, class, and cultural disappearance. As they grieve and reflect, they also consider what Singapore represents to them. »Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take views Singapore as a portal through which stories flow.«, Poh explains. »The exhibition traces the hidden currents of desire that stretch beyond the city’s historical boundaries.«

The exhibition also features many of Poh’s most significant film works, including ›What's softest in the world rushes and runs over what's hardest in the world‹ (2024), which was shown at the most recent Venice Art Biennale. The video explores the lives of queer families in Singapore, who live without legal protections. Also on view is her 2023 video ›Good Morning Young Body‹, a reflection on her early 2000s experience as a child star on Singaporean television. Using AI and archival footage, Poh reconstructed an avatar of her younger self—responding to the intense public and media attention she experienced as a child performer.

Charmaine Poh studied Visual and Media Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin and is internationally recognized as both an activist and author.

The opening will be accompanied by music, drinks and snacks. Live speakers will offer you insights into the artworks on display.