SINGAPORE.- Tanoto Art Foundation will present Rituals of Perception, the foundation’s inaugural exhibition. Staged at Singapore’s New Bahru School Hall, the exhibition brings together recent work and new commissions by over twenty leading contemporary artists. Opening 21 January 2026, this marks TAF’s return to Singapore Art Week following the foundation’s launch event in 2025. Rituals of Perception will remain on view until 1 March 2026.

“Following our successful launch symposium and the Conversation Series in Singapore, Hong Kong, and São Paulo, TAF looks forward to this new chapter,” says Xiaoyu Weng, TAF Artistic Director and curator of the exhibition. “With our first exhibition, this convening of these diverse art practices builds upon TAF’s mission to create meaningful connections and foster enriching dialogue between Southeast Asia, South America, and other global hubs of contemporary art.

The exhibition

Rituals of Perception gathers works born from intimate dialogues between body and matter, unfolding through slow, contemplative, and iterative processes. Against the backdrop of digital acceleration and collective disenchantment, the exhibition turns toward practices that reattune us to presence, where every gesture and touch becomes a quiet act of resistance against an increasingly dehumanized sense of time. The exhibition seeks a shared sensibility across geographies, especially in traditions where material history intertwines with personal stories and bodily knowledge.

At the exhibition’s core lies the notion of presentiment, an intuitive awareness that extends beyond rational understanding. Defined by philosopher Byung-Chul Han, presentiment does not concern only what is to come; it traverses the full expanse of temporality, revealing what already exists yet escapes articulation. Within this awareness, process and trace become vital, transforming abstract time into something both visible and felt. Through gestures of kneading, weaving, casting, folding, cutting, stitching, or even copying and pasting, the artists in Rituals of Perception embody presentiment by dwelling within the temporal cyclicality of making. Their works invite viewers to pause, to linger, to inhabit a duration rather than move through it.

In these works, material carries memory. Clay, cement, paper, and fiber—manmade or natural—are not inert substances but vessels of ancestral and societal histories. This awareness of material history invites a reimagining of perception. It asks us to consider how the body reads textures, weights, and atmospheres beyond cerebral functions, and how it recognizes in plants or plastics something that precedes thought. Such recognitions become rituals that withstand the contemporary compulsion to perform and produce. In a world driven by speed, reflective perception is an act of reclamation.

Continuing TAF’s ongoing mission to engender public engagement and education in contemporary art, the foundation will host free weekly public programs in conjunction with the exhibition, including performances by artist Sriwhana Spong, panel discussions, and docent-led tours.

Participating artists

Shuvinai Ashoona, Trisha Baga, Ali Cherri, Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, Carolina Fusilier, Hu Xiaoyuan, Lotus L. Kang, Suki Seokyeong Kang, Tarik Kiswanson, Heidi Lau, Ma Qiusha, Claudia Martínez Garay, Pan Caoyuan, Sriwhana Spong, Sung Tieu, Tong Wenmin, Tsang Kin-Wah, Wang Ye, Yuyan Wang, Anicka Yi, Yin Xiuzhen, Zhang Ruyi