The Listening Biennial focuses on listening as a creative practice, and on building listening cultures and knowledge.

Lower Galleries, Objectifs
22 Aug to 6 Sep 2025
Free admission
Presented by The Listening Biennial, a highlight of The Singapore Night Festival

Noises Are Quite Loud Here
by Shwe Wutt Hmon (Myanmar/Thailand)
Photography prints, video projection

This project began as a spontaneous response to my transition from urban life, heightening my awareness of nature’s subtleties—plants, animals, and landscapes. It also reflects my ongoing exploration of various forms of “NOISE,” from the hallucinated sounds I battle to the suffocating air pollution during Chiang Mai’s notorious smog season. The work consists of a photographic and video installation accompanied by a sonic soundscape, blending analog photography with scanner-generated images to depict noise’s overwhelming presence in the environment. Color and monochrome images, captured through deliberate and unhurried analog photography, document my daily explorations of Rimbun Dahan, a 14-acre tropical garden near Kuala Lumpur. Scattered flowers, leaves, and deceased insects gathered from the garden are thoughtfully combined with archival materials on environmental degradation and chaotic social noise, adding depth through scanner imagery. Noises Are Quite Loud Here is a personal introspection on how noise intensifies even in seemingly tranquil environments. It contemplates the profound damage humans have inflicted upon nature and questions whether there is still a chance to mend and protect our ecosystem.

About Shwe Wutt Hmon (Myanmar/Thailand)

Shwe Wutt Hmon is a photographer and mixed media artist from Myanmar, currently based in Thailand. Shwe’s work focuses on collective histories, familial ties, the knots and threads of human relationships, and exploring the inner psyche through intimate storytelling about people and places dear to her heart. She tells personal stories to connect with and examine broader social aspects; conversely, she works on social documentaries reflecting and drawing from her own position within the context. Shwe uses photography as her main medium and incorporates archives, videos, texts, sounds, poems, paintings, and drawings of her own or in collaboration with others. Shwe’s works have been exhibited in festivals and spaces such as Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2020, Aichi Triennale 2022, Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai 2023 with ‘Zomia Pavilion’, Singapore International Photography Festival 2020, Photo Australia International Festival of Photography 2022, ArtScience Museum Singapore, Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, Photoforum Pasquart, and Foam Amsterdam.

Re-Listening Care
by Okui Lala (Malaysia), Nasrikah (Indonesia), Ana Estrada (Australia)
4 audio acts, scripts, paper serviettes, instructions

Re-Listening Care revisits Re-Imagining the Workplace (2024), a live performance created by Okui Lala, Ana Estrada, and Nasrikah, in collaboration with caregivers Uli, Arni, Ryanie, Diane, Leeanne, Madison, Rosie, Dipin, and Khushi. Originally performed on December 1, 2024, at QAGOMA (Australia), the event brought together aged care workers to share their experiences and collectively rethink care work.

By re-playing the audio from this performance, Re-Listening Care extends the conversation to a second audience, highlighting how care work—often unseen and unheard—deserves ongoing attention. Through listening as an act of care, this work invites audiences to engage with the labour, emotion, and resilience embedded in caregiving and to view dialogue as both a form of recognition and a place for change.

About the Artists
Okui Lala (Malaysia), Ana Estrada (Mexico/Australia), and Nasrikah (Indonesia/Malaysia) work together across countries meeting online to exchange ideas and develop projects centered in dialogue, storytelling, and social justice. Okui often collaborates with family, friends, workers, and those around her to explore identity, diaspora, and belonging. Ana works with aged care residents and caregivers, exploring storytelling as a tool for connection. Nasrikah the founding member of PERTIMIG, advocates for the rights of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia. Their collaboration is driven by a shared commitment to care, equity, and collective action—along with a genuine enjoyment of working together! Beginning with Re-Imagining the Workplace (2024) and continuing with Re-Listening Care (2025), they create spaces for conversations that challenge and reflect on systems of labour and care.

Field Recording Workshop
by Hear and Found (Thailand)
Workshop fee: $6.34 per pax. Get your tickets here

Join us for a Field Recording Workshop hosted by music publishers and artists Hear & Found (Thailand) at Objectifs – Centre for Photography & Film. Known for their sensitive and ethical approach to working with indigenous communities in Thailand, Hear & Found will guide you towards opening up your senses to the city through sound. This hands-on workshop will teach you the basics of field recording techniques on your mobile phone and the workshop will close with a collective reflection of your recording. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, this workshop is perfect for anyone interested in exploring the world of sound recording and experiencing the city in a whole new auditory way!

Post-workshop, you’re invited to visit Hear & Found’s sound installation, Earthsong: Indigenous Harmony from Thailand at Stamford Arts Centre, which immerses you in the songs and nature sounds of the Karen community.

Acknowledgments

An Invite into Third Listening
The third edition of The Listening Biennial invites us to tune into the humming stars above and the countless voices they carry. These are voices of love and loss, voices that hold the past while evoking a future, and that resound with mystery and force, threading cosmic matter and embodied life with their potent stories. A highlight of the Singapore Night Festival, the artists of The Listening Biennial invite you to enter the space of Third Listening, to listen out for a plurality of life-forms as well as pathways of interconnection between seemingly irreconcilable differences.

The Singapore edition is co-programmed by artist Alecia Neo and publisher Ng Kah Gay of Ethos Books.

Click here for the full programme in Singapore

About The Listening Biennial
The Listening Biennial focuses on listening as a creative practice, and on building listening cultures and knowledge. Its decentered format encourages collaboration and simultaneous presentations with partner institutions and spaces, involving a network of practitioners and organisations in different parts of the world.

Venue Sponsor: Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film