The Artists Village in Singapore: Open Studios as Counter-Cartography and Critical Spatial Practice

Abstract This article re-examines The Artists Village (TAV) as a contemporary artist grouping in Singapore that emerged in response to the country's rapid urbanization and evolving socio-political landscape in the late 1980s. Rather than viewing TAV solely as a marginal or oppositional enclave, I argue for its reappraisal as a form of critical spatial practice and counter-cartography—a provisional community that negotiated the constraints of a tightly regulated Southeast Asian city-state. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre, Grant Kester, and Joanne Leow, I frame TAV's early “open studio” practices at Lorong Gambas (1989) as dialogical, para-curatorial gestures that enacted new modes of inhabiting, making, and presenting art beyond institutional norms. I further explore how TAV redefined the role of the artist and public engagement with contemporary art, emphasizing performativity, materiality, and—most crucially—social cooperation.