The Cloth Remembers
- Exhibition dates: 16 Jan 2026 - 28 Feb 2026
- Opening hours: Wed - Sat 12 - 7 PM, Sun - Tue By appointment only
- Venue: aNERD @ 29 Perak Road
Artists
This group exhibition brings together artists from Singapore, Laos, Myanmar, and the Netherlands, weaving traditional Asian story cloths and contemporary responses into a living archive of memory, migration, and resilience.
Curatorial Programme
1. Remembering the Cloth: Artists in Conversation
- Saturday, 17 Jan 2026, 3-4PM
- FREE
An afternoon to engage with the participating artists and curator reflect on The Cloth Remembers, discussing story cloth as living archives of memory, displacement and resilience. Intertwined with their own lived experiences, the conversation explores how textiles and contemporary storytelling reimagine identity, community and collective hope.
2. Reading the Cloth: Chin Textiles of Myanmar
- Sunday, 18 Jan 2026, 3 - 5 PM
- $15 *refundable with purchase
Artist Saul Chan Htoo Sang will introduce the textiles of Chin people, an indigenous community from the Northeastern highlands of Myanmar/Burma. From hunting scenes to depictions of domestic life, the session explores how weaving and embroidery function as a visual language of identity and memory as well as how these story cloths inspire his latest artworks to show the continued relevance of textiles in Southeast Asian storytelling traditions today.
3. Sketching the Cloth: Paper Sarong Workshop
- Saturday, 24 Jan 2026, 3 - 6PM
- $30
The Paper Sarong workshop explores the rich culture of pattern-making inspired by Javanese Batik. In conjunction with this exhibition, artist Sabine Bolk draws references from batik story cloth and invites participants to reflect what stories can patterns tell about who we are, where we come from and how we relate to our surroundings?
After an introduction to batik history with examples of traditional designs, motifs and symbolism, participants will create their paper sarong in groups. Using drawing and pattern-making techniques, participants will translate personal stories and observations into visual motifs – one that reflects identity, community and belonging.
Note: This workshop emphasises the collective making and design process of batik. This workshop is suitable for people of all ages.
4. Remembering the Cloth: Of Grief, Batik and Peranakan Beading
- Feb 6 from 7:30pm to 9:30pm GMT+8
- FREE
Artist Clarisse Tan invites you along her ‘journey to batik and Peranakan beading’, which began as a way to grieve her grandmother leading to creating a safe space for mutual storytelling and collective healing.
5. Making the Cloth: Heat, Press, Cerita!
- Feb 7 from 3pm to 5pm GMT+8
- $53.49
Join HAFI in this layered and heaty workshop to learn more about her creative process and to create your own story cloths!
6. Reading the Cloth: Balinese Textiles
- Feb 8 at 3pm to Mar 8 at 4:30pm GMT+8
- $16.82
Sociopreneur I Putu Wiraguna will introduce Balinese textile culture and the local heroes communities whom he works with.
HAFI (Hafizah Jainal)
(Singapore)
HAFI (Hafizah Jainal) is an illustrator, designer and visual artist. She makes visual interpretations through drawings that are rooted in ancestral memories. Her works dissect themes of identity and cultural narratives via image making, most notably seen in SEASONINGS magazine which she co-founded to explore Singapore’s food culture. Her clients include AWARE, Asian Civilization Museum, Epigram Books, Journey East, Malay Heritage Centre, National Gallery Singapore, Formula 1: Singapore Airlines – Singapore Grand Prix, Hermès, Samsung and Pokka.
Sabine Bolk
(Netherlands)
Sabine Bolk is a Dutch artist and batik researcher. On her blog ’The journey to Batik’ she writes about her journeys and research. Since 2009 Sabine frequently travels to Southeast Asia. In October 2019, she launched her research project ‘Retelling the History of the (Indo-) European Influence on Batik’ in Indonesia. From 2019 until December 2021, Sabine was a Research Associate at the Research Center for Material Culture in Leiden (NL) to research the batik collections in Dutch museums and archives. In her current research she focuses, next to the maker, also the wearer.
In 2023, she made the exhibition Masa Depan Batik | Future of Batik at Erasmus Huis in Jakarta, Indonesia. Next to her own work, 6 batik makers showed their batik-work and their points of view on the future of batik. Sabine writes for different platforms, organises events, gives talks, presentations and workshops to promote, preserve and protect batik.
Paul (Saul) Chan Htoo Sang
(Myanmar)
Paul (Saul) Chan Htoo Sang is a Yangon-based independent filmmaker belonging to the Chin/Zo indigenous people of the Myanmar/Burma highlands. In 2017, he studied Ethnography and Media Studies at Grinnell College in Iowa, USA, approaching documentation through interdisciplinary practice. His first documentary film, Underneath My Chin, screened at the Wathann Film Festival in Myanmar and the Independent Cinema Office in the UK in 2020 and 2022 respectively. He worked as a freelance filmmaker in Chiang Mai, Thailand for local film and arts organizations from 2023-2024. Now, Saul is working for YOYAMAY, his parents’ company that has pioneered the tribal textile industry in Myanmar/Burma.
Mee Cha
(Laos)
Mee Cha is an emerging Laos Hmong Batik maker and dancer. She has been teaching Batik at Moon Love Batik in Luang Prabang, Laos. Mee is White Hmong and learnt embroidery from her mother. She started learning to make batik from a batik master, Zu Xiong, who is now in her seventies. Mee makes traditional designs, but also her own style and for commission. She was recently commissioned by Linda McIntosh to make a work about the bombings occurring in Lao FDR during the Indochina war and their destruction for an exhibition in New York.