Green Room
 5 July 2025

Green Room © Green Room

ABOUT

Vivariums function as delightful wunderkammer (transl. room of wonder) for species of flora, fauna and other forms of micro-life. These intricate ecosystems are intimately observable, fostering nuanced appreciation and reciprocation for nature. The lessons derived from such microhabitats extend into the macro, rekindling a biophilic connection to the natural environment beyond and in the absence thereof. Through exercises in constructing and deconstructing natural setups, this project seeks to unearth allegories of care, support and resourcefulness.

This work-in-progress presentation brings together 3 artists who share a common interest in plant keeping over the years. Titled Green Room, the studio activation is inspired by the green rooms set aside for performers to spend time composing their thoughts before going on stage during the early years of theatre. In the same vein, the artists are proposing to transform the space allocated by Goethe-Institut into a thriving vivarium. Through this intervention, the artists will pursue exercises in vivarium-building and living sculptures, extracting from the processes of world-building and interconnectedness. Over the course of 6 weeks, the artists will collaborate and be in dialogue with each other; engaging in discussions with researchers and practitioners across other disciplines in creating exercises and programmes that probe into cohabitation, community, and the necessity of support.

Public Events

5 JULY

Open Studio
5 July, Saturday, 11am to 5pm

The Artists

Diva is a visual artist who creates installations, performances, and digital media. His practice examines narratives and proposes new models by rethinking how bodies, identities and environments interact.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1st Class Honours) in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2018 and has exhibited both locally and internationally since 2010. Notable exhibitions include Port/raits of Tanjong Pagar, Singapore Art Museum, MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing, ArtScience Museum, State of Motion 2021: [Alternate / Opt] Realities, Marina One, and Time Passes, Singapore Art Museum.

Khairullah Rahim is a contemporary artist working across installation, objects, image and time-based media. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University (2023). He currently serves as an adjunct lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts. 

Working across multiple registers of material and form, Khairullah’s practice examines the entanglements of queerness, POZ resilience, working-class subjectivities, and the decolonisation of botany, with a particular emphasis on strategies of survival and resourcefulness within regimes of surveillance. Through this, he strives to reframe these conversations within a more imaginative and nuanced critical framework—bringing attention to how the study and categorisation of flora and fauna has historically been shaped by colonial and patriarchal systems of knowledge. His projects often re-inscribe silenced or veiled narratives into public consciousness, addressing how desire, labour, ambition, and resistance are produced and sustained within marginalised communities. 

Khairullah has undertaken artist residencies at IASPIS (Stockholm), Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg), Facebook (Singapore), Hubei Institute of Fine Arts (Hubei), Taipei Artist Village (Taipei), and YOUKOBO Art Residency Programme (Tokyo). His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Barbican Centre (London), Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (New York), Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Bangkok), and the National Gallery (Singapore), among others. Major projects include the 6th Singapore Biennale curated by Patrick Flores; Silent Hands curated by Rotana Shaker, Zain Al Saie, and Jean Wong at Hayy Jameel (Jeddah); and HIV Science as Art curated by Daniel Cordner and Jessica Whitbread at Brainlab (Munich). Khairullah is the recipient of the IMPART Award for Visual Arts (2017), and his works are held in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum and the SUNPRIDE Foundation.

Rusydan Norr is a visual artist whose practice is drawn to the invisible dynamics of living systems. He collaborates with biomaterials to investigate distributed agency in art-making, reimagining the artwork as part of an interconnected system where meaning emerges through relationships between materials, environments, and living forms.

His current interest lies in transcorporeal ecology—a framework that understands bodies and environments as porous, entangled, and mutually shaping—exploring how meaning and value shift within biological artworks and landscapes.

Rusydan graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2019. He has shown numerously in Singapore since and participated in an inter-school exhibition abroad (Kyoto, Japan). Additionally, he has done artist residencies at 405 Arts Residency (SG, 2021) and Maison Des Arts George Claude et Pompidou (France, 2022) in collaboration with Grey Projects (SG). As of recently, he is studying Biophilic Design in the University of the Arts Singapore and has been awarded a merit scholarship, namely Anugerah Belia Cemerlang (transl. Outstanding Youth Award) by Mendaki Foundation.

The Space

136 GOETHE LAB is a new project space at the Goethe-Institut Singapore. Housed in the former library and reading room, the space is intended as a response to the need for physical spaces for the arts, and an ongoing conversation with the public and arts community in Singapore.

GREEN ROOM is supported as part of the open call for 136 GOETHE LAB, which invited applicants to activate the space with a group proposal.