Indelible Marks
Co-organised by Tyrown Waigana (Indigenous Australian), Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian), Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Singaporean-Australian)
Indelible Marks examines the impact of colonialism on Singapore’s cultural, social, and political identity. This joint international exhibition, marking Singapore's 60th anniversary of independence in 2025, brings together seven artists from Australia and Singapore, uniting Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives through collaboration, dialogue, and the shared exploration of British colonial histories. By including Australia’s First Nations artists — whose practices reflect resilience and adaptability — the exhibition encourages Singaporeans to confront their own colonial legacy and its ongoing effects. This allied effort challenges dominant colonial narratives and creates space for reflection, dialogue, and action.
Singapore’s reverence for its colonial past has long been a source of tension. Under British rule from the early 19th century until 1959, the city-state was transformed into a vital trading port of the British Empire. This period saw infrastructural growth and economic expansion, shaping modern Singapore in ways still visible today. Yet beneath this progress lay colonial policies that enforced racial segregation, exploited local labour, and erased pre-colonial cultures. The consequences of these systems persist, particularly for those whose histories have been overshadowed by narratives that celebrate the British colonial legacy.
One such narrative is the veneration of Stamford Raffles, often credited with founding Singapore. Monuments like the Raffles Landing Site and Raffles Hotel serve as reminders of a colonial past romanticised in national education and public commemorations. These figures and sites stand as symbols of a colonial legacy embraced as part of Singapore’s global identity, yet this selective memory overlooks the violence, exploitation, and displacement endured by pre-colonial communities.
The exhibition provides a platform for engagement and reflection, inviting audiences to interrogate their own relationship to the histories of colonisation. Themes of cultural adaptation, survival, and resistance emerge as the artists respond to both personal and collective experiences, exploring the intersections of identity, memory, and colonial impact. Through diverse artistic practices, the works create a vibrant, multilayered discourse confronting the complexities of postcolonial identity.
As Singapore celebrates its 60th anniversary of independence in 2025, this alliance of Singaporean artists, Ezzam Rahman and Alya Rahmat—alongside with Australian artists—Ilona McGuire (Aboriginal Australian), Brian Robinson (Torres Strait Islander Australian), Tyrown Waigana (Aboriginal Australian), Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Singaporean-Australian), and Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian), invites viewers to reconsider the weight of history, the role of memory in shaping national identity, and the importance of resisting historical erasure. It calls for ongoing dialogue, where the marks of the past remain indelible, but the futures they shape can be reimagined through allied, creative action.
Participating Artists
Ilona McQuire (Aboriginal Australian, Whadjuk, Ballardong, Yuat and Kungarakan heritage): McGuire’s work focuses on the use of traditional Aboriginal colours to highlight the ongoing cultural resilience of her people. Her art is a powerful commentary on sovereignty and land rights, critiquing the structures that have long sought to silence Aboriginal voices.
Brian Robinson (Torres Straits Islander Australian of the Maluyligal and Wuthathi tribal groups of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula and a descendant of the Dayak people of Malaysia): Robinson draws on traditional Torres Strait Islander motifs while challenging the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems. His work reflects on the survival of his culture in the face of colonial suppression.
Tyrown Waigana (Aboriginal Australian of Wadandi Noongar and Ait Koedal peoples): Waigana’s use of humour and contemporary Indigenous aesthetics critiques colonisation while inviting audiences to engage with complex themes of identity, displacement, and resilience.
Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Malay-Singaporean-Australian): Ben-Dzulkefli creates sculptural works exploring themes of longing, belonging, and colonisation, as he navigates his identity as a Singaporean Malay-Javanese migrant in Perth. Using clay, he re-imagines folk Malay and Javanese rituals, spirits, and writing systems of the Nusantara, preserving personal memories and stories of growing up in Singapore.
Ezzam Rahman (Malay-Singaporean): Rahman’s multidisciplinary practice is defined by his use of ephemeral materials such as skin and talcum powder to explore the transient nature of life, the fragility of the body, and personal identity. His works, which range from performance art to delicate sculptures, reflect on mortality, decay, and the passage of time, while also challenging societal norms around beauty and the body. Through these investigations, Rahman critiques the lingering colonial frameworks that continue to shape perceptions of physicality, race, and identity in contemporary Singapore.
Alya Rahmat (Malay-Singaporean): Alya’s multidisciplinary practice includes assemblage and batik making, exploring themes of nation building, colonisation and reclamation through a feminist centric lens to speculate counter-narratives. The nature of her works explores the female identity and the concerns within the Malay-Muslim community, addressing it through appropriation of Nusantaran myths and folklores.
Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian): Mah's practice subverts the authoritative aesthetics of natural history illustration and documentary narratives to interrogate colonial histories. By adopting the meticulous detail and objectivity associated with observation, my paintings challenge how colonisation has shaped understandings of nature, land, and identity. The tension between the naturalist style and the subject matter—erased histories, imposed legacies, and ecological disruptions—prompts viewers to question what is preserved, what is lost, and who controls historical narratives.
Co-organised by Tyrown Waigana (Indigenous Australian), Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian), Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Singaporean-Australian)
Indelible Marks examines the impact of colonialism on Singapore’s cultural, social, and political identity. This joint international exhibition, marking Singapore's 60th anniversary of independence in 2025, brings together seven artists from Australia and Singapore, uniting Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives through collaboration, dialogue, and the shared exploration of British colonial histories. By including Australia’s First Nations artists — whose practices reflect resilience and adaptability — the exhibition encourages Singaporeans to confront their own colonial legacy and its ongoing effects. This allied effort challenges dominant colonial narratives and creates space for reflection, dialogue, and action.
Singapore’s reverence for its colonial past has long been a source of tension. Under British rule from the early 19th century until 1959, the city-state was transformed into a vital trading port of the British Empire. This period saw infrastructural growth and economic expansion, shaping modern Singapore in ways still visible today. Yet beneath this progress lay colonial policies that enforced racial segregation, exploited local labour, and erased pre-colonial cultures. The consequences of these systems persist, particularly for those whose histories have been overshadowed by narratives that celebrate the British colonial legacy.
One such narrative is the veneration of Stamford Raffles, often credited with founding Singapore. Monuments like the Raffles Landing Site and Raffles Hotel serve as reminders of a colonial past romanticised in national education and public commemorations. These figures and sites stand as symbols of a colonial legacy embraced as part of Singapore’s global identity, yet this selective memory overlooks the violence, exploitation, and displacement endured by pre-colonial communities.
The exhibition provides a platform for engagement and reflection, inviting audiences to interrogate their own relationship to the histories of colonisation. Themes of cultural adaptation, survival, and resistance emerge as the artists respond to both personal and collective experiences, exploring the intersections of identity, memory, and colonial impact. Through diverse artistic practices, the works create a vibrant, multilayered discourse confronting the complexities of postcolonial identity.
As Singapore celebrates its 60th anniversary of independence in 2025, this alliance of Singaporean artists, Ezzam Rahman and Alya Rahmat—alongside with Australian artists—Ilona McGuire (Aboriginal Australian), Brian Robinson (Torres Strait Islander Australian), Tyrown Waigana (Aboriginal Australian), Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Singaporean-Australian), and Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian), invites viewers to reconsider the weight of history, the role of memory in shaping national identity, and the importance of resisting historical erasure. It calls for ongoing dialogue, where the marks of the past remain indelible, but the futures they shape can be reimagined through allied, creative action.
Participating Artists
Ilona McQuire (Aboriginal Australian, Whadjuk, Ballardong, Yuat and Kungarakan heritage): McGuire’s work focuses on the use of traditional Aboriginal colours to highlight the ongoing cultural resilience of her people. Her art is a powerful commentary on sovereignty and land rights, critiquing the structures that have long sought to silence Aboriginal voices.
Brian Robinson (Torres Straits Islander Australian of the Maluyligal and Wuthathi tribal groups of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula and a descendant of the Dayak people of Malaysia): Robinson draws on traditional Torres Strait Islander motifs while challenging the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems. His work reflects on the survival of his culture in the face of colonial suppression.
Tyrown Waigana (Aboriginal Australian of Wadandi Noongar and Ait Koedal peoples): Waigana’s use of humour and contemporary Indigenous aesthetics critiques colonisation while inviting audiences to engage with complex themes of identity, displacement, and resilience.
Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli (Malay-Singaporean-Australian): Ben-Dzulkefli creates sculptural works exploring themes of longing, belonging, and colonisation, as he navigates his identity as a Singaporean Malay-Javanese migrant in Perth. Using clay, he re-imagines folk Malay and Javanese rituals, spirits, and writing systems of the Nusantara, preserving personal memories and stories of growing up in Singapore.
Ezzam Rahman (Malay-Singaporean): Rahman’s multidisciplinary practice is defined by his use of ephemeral materials such as skin and talcum powder to explore the transient nature of life, the fragility of the body, and personal identity. His works, which range from performance art to delicate sculptures, reflect on mortality, decay, and the passage of time, while also challenging societal norms around beauty and the body. Through these investigations, Rahman critiques the lingering colonial frameworks that continue to shape perceptions of physicality, race, and identity in contemporary Singapore.
Alya Rahmat (Malay-Singaporean): Alya’s multidisciplinary practice includes assemblage and batik making, exploring themes of nation building, colonisation and reclamation through a feminist centric lens to speculate counter-narratives. The nature of her works explores the female identity and the concerns within the Malay-Muslim community, addressing it through appropriation of Nusantaran myths and folklores.
Desmond Mah (Singaporean-Australian): Mah's practice subverts the authoritative aesthetics of natural history illustration and documentary narratives to interrogate colonial histories. By adopting the meticulous detail and objectivity associated with observation, my paintings challenge how colonisation has shaped understandings of nature, land, and identity. The tension between the naturalist style and the subject matter—erased histories, imposed legacies, and ecological disruptions—prompts viewers to question what is preserved, what is lost, and who controls historical narratives.
Brian Robinson, 2022, Cursed be the ground for our sake, vinyl cut, 100 x 200 cm
Tyrown Waigana, 2024, Heavy Bottom John, digital Print on Paper, 110 x 77.5 cm
Working Statement. The Waking Snake
The Waking Snake by Waigana explores the clichéd expectations that white Australia places on Indigenous people. He describes how these expectations are constantly shifting and ultimately unattainable, creating a situation in which Indigenous people are never deemed good enough. This is an experience felt by many Indigenous Australians from childhood. According to Waigana, Indigenous people often feel they must be exceptional in their endeavours in order to be seen as worthy. When they do succeed, they are held up as a blueprint for how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be. He asserts that one should not have to be outstanding to justify their existence. While acknowledging this as a broader societal issue, he believes it is felt more acutely by Indigenous people as a minority.
This idea crystallised for Waigana when he received his COVID vaccine. He was wearing a shirt printed with the Torres Strait Islander flag, which features the colours green, blue, white, and black. The nurse administering the vaccine asked, “Is that a real flag?” Waigana replied that it was the Torres Strait Islander flag. She then said, “I thought it would have been brighter.” For Waigana, this interaction highlighted the polarity between ignorance and the persistent sense of not being good enough.
The artwork itself, created by Waigana, depicts a snake that has been coiled up but now stands upright on two legs, evoking a sense of discomfort. He explains that telling a snake to walk is akin to white Australians telling Indigenous people that their way of being isn’t good enough simply because it is different. It reflects the pressure placed on Indigenous people to operate in ways that are unnatural to them, followed by surprise or frustration when they resist. The snake was chosen not only because it is a native animal, but also because the serpent is a creator spirit in many Dreamtime stories.
The Waking Snake by Waigana explores the clichéd expectations that white Australia places on Indigenous people. He describes how these expectations are constantly shifting and ultimately unattainable, creating a situation in which Indigenous people are never deemed good enough. This is an experience felt by many Indigenous Australians from childhood. According to Waigana, Indigenous people often feel they must be exceptional in their endeavours in order to be seen as worthy. When they do succeed, they are held up as a blueprint for how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be. He asserts that one should not have to be outstanding to justify their existence. While acknowledging this as a broader societal issue, he believes it is felt more acutely by Indigenous people as a minority.
This idea crystallised for Waigana when he received his COVID vaccine. He was wearing a shirt printed with the Torres Strait Islander flag, which features the colours green, blue, white, and black. The nurse administering the vaccine asked, “Is that a real flag?” Waigana replied that it was the Torres Strait Islander flag. She then said, “I thought it would have been brighter.” For Waigana, this interaction highlighted the polarity between ignorance and the persistent sense of not being good enough.
The artwork itself, created by Waigana, depicts a snake that has been coiled up but now stands upright on two legs, evoking a sense of discomfort. He explains that telling a snake to walk is akin to white Australians telling Indigenous people that their way of being isn’t good enough simply because it is different. It reflects the pressure placed on Indigenous people to operate in ways that are unnatural to them, followed by surprise or frustration when they resist. The snake was chosen not only because it is a native animal, but also because the serpent is a creator spirit in many Dreamtime stories.
Ezzam Rahman, 2025, how do you want to be remembered? artist’s hair, used anti-inflammatory plasters, repurposed genuine leather, adhesives, epoxy resin on canvas, 80cm x 80cm x 1cm
Working Statement
Ezzam Rahman is known for using unconventional materials such as his own skin he harvests in most of his autobiographical artworks. In this proposed artwork by using materials from and off his own body and meticulously carving them in Jawi. Ezzam is relearning, researching, and focusing on borrowed and colonized languages, Jawi is the Arabic alphabet or writing system used for Malay or related languages. Through the spreading of Islam in the Malay Archipelago, the native Malays adapted Jawi scriptures as Bahasa Melayu. By using these materials Ezzam is questioning his own self-identity, highlighting his experiences as a minority, Muslim, cis male, queer brown body born in Singapore, and how his body have been colonized by both eastern and western influences. By repurposing used anti-inflammatory plasters, arranged in grits as the background, it is to represent constant healing for the body. These materials may be abject to most, materials that are meant to be discarded, but to Ezzam, they are evidence to his existence.
Ezzam Rahman is known for using unconventional materials such as his own skin he harvests in most of his autobiographical artworks. In this proposed artwork by using materials from and off his own body and meticulously carving them in Jawi. Ezzam is relearning, researching, and focusing on borrowed and colonized languages, Jawi is the Arabic alphabet or writing system used for Malay or related languages. Through the spreading of Islam in the Malay Archipelago, the native Malays adapted Jawi scriptures as Bahasa Melayu. By using these materials Ezzam is questioning his own self-identity, highlighting his experiences as a minority, Muslim, cis male, queer brown body born in Singapore, and how his body have been colonized by both eastern and western influences. By repurposing used anti-inflammatory plasters, arranged in grits as the background, it is to represent constant healing for the body. These materials may be abject to most, materials that are meant to be discarded, but to Ezzam, they are evidence to his existence.
Alya Rahmat, 2022, Balada Wanita Melayu Terakhir. (Ballads of the Final Malay Woman), batik and wax. 3.5m x 1m.
When does a tool become a weapon? (working statement)
In this work, Alya looks at the myth surrounding the Pontianak and the Jantung Pisang, and draws reference to colonial botany that paved the way to subjugation and segregation of a people. Referencing colonial botanical sketches, Alya presents 2 batik pieces, one with the Jantung Pisang (heart of the banana tree) and the other with Singapore’s national flower, Vanda Miss Joaquim. Each flower represents the opposite ends of national identity; with the Vanda Miss Joaquim as the idealistic national identity and the Jantung Pisang as the complete opposite, the other woman.
In this work, Alya looks at the myth surrounding the Pontianak and the Jantung Pisang, and draws reference to colonial botany that paved the way to subjugation and segregation of a people. Referencing colonial botanical sketches, Alya presents 2 batik pieces, one with the Jantung Pisang (heart of the banana tree) and the other with Singapore’s national flower, Vanda Miss Joaquim. Each flower represents the opposite ends of national identity; with the Vanda Miss Joaquim as the idealistic national identity and the Jantung Pisang as the complete opposite, the other woman.
Works for Indelible Marks (Works in Progress)
Ilona McQuire, 2025, Work in progress
Exposed using cyanotype printmaking on either side of the same fabric, an image of a young black man on a white horse and a white woman on a black horse on the other side is depicted. Harnessing sun exposure, two imposed images are shared that speak to the dual Australian perspectives of our shared histories. The pride and shame of our shadowy past, some silent and some screaming of atrocities untold.
Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli, 2025, Shackled Economies, 740 x 740mm, glazed earthenware, gold plated jump rings, steel.
Shackled Economies examines the economic marginalization of indigenous Malay and Bugis traders during the 19th century through the lens of two Malay syair (narrative poems) written by Tuan Simi--Syair Dagang Berjual-beli and Syair Potong Gaji. As a contemporary of Munshi Abdullah, the secretary to Sir Stamford Raffles, Tuan Simi offers a rare and invaluable indigenous perspective on the socio-economic conditions of the period. These poetic texts serve not only as literary works but also as historical documents that critique the exploitative trade practices instituted under British colonial rule, particularly by the East India Company (EIC).
The works reveal how the EIC disrupted existing local trade systems by installing foreign middlemen merchant classes, effectively displacing indigenous actors from commercial agency. Contrary to colonial depictions of Singapore as an undeveloped fishing village, the island was historically an active node in regional and global trade networks, particularly as part of the Johor-Riau-Lingga Sultanate. The syair suggest that a sophisticated indigenous economic infrastructure existed long before colonial intervention, with established systems of commerce and currency circulation involving distant polities. The imposition of colonial economic structures not only curtailed these networks but also left enduring disadvantages for the Malay populace, effects that reverberate into the present.
Desmond Mah, 2025, The swamp and its spectre, acrylic and mixed media on canvas with QR code to accompanying AI voice,
(H) 84 x (W) 125 cm
The swamp & its spectre audio
This naturalist illustration-styled painting interrogates the colonial narratives that continue to shape Singapore’s collective consciousness. Set against the murky backwaters of a “once-primitive Singapore,” a Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni)—now extinct in the country—faithfully carries the name Raffles in its mouth. The work addresses the erasure of pre-colonial histories and the presence of a constructed colonial legacy, highlighting how these narratives persist in shaping the national history and identity.