How Sarah Choo Jing, one of Singapore’s most compelling artists, found her voice

Her works, otherwise, take on a voyeuristic lens on contemporary urban spaces. “I’m interested in the amount of planning that goes into urban spaces”, especially those that are designed for social interaction, Choo says about her fascination with city life. “But I’m also very curious about the lack of social interaction. I get intrigued when I see that spaces are left empty, or when people are alone.” It is in these moments of solitude that Choo turns her gaze towards the private lives of those living through the alienation of urban society, when we cease to “perform” roles and norms. “I’m very interested in the overlooked aspects of everyday life,” Choo says. “My role is to bring that out.”

She is, of course, mindful of the tenuous implications of the voyeuristic gaze, a term reminiscent of “the male gaze”, coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey. What matters here is the power disparity between the active voyeur and their passive subject, where potential for misrepresentation remains. Art‑making is never far from contemporary cultural and political discourse, so the key, once again, is nuance—to weave in ideas and complexities that “come across upon deeper reading”.

At the root of her preoccupation with watching and presenting is what Choo calls her “traditional Chinese background” with her “conservative” family. Today, she readily describes herself as a devoted “family person”, but also recognises how “restrained” she was at home, presenting herself “in a certain way”. It is that tension between the public and private selves that has captivated audiences of her work. She shares that it was only when she was studying in London for her masters at the Slade School of Fine Art that she discovered just how much her upbringing has shaped her artistic practice. “[My work] is so controlled and very precise,” she says, “and I remember in London, the frequent critique was that even when I was doing things that were quite documentary, I was still staging so much. It took a while for me to come to terms with how my upbringing has influenced my sense‑making via control.”

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Today, that sense of control has given her a strong sense of creative direction, freeing her to experiment in interdisciplinary mediums. But she is also learning how to allow her creative energies to be more fluid, especially through collaborations. Case in point: her recent project Dancing Without Touching (2023), which earned an honourable mention at the 2023 International Photography Awards. Here, she curated the mood of the set, leaving her subjects free to respond to the space. For her, total control or total freedom is uninteresting; it is in those grey areas between mediums and direction that creativity flows.

Besides her creative practice, Choo is passionate about arts education, crediting the support of her teachers in the Art Elective Programme at Nanyang Junior College and Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media. “It broadened my perspectives and helped me grow [as] a person, and I want to give back,” she says. She frequently gives talks on her art and wants to expand the public’s understanding of art so that the average person can still appreciate and support the arts.

Choo’s star is clearly on the rise. Articulate and introspective, her work deserves the patience to sit through and ponder. Look a little closer, and as private as the inhabitants of her creative worlds are, you just might find an affinity with them, a common humanity. You might even be compelled to pull back your own curtain. 

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