Started in 2001 by Singapore Art Museum, the President’s Young Talents is a mentoring and commissioning exhibition held every three years. It shines the spotlight on Singaporean artists under the age of 35, and previous artists have included, Boo Junfeng, Heman Chong, Liao Jiekai, Charles Lim, and Donna Ong, all of whom have gone on to become recognized internationally.

The five artists selected this year are: Ang Song Ming (mentored by Ian Woo), Bani Haykal (mentored by Noor Effendy Ibrahim), Ezzam Rahman (mentored by Twardzik Ching Chor Leng), Loo Zihan (mentored by Louis Ho), and Ong Kian Peng (mentored by Vincent Leow). These artists have worked in a variety of media ranging from media from digital visual art and performance to sculpture and sound.

“These artists chart new dimensions in contemporary art and it’s almost immediately apparent as you walk through the galleries,” notes Susie Lingham, director of Singapore Art Museum, adding “with these five artists you have a range of concepts and mediums which reflect diversity and complexity, which is kind of the hallmark of contemporary art, especially so in Singapore where there is a real sense of experimental quality about what they do,” she added.

Ezzam Rahman’s work looks like an installation of delicate flowers under 34 glass jars, but the flowers are made of the artist’s own skin (which he has painstakingly collected over the last year), as a reflection on the materiality of a person’s body and a straight forward reflection of the title: Here’s who I am, I am what you see. His second work, Allow me to introduce myself, is a performance-based installation with the artist using talcum power to leave traces of his presence.

Too Far, Too Near by Ong Kian Peng is an immersive installation, that includes a video of stunning icescapes that the artist photographed in Greenland, while two oscillating bench-like sculptures with tiny running beads gliding up and down creates an intriguing and beautiful soundscape that seemingly recreates the noise of crackling ice.

Ang Song Ming’s Days, spreading over three rooms, uses music as its main focus to discuss continuity and time. His mentor describes it as a “clinical DIY bliss … an autobiographical document of a road trip, which marries the unadulterated sentiment of home and modern art.”

Ang Song said he first created a video (of his parents bringing him to Berlin where he resides), his forgotten guitar and its music, and then diary entries related to his thoughts on music, film, art, and the process of art making. On the walls are also hand-drawings, “interpretation” of music manuscripts drawing connections with the rest of the installation.

Bani Haykal’s Necropolis for those without sleep is another immersive installation that reflects on the notion of power. Only two visitors can enter at a time and they’ll be greeted in the closed dark room by two giant mannequins looming over a large chessboard. Two mechanical arms move the chess pieces, but one side has been rigged to disadvantage. But beyond the actual art installation, the viewing of the piece is also rigged. While one visitor can move freely around the room, the second visitor can only take up to 50 steps inside the room — visitors waiting to enter can watch the maneuvering on a CCTV camera. How long one stays in the room, while others are waiting outside is another interesting look at the power of guilt/culpability.

Finally, with Of Public Interest: The Singapore Art Museum Resource Room, Loo Zihan recreates a public reference library working with about 5,000 books from the resource room at SAM. Neatly organized by years and by sources of publication (local, regional, international), the viewing of the library makes for an interesting analysis of art development in Singapore. While visitors can freely browse the books as if in a real library, they can also exercise a power of censorship by picking on book that they believe should not be there and having it wrapped in plastic or they can add one book to the collection.

On October 21, one of the artworks will be awarded the top prize ($25,000) by SAM and the mentors with the money to be put toward the creation of a new work or a residency program. This year a People’s Choice Award is also being introduced with a cash prize of $5,000.

The President’s Young Talents exhibition is running August 21 to March 27, 2016 at SAM at 8Q.