Interactive artworks across NTU campus in On the cusp exhibition
Image: 东邪西毒 I Want to Infect You with History, Boedi Widjaja, 2025. Credit: Third Street Studio
NTU Museum today launches On the cusp, a campus-wide exhibition featuring newly commissioned artworks by three acclaimed Southeast Asian artists – Boedi Widjaja, Torlarp Larpjaroensook, and Tromarama.
Open to the public and presented across three locations on the NTU Singapore campus, the exhibition enhances NTU’s vibrant student environment by integrating art into the daily campus experience and enriching campus culture beyond academic life.
On the cusp, which runs till 2 April 2026 and is part of Singapore Art Week, reflects on how belonging, connection and identity are shaped at the points where different realms meet – between past and present, the physical and virtual, the earthly and spiritual. The installations draw on memory, language, cosmology and mediated perception to prompt viewers to consider how these forces influence their sense of self.
The exhibition is especially resonant for university students navigating formative years of growth and transition, while remaining equally relevant to members of the public who encounter similar questions of place, identity and connection in their everyday lives.
Located at Nanyang Lake Pavilion, the Chinese Heritage Centre Lawn, and the digital media wall INDEX at North Spine Plaza, the three artworks highlight the diversity of Southeast Asian artistic perspectives that reflect the mix of cultures found within NTU’s own community.
Each artist approaches the themes of belonging and identity in distinct ways, from Boedi Widjaja’s engagement with memory, language and bio-scientific processes, to Torlarp Larpjaroensook’s reinterpretation of cosmology and cultural narratives, to Tromarama’s exploration of digital perception in everyday life.
Together, the works draw inspiration from NTU’s unique environment, shaped by its interdisciplinary culture and historical ties to heritage, offering visitors varied entry points into reflecting on place, connection and the shaping of self.
NTU Museum curator Ms Lu Xiaohui said: “On the cusp brings together artists whose practices reflect on how memory takes form across bodies, landscapes, languages and cultural inheritances. By presenting the artworks across outdoor and public locations on campus, the exhibition invites not only the NTU community but also the wider public to encounter art within the spaces they move through every day, and to consider how memory is continually carried, reinterpreted and reshaped through experience.”
Overview of Artworks Across NTU Campus: Three Distinct Explorations of Memory and Meaning
Image: Still from 东邪西毒 I Want to Infect You with History, Boedi Widjaja, 2025. Cinematography by Harry Chew. Image courtesy of the artist and performer.
1. Artwork: 东邪西毒 I Want to Infect You with History
Artist: Boedi Widjaja (Indonesia/Singapore)
Location: Nanyang Lake Pavilion
At the Nanyang Lake Pavilion, Boedi Widjaja reimagines the site as a living cell – a biological structure where memory, language and genetic code circulate, mutate and endure. The pavilion becomes a porous architecture through which histories pass and are carried across bodies, generations and languages. With molecular code as a starting point, the installation presents explorations that manifest in poetry, sculpture, performance and photography. Through these strategies of transmission and translation, hidden narratives embedded within the body surface and take form.
Part of the installation is a new work developed with Dr Eric Yap, Associate Professor in Human and Microbial Genetics at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Principal Investigator at the Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science. A poem composed by the artist is encoded into DNA using a biocultural cipher shaped by his multilingual inheritance. The installation explores themes of migration, displacement, inherited histories and molecular memory.
In conjunction with the exhibition, NTU Museum will also present an artist talk by Boedi Widjaja in conversation with Dr Yap, offering audiences deeper insight into the cross-disciplinary processes behind 东邪西毒 I Want to Infect You with History. Scheduled to take place in March 2026, the session will explore the convergence of art, science and technology underpinning the work, including the use of microfluidic lab techniques and DNA synthesis as a medium for poetic and cultural expression. The artist talk will highlight NTU’s contribution in fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue between artistic practice and scientific research within and beyond the university community.
Image: Cosmos of Nostalgia, Torlarp Larpjaroensook, 2025. Credit: Third Street Studio
2. Artwork: Cosmos of Nostalgia
Artist: Torlarp Larpjaroensook (Thailand)
Location: Chinese Heritage Centre Lawn
On the lawn beside the Nanyang Lake, Torlarp Larpjaroensook presents Cosmos of Nostalgia - a sculptural installation inspired by Chinese cosmology, celestial stories and cultural memory. Inspired by the artist’s Thai and Chinese heritage, the work incorporates influences from both cultures. Referencing myths such as Chang’e and the ancient story of Wan Hu, Thai science fiction novels and early science encyclopaedias, the work functions as a time capsule from the future filled with traces of the past.
Constructed from fibreglass, the structure’s interior features a hand-painted scenic landscape that evokes a personal universe where time flows in multiple directions. The installation engages with the long-standing human desire to understand the cosmos and our relationship with it, inviting viewers to contemplate memory, imagination and the layered nature of existence.
Image: Still from Turn On, Tromarama, 2026. Image courtesy of the artist.
3. Artwork: Turn On
Artist: Tromarama (Indonesia)
Location: INDEX, North Spine Plaza, Level 1
At INDEX, North Spine Plaza, the artist collective Tromarama presents Turn On, a media work inspired by the familiar presence of electric fans across Southeast Asia. Projected on an LED screen, fans of various types appear in different colours and scales. As they turn on, the surrounding digital environment shifts, as if stirred by airflow.
Drawing from the collective’s interest in hyperreality and mediated perception, the installation examines how digital representations transform our relationships with everyday objects. By animating a familiar household tool essential for comfort in the region’s climate, the work reflects on how technology shapes our behaviours, memories and interactions with the world.
NTU as a Living Museum and the evolving NTU Campus Art Trail
As a museum without walls, NTU Museum integrates art into everyday spaces across the campus. The NTU Campus Art Trail is central to this vision. First launched in 2018 as the first of its kind for a Singaporean university, the trail showcases the rich and diverse creative expressions that define NTU’s identity and has continued to evolve alongside the campus’ dynamic growth in art and architecture.
The trail was most recently revamped in 2025, with a new map highlighting the iconic architecture and diverse artworks across the campus. The latest artwork additions include Becoming by 8EyedSpud, NTU’s largest wall mural to date, standing 6.4m high, and Yip Yew Chong’s Tribute to Dr Wee Cho Yaw, a 12-metre-long panoramic painting commemorating the renaming of Wee Cho Yaw Plaza. Together, these additions reflect NTU Museum’s ongoing efforts to highlight art and culture across the university grounds.
NTU Museum’s exhibitions and the NTU Campus Art Trail are also now available on Bloomberg Connects, the global arts and culture digital guide launched in Singapore in 2025 that features over 1,200 museums and cultural institutions worldwide. The app offers mapping tools, artwork information and exhibition highlights, allowing visitors both on campus and beyond to explore the artworks more easily and at their own pace.
As part of its broader public engagement initiatives, NTU Museum will also present the “West Side Art Tour”, a guided bus-and-walking experience that extends the exhibition context beyond the NTU campus into Singapore’s western region. Open to NTU students, staff and members of the public, the tour runs in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2026 and in celebration of the On the cusp exhibition’s launch.
Scheduled on two Saturday mornings on 24 January and 31 January 2026, the tour traces a curated route through key artworks, architectural landmarks and heritage sites in and around NTU, as well as neighbouring districts within the Nanyang constituency, offering participants deeper insight into how contemporary art, architecture and lived histories intersect within the evolving cultural landscape of western Singapore.
More information on the exhibition and revamped Campus Art Trail can be found in the Annexes and on the exhibition website.
