![\"Yang](\"https:\/\/esquiresg.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/yang-derong.jpg\")
(SHERMAN SEE-THO)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
FOR A LONG TIME,<\/strong> I designed for other people; image, branding, marketing, dresses, shows, costumes and all. At some point, I became more interested in the things that I couldn\u2019t quite explain or resolve, because in design, we solve problems. But in art, we ask questions.<\/p>\n THE MEDIUM <\/strong>changes all the time, but the instinct doesn\u2019t. I\u2019m quite multimedia: traditional oils, acrylics, charcoal, photos, assemblages, sculptures, and digital. Some work I see in a digital format, others in another.<\/p>\n I USUALLY START<\/strong> with an observation of everyday life, really. Sometimes I like to explore different points of view, while other times I just appreciate what it is upfront. I think about the journey of the subject through the whole creative process.<\/p>\n IT ALWAYS COMES BACK <\/strong>to systems that we take for granted because they happen every day. A lot of it comes from my kopitiam eavesdropping. I love hanging out there in the morning, or with the beer uncles. Then I just push it, and build a world or visual language around it. Enough to make the familiar feel unfamiliar again.<\/p>\n THIS IS NOT<\/strong> a preaching project. I don\u2019t work for the National Environmental Agency. You may not get it at first, but hopefully over the course, it [leaves] some kind of residue in your mental scape. Somehow, you dig it out, or it manifests in a dream.<\/p>\n I DON’T HAVE A <\/strong>prescribed reaction that you should have, or what you should take home after visiting the show. I like to welcome you into the realm, and what you take away from it is based on your own experience and stages in life. You may see something that I haven\u2019t seen<\/p>\n I ONLY HAVE <\/strong>about 20 seconds of your attention. Sometimes it\u2019s just your state of mind. You may be preoccupied with something. You are staring at the work, but it doesn\u2019t register. It\u2019s all about walking in comfortable, and leaving slightly different. Unsure, tickled, ruffled, even, or empowered.<\/p>\n WHAT I DO<\/strong> is not the answer; the viewer is the answer.<\/p>\n I SECOND-GUESS MYSELf <\/strong>when my studio is too neat. I think, \u201cOh my god, did I not do anything right?\u201d Because I\u2019m not clinical, but when it\u2019s too clean, it\u2019s not asking questions.<\/p>\n LIFE IS NOT A SHOW FLAT <\/strong>in a condo. It can be neat, but not tidy.<\/p>\n THE MOST CHALLENGING PROJECT <\/strong>is the one that is closest to daily life, because the nuances are so hard to see. A lot of my work is not so abstract, so trying to look again from a different perspective while keeping your own is the difficult part.<\/p>\n I FIND IT EXCITING<\/strong> when the projects have no roadmaps. It\u2019s like when you\u2019re inventing a language as you go. I love journeys without itineraries or return tickets. You just go and see what happens.<\/p>\n I DON’T HAVE AN ID\u00c9E FIXE <\/strong>of the way my work should be. Halfway through, I may trip on something, listen to or see something that allows me to explore a different direction. I\u2019m happy to get lost. I do that all the time, like a fl\u00e2neur.<\/p>\n I lived in France<\/strong> for about 11 years, so I picked up on all their strange words. This instinct to drift, observe, to pass through spaces, almost feels in my blood. I\u2019m also Hakka: guest people of China. They wander around, so I guess it\u2019s in my DNA.<\/p>\n THE WORLD IS ONE DESTINATION <\/strong>with many stops. So, I like to do stopovers. Or forced transits. I have lived away for 25 years in Paris, London, New York, Dusseldorf, Brussels, Hong Kong; and I don\u2019t have a favourite city. They are all special in their own way, and I tend to like being open about my appreciation of something.<\/p>\n WHAT I’M ALWAYS FASCINATED WITH <\/strong>are civilisations, peoples, cities. The different layers of it\u2014archeologically, chronology, demographically, culturally. It\u2019s like peeling a giant kueh lapis. Sometimes there are a few more layers I haven\u2019t peeled off, then I\u2019ll revisit.<\/p>\n I\u2019M ALWAYS ANCHORED <\/strong>to my family. Otherwise, I\u2019d be like driftwood, right? It doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m purposeless, but family helps reset, like the bearings.<\/p>\n I\u2019VE HAD QUITE<\/strong> a few major accidents in my life, so I\u2019m quite lucky that I\u2019m… still alive. I\u2019ve also realised time isn\u2019t endless, and one has to reset one\u2019s relationship with fear. So, I\u2019m not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them within whatever time I have left.<\/p>\n I\u2019M QUITE FORTUNATE <\/strong>to have many wonderful childhood memories, but one of my favourites was during the ghost month. It\u2019s not that death interests me, but as kids living in Kampong Bahru, while the parents were watching the opera on stilts;[underneath the stage], we are running around and reenacting the show up there.<\/p>\n CREATING OUR LITTLE WORLD, <\/strong>in a little bubble in an eerie landscape of the seventh month. What was nice about the whole thing was that you\u2019re not supposed to be doing all of that, but staying at home. [That was the] only chance that you get to go out at night; we had a riot.<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n Yang Derong in studio with a piece from his SIFA 2026 installation You Are (Not) What You Eat!. (SHERMAN SEE-THO) FOR A LONG TIME, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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