Singaporean artist Amanda Heng, now 74, is representing Singapore at this year's Venice Biennale with her exhibition titled *A Pause*, featuring a site-specific installation and durational performance. Known for her decades-long performance *Let's Chat* (1996–), in which she cleans mung bean sprouts with participants to foster casual conversation, Heng transforms everyday domestic gestures into feminist acts. Her work reclaims the body, labor, and relationships as sites of personal autonomy. She was part of the pioneering, male-dominated generation of Singaporean contemporary artists in The Artists Village, but left due to its hierarchical structure to pursue collaborations with women artists and further studies.
Heng's selection for the Venice Biennale underscores the growing international recognition of Southeast Asian feminist art practices. Her quiet, participatory works challenge heroic, grand-gesture traditions of male contemporaries like Lee Wen and Tang Da Wu, offering an alternative model of art-making centered on care, rest, and dialogue. The exhibition continues her exploration of rest and embodiment, including a new video collaboration with Venetian participants and an early photographic series *Parts of My Body* (1990). This matters because it amplifies underrepresented voices in contemporary art history and highlights how intimate, domestic acts can carry profound political and social meaning.