Alecia Neo (b. 1986, Singapore) develops long-term projects that involve collaborations with individuals, communities and networks. Her socially engaged practice unfolds primarily through photography, video, and participatory artworks that address modes of radical hospitality and care labour.
She is the co-founder of Brack, an art collective and platform for socially engaged art, and Ubah Rumah Residency in Bintan. She also runs Unseen Art Initiatives, a Singapore-based art platform for professional and emerging disabled artists. Alecia was the recipient of the Young Artist Award in 2016.
Current Research
Her ongoing projects include Care Index, an experimental platform that collects and features diverse practices of care performed by people from all walks of life. Care Index was initiated in Dec 2020 as part of the larger artistic research project on care practices, building on a previous collaborative project titled, Between Earth and Sky, which was developed with a group of caregivers in Singapore.
More at Care Index
Intrigued by the fundamental elements of mutual respect and equal status that underlie practices of hospitality, Alecia seeks to experiment with “acts of radical hospitality” to push forward a critical engagement with the culture of our time. Today, hospitality is mostly associated with the tourism industry and private etiquette, but it can also be understood as political practice whereby a community negotiates its identity and its relationship with “the others.” Engaging with diverse rituals of hospitality practiced in the region, the artist aims to understand how communities drawn boundaries and connect with outsiders. Through observing and experimenting with these rituals with individuals and communities, Alecia aims to gain a better understanding of how hospitality may serve as a resource to establish forms of connectedness across different communities.
More at To Gathering with Brack and Ubah Rumah Residency
Power to the People (2019)