Amanda Heng

Amanda Heng (born 1951, Singapore) is a pioneering contemporary artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans performance, installation, photography, and participatory art.
Emerging in the late 1980s during a pivotal shift in Singapore’s art scene, Heng is known for her body-centric works that interrogate gender roles, societal expectations, and lived
memory through everyday gestures.

Heng’s long-running performance works, such as Let’s Walk (1999–ongoing), Walking the Stool (2000), and Let’s Chat (1999–ongoing), mobilise the body as a site of social encounter—using simple, quotidian acts to provoke reflection on care, connection, and resilience. Her photographic series Another Woman (1996, 2014, 2023) delicately traces intergenerational intimacy through repeated portraits with her mother.

A founding member of The Artists Village (1988) and Women in the Arts (1999), Heng has been pivotal in shaping Singapore’s contemporary and feminist discourse. Her work has been featured in major biennales and performance art festivals, including Bangkok Art Biennale (2024), Singapore Biennale (2006, 2019), and the inaugural Women’s Performance Art Festival in Osaka (2001).

Heng received Singapore’s Cultural Medallion (2010) and the Benesse Prize (2020) and was inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame (2023).