about

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” (Mary Oliver)

Hello, I'm Ang Kia Yee/ kyatos/ 洪佳仪. All of my work emanates out of a desire to live in a sincere and loving world—qualities which currently feel fraught, distracted, and inconceivable for many. Most of my projects are slow, intimately surreal, and transdisciplinary, i.e. they lope toward the destabilisation, contamination, mutation, and cross-pollination of disciplines, forms, and media.

I've written poetry, essays, fiction, and performance texts. I've co-created performances with people, objects, and environments. I operate agnostically when it comes to disciplines, but tend to approach things as a poet and theatre-maker.

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My first book of poetry is slow dream machine (2020). Looser pieces of writing have been published in places like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Stand Magazine and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal; as well as for exhibitions such as REFUSE (Singapore Art Museum), immaterial bodies (Objectifs) and Networked Bodies (Supernormal).

My performance practice stems from theatre. (Because the kind of theatre I’m interested in is not really what theatre looks like in Singapore, for a while I called my work performance art. But it is theatre.) I was trained in ballet for a decade. I briefly studied the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Viewpoints, both of which I loved for different reaons. I am now learning Odissi.

Recent projects include live performances FUME (2022) and Loving Things (to say) (2021); performance video Loving Things (2020); and audio walk 氵pasang (2022). I was a participating artist for Natasha, Singapore Biennale 2022, a selected participant for da:ns LAB 2023: IDIOSYNCRASIES at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, and a resident writer for Centre 42’s New Scripts Residency 2021.

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I am the continuation of many beings past and present whose poetics, aesthetics, and ethos constellate my work. These include: Thich Nhat Hanh, Ruth Ozeki (A Tale for the Time Being), Mary Oliver, Tao Ye (Tao Dance Theater), Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), Jane Bennett (Vibrant Matter), Rainer Maria Rilke (The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge), Goat Island, and Anne Bogart. Alongside these public figures are too many personal and intimate ones to name.

I am the Company Lead of Feelers, a research lab of artists and designers focused on the intersections of art and technology.

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Education

2019 BA(Hons) English Literature and Creative Writing (First Class), University of Warwick

Residency

2021 Centre 42 New Scripts Residency