JUNE - JULY 2025: ARUNDHATI KARTIK
Meet Arundhati Kartik (b. India), a Singapore-based artist whose practice explores collective phenomenological experiences through the depiction of light. She will join us in Penang as our #artistHINresidence , culminating in an open studio at the Hin Residency Space starting at the end of the week.
Using the window as a poetic object, she explores notions of human interconnectivity, longing and contemplation through different iterations of windows and perspectives. Primarily working with drawings, light and projected media to depict subtlety and reflections, she transforms personal experiences into shared ones, with a focus on how one responds to and connects with spaces and the passage of time.
Arundhati is a recent BA (Hons) Fine Arts graduate from @lasallesingapore . She has exhibited and curated various shows under her institution as well as Alliance Française de Singapour. She is a recipient of the Mahindra Search for Talent Scholarship, 2020-21 and The LASALLE Scholarship 2024-25. More recently, she was nominated for the International TAKIFUJI Art Award 2024, and is a recipient of the Winston Oh Travelogue Award, 2025.
Since 1999, the Winston Oh Travelogue Award has awarded graduating students from the various Fine Arts programmes at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore the opportunity to explore and pursue their practice across different South-east Asian countries, allowing for the recipients to experience the different perspectives and paradigm shifts that different cultures can offer. Taking its inspiration from Mary Anne Radmacher quote, “Having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world: The Winston Oh Travelogue Award 2025” explores the similarities and connections that we form across borders, albeit the differences. Coordinated by Adeline Kueh, Senior Lecturer at LASALLE-UAS, the award supports recipients in showcasing their works, findings and experience in September.
APRIL 2025: REMY LOW
Meet 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝘆 𝗟𝗼𝘄, a Penang-born, Sydney-based author and educator, as part of an initiative between The University of Sydney and Hin Bus Depot. From April 14 to 28, Remy will be spending two weeks in Penang as our Creative in Residence, engaging with the local community through a series of conversations and programmes.
Remy’s multidisciplinary work draws on history, neuroscience, and creative as well as contemplative practices from different traditions to enhance our responsiveness to others and the world we inhabit. He has designed and facilitated workshops for Diversity Arts Australia (2019–2020), the Sydney Theatre Company (2021–2022), and the Biennale of Sydney (with Keg De Souza, 2022). He is currently Senior Lecturer at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. His current project explores how imagination is exercised to shape lives and worlds — for better or worse.
DECEMBER 2024-MARCH 2025: SILAS OO
𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗮𝘀 𝗢𝗼 (b. 1996, Malaysia) is an alumnus of The One Academy of Communication and Design, Malaysia. While specialising in pen drawing and sculpture-making, he is a multidisciplinary artist, with a particular interest in the integration of philosophy, psyche and the human condition. Silas also makes a living by modelling for high-fashion editorials and runways, offering a unique perspective that places him directly in the whirlwind of contemporary image-making culture as well as fashion and textiles. This dual vantage point infuses his artistic endeavours with a worldly resonance.
His artistic practice primarily explores the psyche through its intersection and ties between the physical and the artificial. His artwork aims to share the transformative power of the body and the mind, and interrogate concepts of body image, religious spirituality and emotional disfunction through dysmorphic bodies and raw, brutalist forms.
In 2020, he had his first solo exhibition, titled Way Out, in collaboration with SNAP in Kuala Lumpur. Since then, Silas has been showcased in galleries across London, Singapore and Malaysia. Recent exhibitions include IMMERSIO (group, 2024) at GMBB, Kuala Lumpur, Ways of Seeing (group, 2024) at Cult Gallery, Kuala Lumpur and Duality (group, 2023) at Hin Bus Depot, Penang and Zhan Art Space, Kuala Lumpur. Currently, Silas is selected to undertake a three-month residency at Hin Bus Depot from Dec 2024 to Feb 2025.
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2024: CHONG YAN CHUAH
Sino-Malaysian artist, architect and designer 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒀𝒂𝒏 𝑪𝒉𝒖𝒂𝒉 [𝘣. 1992, 𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘰𝘳, 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘢] [𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘯 & 𝘒𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘢 𝘓𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘳] works primarily in the mediums of the digital image, game art, and installation art, his works positioned in the interstices between virtual reality and simulated space, fictive narratives and imagined bodies. - often dialoguing with one another through a mis-en-scène. Coming from an architectural background, his main interest lies at the intersection between the physical environment in which we live in, and the fictional worlds that he creates, challenging the perception of space, reality and experience. Inspired by the idea of an escape, each world serves as an extension of real life, or an allegory of his emotional state - rather than a creation of a new reality. The otherworldly feelings, characters, and elements found in his digital works are results of his playful approach towards art-making - seeking to experiment around the concept of artist as explorer; one who discovers and reveals the unknown.
MAY-AUGUST 2024: STEPHAN PEREZ
We are pleased to introduce Stephan E. Perez ( @ste_e_p ). After completing his studies in Viola, Composition, and Electronic Music in Austria, Stephan taught himself programming and began creating digital pieces with interactive audiovisuals. His time in Tokyo exposed him to the local performance art scene, leading him to work extensively with video and performance art. He also became a member of the performance art platform, Ham Tamago Sandwich. Following his experience with the installation and concert visuals group, Cosmic Lab, in Osaka, Stephan left Japan and has since been performing at various events across Southeast Asia.
Stephan’s eight years in Japan marked a significant transition from being solely a musician to exploring other artistic realms. This shift, combined with his experiences as a long-term foreign resident, has led him to reflect on the ways we categorize people and art.
FEBRUARY-APRIL 2024: THEO AL-BAKRI
Introducing Cold Hippie, a concept or character created by artist and Antarctaphile, Theo Albakri. Theo is not Cold Hippie, rather he is a vehicle for Cold Hippie's artistic expression.
Cold Hippie's lore states that he is a cosmic being that spawned on the South Pole in the form of a human child. He miraculously grew up in total isolation, and the cold Antarctic landscape acted as a surrogate parent to him.
To Cold Hippie, the Poles are the closest places on Earth to being on another planet. To the average human, an Antarctic expedition is equally as inaccessible as interplanetary travel.
You will almost definitely never go to Antarctica... or Mars.
Despite this distance, Cold Hippie is certain that humans can learn from their North and South Poles. Cobronica Icepunk is an articulation of this desire, exploring the sublime dynamism of glacial retreat. Whatever is frozen into form shall, in time change, finding new forms and patterns.
APRIL-OCTOBER 2023: DHAVINDER SINGH
Dhavinder Singh, born in 1983 and based in Kuala Lumpur, is an artist whose art practice centers on the repurposing and reconfiguring of materials through various mediums, including paintings, animation, assemblage, and site-specific installations. Trained at the Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) and later at the Cardiff School of Art & Design in Fine Art, he consistently pushes the boundaries of his practice and explores diverse artistic mediums. Describing his creative process as rooted in intuition, he once expressed, "Emotionally, my creative process is guided by intuition. Through my body of work, I aim to express and convey a visual metaphor that reflects my response to specific spaces and subject matter."
During his residency at Hin Bus Depot from August to October 2023, Dhavinder presented the exhibition "All Day I Dream About Chairs" (September 16-October 8, 2023). This exhibition emerged from his artistic journey in Penang's vibrant heart, weaving dreams and memories into a profound tapestry of spaces. At its core, the exhibition explores the theme of dreams, featuring seven evocative paintings, each set against a dreamlike black backdrop. Each canvas narrates a unique tale, with chairs recurring as a poignant symbol that connects memory and emotion.
FEBRUARY-MAY 2020 & FEBRUARY-APRIL 2023: TREXUS
Kipras Petrulis, also known as Trexus was borned 1992 in Lithuania. From a young age, he was fascinated by graffiti more than he was interested in fine arts. He would rather skip school and spend the night in a police station than sit in a classroom and paint a chair for four hours. Growing up he started to notice that he became more and more attracted to canvases rather than walls and after discovering that his long dead grandfather and father were artists, he decided to transport the wisdom he learned in the streets onto canvases and into gallery showrooms. As an emerging artist, he already held solo shows in Vilnius (Lithuania), Berlin (Germany), Penang (Malaysia) and also left some murals in Paris (France), London, Manchester (UK) and Nowy Sacz (Poland).
During his residency at Hin Bus Depot, he presented two exhibitions 'Between The Lines (2020)' and 'Recycle or Get Recycled (2023)'.
APRIL-JUNE 2019: SARITA IBNOE
Born in Jakarta and lived there for thirteen years, Sarita's family moved to Kuala Lumpur and she ended up staying there for about 7 years. After graduating from Middlesex University with a degree in illustration in 2009, Sarita eventually came back to Indonesia.
Working with weaving is something that Sarita has been interested deeply in for the past 5 years. It is exciting for Sarita to work with a medium that is very close to the body: fibre. It being one of the oldest crafts in the world, there are plenty of explorations she feels she can do with weaving.
We hosted Indonesian artist Sarita Ibnoe from April to June 2019. She had an open studio session during REKA (10-19 May 2019) where she shared her works on exploring traditional weaving techniques into artwork. She showcased her weaving final products alongside with her work in progress intending to show how the concept of weaving is being explored, rather than just a wearable product, but also into a piece of art that tells a story and as a representation of her days in Penang. She did 2 kinds of live weaving: on the existing window grill of Hin Bus Depot and another one with the loom.
FEBRUARY 2019: JOERG BRUEGGEMANN & TOBIAS KRUSE
Hin Art Residency run by Hin Bus Depot collaborated with Obscura Festival in hosting two artists from Germany - Joerg Brueggemann and Tobias Kruse; from January 2019 until 22 of Feb 2019.
Jöerg Brüggeman is a freelance photographer based in Berlin and part of OSTKREUZ – Photographers’ Agency. His works mostly reflects the concept of globalization; he is always interested in finding that undiscovered spot of a location, in photographing the outsider as well as the daily life of a place. Our next artist; Tobias Kruse is a photographer who works worldwide on personal artistic projects as well as on assignments for magazines, institutions and independents. He joined the photographer's agency Ostkreuz in March 2011. Since 2017 Tobias teaches photography at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie.
The Obscura Festival of Photography's Artist in Residence programme is a very significant programme for Penang. It is a programme to cultivate and sustain this cultural practise as it enables photographers to try and understand Penang and manage to create visual documents during the period. It has already been the fourth year collaborating between Obscura Festival and Hin Bus Depot, and the first for the residency programme. This programme is supported by Goethe-Institut Malaysia and @Cat Penang.
JULY 2018: JINND PRODUCTIONS
The Hin Bus Depot Artist Residency for dance in collaboration with JinnD Productions, supported by Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and Carbon Artist Studio, presented a contemporary dance piece titled '守 SHOU' that drew inspiration from the stories of traditional artisans in the Butterworth area. This work was in progress and was intended to be performed as a final piece during the Butterworth Festival in November 2018.
The dancers involved in this project included: Lau Beh Chin (Jinn), Leo Yap, Matt Tan and Nurulakmal Abdul Wahid.
