This January, amid the buzz of Singapore Art Week, one homegrown platform is entering a bold new chapter. S.E.A. Focus 2026 makes its debut within ART SG, Southeast Asia’s leading international art fair, bringing with it a powerful curatorial proposition: art as an act of compassion.

Staged at Marina Bay Sands from 23 to 26 January 2026, S.E.A. Focus 2026 invites audiences to slow down, look closer, and reflect on what it means to be human today. Under the theme The Humane Agency, the showcase positions Southeast Asian artists not just as observers of the world’s crises, but as active, empathetic agents responding to them.

For the first time, S.E.A. Focus is presented in collaboration with ART SG — a strategic move that amplifies the platform’s regional and international reach. Together, the two form a cornerstone of Singapore Art Week, offering collectors, curators, and the culturally curious a richly layered entry point into Southeast Asian contemporary art.

Now in its eighth edition, S.E.A. Focus continues its mission to spotlight the region’s diverse artistic voices, while strengthening Singapore’s role as a global cultural nexus where regional creativity meets international dialogue.

Curated by John Tung, with artistic consultation by Emi Eu, Executive Director of STPI, this year’s edition takes on a quietly urgent tone. In a world marked by displacement, environmental fragility, and ongoing conflict, the works presented resist detachment. Instead, they lean into care, empathy, and shared responsibility.

“The Humane Agency” brings together practices that engage deeply with questions of violence and peace, migration and belonging, ecological loss and resilience. Across paintings, installations, videos, and sculptural works, art becomes a space to pause: to feel, to reckon, and to imagine alternatives.

As Tung puts it, the exhibition invites audiences into “questions, provocations, and possibilities that Southeast Asian voices bring to these urgent global conversations.”

Reflecting the city’s growing influence as a contemporary art hub, more than half of the participating galleries operate spaces in Singapore. Highlights include Richard Koh Fine Art, presenting works by Singaporean textile artist Samuel Xun, whose gilded, text-based canvases explore language, identity, and social protection through his ongoing Decorative Disobedience series.

STPI showcases the installation-driven practice of artist duo Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, while ShanghART brings together a compelling intergenerational dialogue between Singaporean artists Robert Zhao and Amanda Heng, alongside Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo.

Other Singapore-based galleries such as Gajah Gallery, Mizuma Gallery, Wetterling Teo, and Mr. Lim’s Shop of Visual Treasures further underscore the city’s vibrant and varied arts ecosystem.

Beyond Singapore, S.E.A. Focus 2026 gathers a strong line-up of regional and international galleries presenting Southeast Asian artists whose practices speak directly to the exhibition’s humane ethos. Together, these presentations form a nuanced portrait of Southeast Asia showcasing how it is complex, compassionate, and deeply engaged with the world.

Berlin-based neugerriemschneider centres its presentation on Ho Tzu Nyen’s haunting video installation Night March of Hundred Monsters – 36 Ghosts, while Gallery VER (Bangkok) presents Thai artist Ruangsak Anuwatwimon, whose research-led work examines ecological destruction along the Mekong River.

From Manila, Silverlens features mixed-media works by pioneering Filipino artist Imelda Cajipe Endaya, whose richly textured pieces weave together feminism, domesticity, and environmental consciousness. ISA Art Gallery (Jakarta) presents influential Indonesian artist Arahmaiani, known internationally for her incisive critiques of social and political power structures.

Extending beyond the exhibition floor, SEAspotlight Talks returns with a curated programme of panels and fireside chats led by curator and arts writer Clara Che Wei Peh. The discussions explore how art is made, shown, sold, and sustained in the region today, tracing Southeast Asia’s art histories in non-linear, interconnected ways.

Highlights include an intimate conversation between Megan Arlin (ara contemporary) and Lydia Yee (Muara) on institution-building, as well as a cross-disciplinary dialogue with artist Lawrence Lek, filmmaker Jo Ho, and designer Chris Fussner on translating abstract ideas into immersive worlds and long-term creative practices.

S.E.A. Focus 2026 turns our attention to stories, to contexts, and to one another. By framing artists as agents of compassion, the platform reminds us that art does not simply reflect the times we live in; it shapes how we respond to them.

As Emi Eu notes, this new collaboration with ART SG invites audiences to “experience the platform anew,” discovering the depth, diversity, and urgency of Southeast Asian contemporary art.

During Singapore Art Week, amid the crowds and conversations, S.E.A. Focus offers something quietly radical: a space to reconnect with empathy, and to see the world, and ourselves, a little more clearly.

Installation Photos courtesy of S.E.A. Focus & ART SG.

S.E.A. Focus 2026 is presented at ART SG from 23 – 25 January (VIP Preview and Vernissage on 22 January) at Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands. More information available here

ART SG 2026 runs from 23th to 25th January 2026 at Marina Bay Sands Singapore. Tickets and more information available here