Lighted Bodies: art presentations and readings
25 Jan 2025
5–6pm
National Gallery Singapore, City Hall Wing, Level 2, Singapore Courtyard
NA
“Experience the diversity and creativity of the Singapore publishing world with the following programmes:
Reading and Live Drawing Showcase with Shreya Davies and Vanessa Wong (presented by Difference Engine)
Writer Shreya Davies and illustrator Vanessa Wong take a gentle approach to the heavy subject of eating disorders in a reading and live drawing showcase based on their upcoming short comic, To the Last Gram. Adapting excerpts of the comic from panel to prose, Davies lends an evocative voice to the familiar struggles of cultural acceptance, growing up and fitting in as Wong’s unfurling illustrations capture scenes of our modern anxiety.
Spoken word by Zeha (presented by AFTERIMAGE)
Multidisciplinary artist and spoken word performer Zeha is about to shake things up. Making their debut in print with rib/cage (2025, AFTERIMAGE), Zeha’s verses showcase the visceral nature of being as they pound and kick and tear themselves apart against the scrutiny of strobing dance floor lights, all the while aching for metaphysical release.
Reading with Live Music with Prasanthi Ram and Raghavendran Rajasekaran
Writer Prasanthi Ram and Indian classical flautist Raghavendran Rajasekaran––leader of homegrown jazz fusion band RaghaJazz––team up for a special reading of Ram’s Singapore Literature Prize winning debut, Nine Yard Sarees. Audiences will be treated to a contemplation of sisterhood, marriage and loss, accompanied by the ethereal melodies of the flute. “
Zeha is a multidisciplinary artist whose performance work centres on the relationships between family, queerness, ethnicity, familiarity and reconciliation. They enjoy the malleability of language and construct/deconstruct the Malay and English languages to paint soundscapes and conjure microscopic imagery. Their debut book of poems is the folio rib/cage (2025, AFTERIMAGE), co-authored with Rosaly Puthucheary and ArunDitha.
Vanessa Wong is an illustrator and graphic designer who finds beauty in mundanity. Drawing inspiration from people and interactions in her daily life, she hopes to use her art to find humour in and celebrate such moments. When she isn’t drawing, she is likely to be staring at nothing. Find her on Instagram @tradervans.
Shreya Davies is an editor based in Singapore, and has worked on comics, literary fiction and non-fiction publications. To the Last Gram is her first foray into writing comics. Her short stories have previously been published in The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories (Vol 4) and Mahogany Journal. She never leaves home without a book in tow.
Raghavendran Rajasekaran, professionally referred to as Ragha, is a classical flautist based in Singapore. Trained in the traditional Indian baani, he also experiments with different genres of music and performs Western music.
Prasanthi Ram is a writer, editor and lecturer. Her debut short story cycle Nine Yard Sarees (2023) won the Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction in 2024. Her writing has been published in the Best Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Five (2022), Making Kin: Ecofeminist Essays from Singapore (2021) and the award-winning Eat Here or Take Away (2022) among others. She also co-founded and is the prose editor of Mahogany Journal, which spotlights South Asian writers born or based in Singapore.
