Jim Jasper Lumbera and Joey Alexis Singh, an artistic duo based in Batangas, Philippines, work between archive, performance and moving image. Their sensorial practice looks at the entanglement of humanity and spirituality through symbolic gestures and expanded cinema. They are current residents at the Singapore Art Museum and Cemeti Institute for Art and Society, and future guests at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2026).

Residency Project

How can a wall become a passage? This question provided the motivation for our residency at the Kalba Ice Factory, where we experimented with multichannel video installation and spatial sound. Revolving around the ways in which sound mediates relationships with the Other, our research traced different forms of communication, cooperation and transmission across species, bodies and histories.

We looked at the symbiotic relationship between the goby fish and the pistol shrimp in the mangrove. While the former watches for danger, the latter digs a burrow for shared refuge with its front legs and claw. The research on these two sea creatures informed the evolution of our multichannel 16mm film using underwater sonar imagery and optical sound, a project we have been developing since 2023.

We also created a three-channel video study of the lunging exercise of the Arabian horse Ametista Al Jade before a win in the Senior Mares Class at the Fujairah International Arabian Horse Championships 2025. Through this work, we observed how sound operates as a signalling medium in which power is exchanged between different bodies.

Lastly, we researched connections between the Philippine archipelago and the European continent through the first Tagalog publication (1704) by Gaspar de Belén, which borrowed Spanish poetic structures and the narrative of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Although intended as literature, the text was later sung by Tagalog communities as an expression of solidarity with a grieving mother who had lost her son. This research is currently being developed into a new work and social practice during our residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

Additionally, during our residency at Sharjah Art Foundation, we worked on the exhibition Gall Bladder Time, which presented our body of work, The Black Dog Which Causes Cholera, in Manila for the first time last February 2026. The exhibition emerged from a research project tracing connections across our overlapping residencies at the Singapore Art Museum, Cemeti Institute for Art and Society and the SAF Residency.