A Silence That Sits: Constructing Family Narratives with Sim Chi Yin

Ages 17+

In English 

Every family history has its hidden chapters and forgotten characters. Family members remember events in totally different ways. How can we connect these fragments of experience? How can we account for the deep silences that sit within? 

Build a narrative from family photographs, documents, ephemera and other found materials that you bring to the workshop. Tell your story visually through collage or object-making, or write a script, poem or short story. Experiment with documentary and speculative approaches that can resonate with others. 

Suitable for photographers and artists, as well as anyone interested in historical and experimental image-making, this session is free and materials are provided.

About Sim Chi Yin

Berlin-based artist Sim Chi Yin's research-based practice uses artistic and archival interventions to contest and complicate historiographies and colonial narratives. Her work traverses photography, film, installation, performance and book-making. An artist fellow in Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (2022–2023), she holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London. She has exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2024); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023); Barbican Centre, London (2023); Camera Austria, Graz (2024); and Harvard Art Museums, Boston, (2021), among others. In 2024, she premiered a theatre performance drawn from her project One Day We’ll Understand, centred on her family history and the anti-colonial war in what was British Malaya. The performance toured to the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts in Melbourne in 2025.

Sharjah Art Foundation is committed to making its programmes inclusive and accessible. You can arrange for any support you need through the registration form.

For more information, email learning@sharjahart.org or call (06) 568 8800.