Objectifs Short Film Festival 2026 bursts onto Singapore’s film calendar with the provocative tagline Normal Is An Illusion. The programme balances reverence and risk‑taking: a Sunday afternoon screening of Image & Memory: Early Works of Kore‑eda Hirokazu offers rare glimpses of the Japanese master, while the opening night Hypnotic Bursts showcases the digital‑art‑infused shorts of French duo Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel. A second weekend spotlights emerging Japanese animators in NeW Wave, followed by a late‑night retrospective of Malaysian‑American filmmaker Azian Nurudin. The festival also presents Wicked Times: The Compiled Tapes, a 12‑film chronicle of San Francisco’s queer history, and nurtures fresh voices through FreshTake! student screenings and a regional script lab. It closes with a film‑themed Saturdate programme of flea‑market stalls, open studios with resident artists Alia Alkaff, Jun!yi Min and Lizzie Wee, and hands‑on workshops.

Across the city, the exhibition Worlds In Motion at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Galleries (NAFA campus) invites visitors to experience Southeast Asian art through sight, sound, touch and even taste. Malaysian artist Ivan Lam’s Blind Side series, created with the Malaysian Association for the Blind, renders colour in resin‑coated canvases embossed with Braille and scented cues, prompting a dialogue about perception. Thai creator Atithep Chaetnalao contributes Ethnics Cultural Art Toys, a playful set of eight figurines that reinterpret traditions such as the Hungry Ghost Festival through a pop‑collectible aesthetic. The show foregrounds emerging practices that treat art as a shared, sensory encounter.

Meanwhile, Life On Land’s Edge – A Cinematic Concert Celebrating Birds marks the Asian debut of The Bowerbird Collective. Violist‑vocalist Simone Slattery and cellist Anthony Albrecht pair footage of migratory birds with an immersive soundscape that weaves together Philip Glass, Vivaldi, Dai Fujikura and new commissions from BirdLife Australia. The 60‑minute performance, which earned a 2022 Independent Arts Foundation Award for Innovation, is followed by a brief audience Q&A. The collective’s ARIA‑nominated album Songs Of Disappearance—a conservation project featuring endangered bird calls—underscores the concert’s ecological urgency.

Together these programmes illustrate Singapore’s thriving interdisciplinary arts scene, where film, visual art and music converge to question norms, engage the senses, and confront pressing environmental issues.

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