the town at the end of the world
Alexander Teoh
Supper House x Journey East
16 October to 2 November 2025
"I have always been transfixed by a beautifully mundane town at the end of the world. It is a town that sits upon the last days of all things, a space made beautiful precisely by virtue of its impending end. In that suspended moment where time held its breath, those last days become as precious days stolen, preserved like an abandoned house where traces of an old light still linger.
The work gathers a collection of vestiges from this town, narratives, ruminations, words shared between strangers, moments caught in metaphors as a bright world marches towards its ineluctable end. Does a story, only upon its dying, then come most fully to life? To gaze at it from afar, to hasten towards, to desecrate, to conclude, to wait, to immortalise in memory or a word, to celebrate, even to forget—how shall we inhabit, I wonder again, a moment that approaches its end?"
About Alexander Teoh
Alexander writes, designs, and makes hand crafts. Based in Singapore, he studied Architecture and spends his hours designing exhibitions for museums. He began writing in 2014 as a personal endeavour, working mainly through the mediums of essays, poems, and narratives. Drawing continual meaning in the act of writing, he understands it as the re-weaving of the world, to unearth the ineffable, and to conceal, and in concealing make a thing of beauty that unearths more of the world.
He presently spends his life on a series of writing projects—fragmented narratives, the cataloguing of bizarre lists, gatherings of imageries impelled by intimations that do not yet hold a name, that always seem to elude full apprehension. Through these he seeks to voice the inexpressible and the unformed, the textures of silence, the shapes of emptiness, to compose scenes and atmospheres wholly through the written text, and worlds that stir those stronger impulses in us to live more fully upon the festivals of the everyday.
On days when the light turns grey, he finds himself on long walks. He sees walking as an unfolding of our outer and inner landscapes, as a way to read the city unfamiliarly. Roused by encountering the foreign in the familiar and the mundane, he wanders from housing block to sea in search of desolate streets, vast parades, lonely textures around the city, and another glimpse of the sky.
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Supper House, in collaboration with Journey East, will start their art calendar with a new show 开门见山 at Journey East at Tan Boon Liat Building.
Starting on the 5th of June 2025, we will be joined by 10 artists with 8 monthly presentations all the way to January 2026.
Every month, an artist will take over the Supper House pop-up and present their ideals, values, and concepts to our visitors.
What are the perceived values in objects that we hold dear? We have been asking ourselves this all day.
What is valuable is a matter of perspectives. In this world constantly shaped by opinions and values held dear to each and every unique individual, how do we then, each of us, see the value in the common things?
How each of us consumes and takes in art is a highly debatable subject. Much like how we view different locales.
Much like a dream, a mirage, or an idea, these are but forced perspectives valued by its owner, its creator.
We look forward to welcoming each and every one of you in the months ahead.
Featuring:
Hans Chew
Akai Chew
Theophilus Kwek
Sam Lay
Genevieve Leong
Joanne Lim
Ong Si Hui
Fiona Seow
Berny Tan
Jayden Tan
Owen Tee Hao Wei
Alexander Teoh