Synopsis:
Hidden in the Jungle is grounded in Inessa Kalabekova's ongoing PhD research, exploring how myth, ritual objects, and embodied practices function as living archives of cultural memory. Developed through fieldwork in temples, museums, and cultivated landscapes, the exhibition brings together mythological animal figures—dragons, phoenixes, Garuda, griffins, Sarimanok, Naga, Foo Dog–Lion, and Hamsa—treated as pictograms within a personal visual language shaped by migration and research journeys. Playful yet layered, the jungle becomes a metaphor for imagination itself: dense, alive, and revealed through attentive looking.
Program at the exhibition:
Live Performance - Voices of Myth, Friday, 16 January 2026 — 6:00 PM
My Imaginary Friend: An Animal Guardian, craft-based workshop, Saturday, 10 January, Saturday 17 January 2026 3-4 pm.
About Inessa Kalabekova
Born in Kazakhstan and based in Singapore, Inessa Kalabekova is a multidisciplinary artist working across visual art, performance, storytelling, and research. Educated under the Russian academic model and later at Central Saint Martins (MFA, UAL), she is currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Arts at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Her practice draws on travel and cultural exchange, weaving richly layered collages and performances that explore myth, movement, and embodied storytelling across cultures and time
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