Stay Home Quilt (SHQ) was originally initiated by Singaporean artist Jimmy Ong (b. 1964) as Poverty Quilt in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2019. The project involved collaborating with a group of nyai penjahit (“artist-seamstresses” in Javanese) to create large quilts, with buttons sewn on during an exhibition to memorialise his late grandmother.
Under the invitation of 3P Community Arts Lab as an artist-in-residence at Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre in Singapore, Ong reconceived the project as SHQ, exploring the city-state’s complex and often ambiguous relations with migrant workers during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As part of the residency, Ong and his assistants distributed sewing kits to residents for at-home participation and coordinated sewing workshops for migrant workers in temporary dormitories used during the lockdown. In parallel, Ong conducted a series of tikar weaving workshops for the public, whose small weaving panels were later assembled into a larger floor mat placed in a “Joglo”-style house constructed during the residency.
In October 2020, art students partnered with members of Tzu Chi for a series of weekend open houses, engaging the community in relation to the quarantined migrant workers. The project was documented on film from September through October 2020 at Tzu Chi in Singapore. During that period, migrant workers had been quarantined next door at Yishun Futsal Arena (an enclosed football field) from May to July 2020. Jimmy Ong’s residency with 3P spanned from March through November 2020.
Film excerpts: (L) The artist conducts a dyad and (R) discusses about nongkrong over meals with art-assistants, 2020-21
Thanks to Jimmy Ong and 3P Community Arts Lab.
© 2022–2025
