Five recipients from film-maker to lighting designer

SINGAPORE – Five artists aged 35 and below were conferred the Young Artist Award at a ceremony held at the Istana on Nov 27.

Introduced in 1992, the award comes with a $20,000 grant in support of their artistic pursuits. The Straits Times finds out what the award means to them and what they intend to do with the grant.

Alvin Lee Chang Rong, 34

Who: A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, the film-maker has made seven short films, which have gone on to screen globally. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (2022), his dark comedy, premiered at the 27th Busan International Film Festival and screened at over 55 film festivals, winning awards at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Singapore International Film Festival.

Lee says: “I was visiting my grandmother in hospital when I received the call informing me of this award, and I promised her I would take her to the Istana. It’s like a dream come true. The award is a reminder that all my hard work has not gone to waste.

It’s sad

The Projector has closed down,

as all of my previous films have screened there before. I hope that more and more people will come back to the cinema. Other than making art-house films, which have very limited audiences, and making super commercial films, which are just for laughs, can we do something in between? This is my aspiration as a film-maker.”

How he will use the $20,000: To fund his first feature film, a dark comedy exploring the theme of death, which is on its third draft. The fund will come in handy in the production budget as his team is trying to raise over $1 million.

He Yingshu, 35

Who: She is a writer, educator and literary critic. Under her pen name Sui Ting, her works deal with themes of gender, class, migration and the environment. Her debut collection Fish Birth was shortlisted for the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize. The permanent resident, who came to Singapore from China at age 15, teaches Chinese creative writing at the National University of Singapore and founded the Read Write Island Project, a community of readers and writers from Singapore and the region.

He says: “It’s a huge encouragement and recognition because I learnt that it’s been years since a Chinese writer was given this award. When I came to Singapore, I didn’t know I wanted to write seriously. But it was my junior college Chinese teacher – Chow Teck Seng, who is also a local poet – who encouraged us to write creatively and submit for literary awards.

I hope that younger Chinese writers like my students, whom I’m trying to encourage to become writers, can be more confident. We always talk about how bad the situation is – that we have fewer and fewer readers in Singapore – but we should not just target local readers, as there is a broader readership across the region.”

How she will use the $20,000: To fund an experimental bilingual work in collaboration with an English-language writer, which she hopes will feature short stories written in Chinese and English.

Genevieve Peck Jing Yi, 35

Who: The lighting and projection designer’s versatile work in technical theatre has led her to collaborate with prominent Singapore theatre companies, including the Singapore Repertory Theatre, The Theatre Practice and Pangdemonium. She has been nominated eight times for best lighting and multimedia at

The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards

.

Peck says: “It’s definitely a privilege and an honour to receive the award, but this award is not just for myself. As a lighting and projection designer, I’m constantly working with a lot of people and it’s all these people who make the award possible. I hope to continue to do what I’ve been doing, to create worlds for stories to happen.

What audiences see on stage is essentially 10 per cent of the work that has been done before. It would be good to see more young designers coming out to experiment and try new things.”

How she will use the $20,000: She has not yet decided. But Peck will potentially be working on lighting for two musicals in 2026.

Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin, 35

Who: She is a composer, educator and traditional Malay music performer. As a composer, Syafiqah’s works blend Western classical and traditional Malay music practices. She has been commissioned by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and her recent project Reminiscing Geylang Serai was performed on the Malayanised accordion with the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra. Since 2009, she has led Gendang Akustika, a traditional-contemporary ensemble.

Syafiqah says: “It’s a really great validation of all that I’ve gone through as a musician and all that I’ve contributed. It provides me with the opportunity and the motivation to continue what I do.

I hope to see Singapore arts being elevated and Singaporeans getting a sense of pride when they go to local productions. If it’s not our people who support the arts, then who else? As for traditional Malay music, I do hope there will be young people who are more interested in learning the tradition and the culture of making music in the scene. I’m looking forward to creating opportunities for young talent to learn and grow. I hope to upskill myself to create a more formal institution in which people can learn the music and go on further.”

How she will use the $20,000: She has too many ideas and so is not fixed on a single idea yet. She is working on an upcoming album of her own compositions, slated for release in October 2026.

Daryl Qilin Yam, 34

Who: In addition to being an arts organiser and publisher, his works as a writer are often intertextual and uncanny. He is the author of four books of fiction, including

Be Your Own Bae (2025)

and Shantih Shantih Shantih (2021), which was shortlisted for the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. He is the co-founder of literary charity Sing Lit Station and the managing editor of

its publishing arm, Afterimage

.

Yam says: “As much as it feels like a kind of validation of the past 10 years of writing, working and dedicating my life to the arts, I also feel it’s a testament to the love I receive at home. I could not have encountered books if it weren’t for my mum, who put Peter And Jane and Enid Blyton into my lap.

During the 2009 financial crisis, I knew that I’d be going to Warwick University to study creative writing – truly, a very impractical dream. I knew my mum was going to be the one who would foot my tuition bill but, at the same time, she was retrenched. It was my mum who said, ‘No, Daryl, follow your dreams.’ She insisted that I take the path she never got to take, because she grew up working-class and was too poor to attend university.”

How he will use the $20,000: To carve out time to write his new novel, which explores climate change and its minute effects on human lives. He also hopes to invest funds into adapting Shantih Shantih Shantih for the stage, which has been optioned by visual storytelling collective Fiction Shore.