Agastya Sharma Laimayum
About
Agastya Sharma Laimayum is an emerging visual artist from India.
He recently completed his MA in Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, following his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Fine Arts from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in collaboration with University of the Arts London in 2025.
Having moved cities nine times in 19 years, Agastya's practice situates themes of memory, nostalgia and identity through image, video and performance. Drawing from personal and collective experiences, Agastya investigates the narratives of spaces and objects and the layered identities of each.
He is a recipient of the Winston Oh Travelogue Award (2026) and was nominated to the NAFA Talent Development Programme (2024– 2025).
Agastya has participated in events such the Singapore Night Festival (Beras Basah Wet Rice exhibition, 2024), Singapore Art Week (Temporary Obsessions, 2026) and Singapore International Festival of the Arts (House Between the Winds, 2025), as well as various exhibitions held in Singapore, Indonesia, the UK, Germany and India.
Shirts of a Bogeyman
198 x 122 cm
Echoes of Empty Spaces
Agastya's research considers recalling as a methodology of art-making.
A memory is never encountered in the same way twice; an experience that once evoked embarrassment may one day return as a source of joy and nostalgia. The emotions and meanings attached shift as we experience more phenomena through life. Between moments of recollection new experiences accumulate, acting as filters of phenomena through which the original memory event is (re)imagined and morphed.
Through photography, digital morphing, printing and the use of solvent print transfer techniques on translucent materials, the original memory event is put through filters of controlled and uncontrolled phenomena.
Like a photograph repeatedly exposed to light, the memory event is slightly altered in each recollection. Each filter becoming a trace of a different moment of 'recall', transforming the images to give physical form to the metaphysical process of recalling.
The final artwork revealing itself over time through experiencing phenomenological filters.
Cold Stove and Tiled Floors
198 x 122 cm
Research methodology and theoretical framework
This research investigates recalling as a methodology of art-making, proposing that memory is not a fixed archive from which past experiences can be faithfully retrieved, but as something dynamic, continually (re)constructed via experiencing phenomena.
Drawing from phenomenology, the research understands each act of recalling as an encounter between a past event and the present condition of the individual, whereby accumulated experiences continually reshape the meaning, and clarity of remembered events.
Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein provides the philosophical framework for understanding this continual process of becoming, while Gaston Bachelard’s writings on lived space and Robert Mueller’s concept of mnemesthetics further investigates the relationship between memory, space, and experience.
The research translates these theoretical propositions into a studio methodology in which processes of repeated exposure to material filters of phenomena, both physical and digital, become material analogues for the act of recalling.
Through photography, digital manipulation, solvent transfers, tracing paper and fabric, the original memory event is subjected to successive physical and phenomenological 'filters', allowing for controlled and organic transformations to occur.
The resulting works seek to materially perform the continual process through which memories are (re)organised, (re)interpreted and revealed through successive encounters with phenomena.
Brenda Lee
Yen Melia
Sharon Hardjono
Wong Shih Yaw
Caddie Aiw
Deanna Ng
