PS was pleased to announce the launch of the Studio 7 Residency Program in late 2021 by offering the opportunity of a free studio space for a year for an emerging West Australian visual artist. The residency also includes an exhibition/performance season included in PS program for the year. With an aim to reduce financial stresses, this residency seeks to promote experimentation, growth, critical discussion and progress in the arts. Xin Hui Ong was selected by our panel for 2022 :

Xin is an emerging independent contemporary dance artist based in Perth. She has a strong interest in the role of the arts in health and community.

Born in Singapore, she has also lived in the UK, Israel and Australia. She moved to Australia to pursue medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Working as a doctor, she found that the health issues faced by patients were largely rooted in a lack of connection; to their own bodies, to purpose and to others. These aspects of life could not be directly addressed by modern medicine, but could be accessed through the arts, and dance in particular.

In 2017, Xin went on to pursue dance full-time. She moved to Perth in 2018, and was fortunate to be selected to be as the Rogue resident with STRUT in Perth – through this she was able to attend workshops with artists from international companies such as Hofesh Shechter and Kidd Pivot, as well as workshops on interdisciplinary collaborations led by Australian artists. Since then, interdisciplinary collaboration has become her primary focus, and she has partnered with dancers, musicians, photographers, videographers, and installation artists, to produce various developments. Her first dance film, Kindred, which premiered in Vancouver, Canada, and has also been presented in Adelaide during Australian Dance Theatre’s Flow: Dance on screen series in 2021.

Last year, Xin had the opportunity to attend in the works lab at PS, which presented the opportunity to engage in solo practice. She partnered up with one of the trusty chairs available in the space, exploring the possibilities within her relationship to the chair.

Through practice sharing with the other participants in the lab, she gained fresh insights, and started to experiment with integrating language, text and voice in choreography in new ways.

Xin hopes that working in PS, home to artists across all disciplines, will be a valuable opportunity to continue in organic exchange, conversation and cross-pollination of ideas across artistic disciplines, and open the doors to new and exciting interdisciplinary collaboration.

“Through practice sharing with the other participants in the lab, I gained fresh insights, and started to experiment with integrating language, text and voice in choreography in new ways.

Working in PS, home to artists across all disciplines, will be a tremendously valuable opportunity to continue in organic exchange, conversation and cross-pollination of ideas across artistic disciplines, and hopefully open the doors to new and exciting interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Video created by Xin Hui Ong
Supported by In The Works for PS Studio 7 Residency
Music by Nicholas Gardiner
Videography by Georgia Ivers



Xin's residency blog 18/02/2022


This is not a chair.












This is not about gender or sexuality.

I don't know how I well I would hold up in a psychologist's office.

Psychologists talk about the phenomenon of transference, where we project how we might feel about some other relationship, and take it out on those around us. Something in someone triggers something in us to subconsciously re-enact a script that was written by the dynamics of a previous relationship, bringing the emotional baggage of one relationship into another.

I have been on the receiving end of this before. Suddenly, I find I am behaving quite differently from how I normally would.

Sometimes I feel more like a sponge, soaking up others’ energy when they interact with me. Even thought I might not seem any different on the outside, I sometimes wonder if I carry the invisible imprint of the energy of that experience to my next interaction.

Whether we realise it or not, we take the shape or form of others’ expectations. If we are expected to perform a certain way, we will live up to it. If given a benchmark to meet, we align with it.

Teachers bring much more than their expertise on a particular subject to the room, they also bring their expectations of their students. The Pygmalion effect is so powerful that teachers can improve or impede learning before they even say a word.

Without consciously or explicitly articulating what we expect, we convey it subconsciously and implicitly; through what is left unsaid, through remarks based on the beliefs or character traits we have projected onto another party, through our actions.

Our physicality, our body language, is far less ambiguous than the stuff of words, which mere containers for humans to imbue meaning. Humans don’t always realise that meaning is not inherent to a word, but couched in a person’s experience and understanding of the word. When the word is used by another, it could actually convey something quite different.

I've always felt my nature to be nurturing and supportive. To be there for others. To hold others up. Crafted this way by design.

With four legs, and a surface that is more or less flat, I do share similarities with a table. I certainly have held plates of food, water bottles, notebooks and pens. As much as I acknowledge the power of our actions and body language, but does merely having performed these functions make me a table?

I don't know how I well I would hold up in a psychologist’s office. I probably wouldn't match any of the other furniture there. A philosophy class, perhaps.

I, the undersigned,
The Chair

17/05/2022

My solo movement research at the beginning of the residency from February-April 2022 investigated the referential nature of art and language in relationship to a chair.

In defining my relationship with the chair through writing, speaking and movement-creation, I explored the impact of language on performance-making, and delving into the themes of representation within art.

This research led to collaboration with dancer, Sarah Chaffey, and musician, Azariah Felton, exploring these ideas in a 10-minute solo piece entitled Ceci n'est pas une chaise (this is not a chair), referencing Ceci n'est pas une pipe (this is not a pipe), René Magritte’s representation of a pipe in oil painting (1929).

This will be presented at Short Cuts season from 19-21 May 2022 at King St Arts Centre by STRUT Dance.

Tickets are available: https://www.trybooking.com/BYSUN