Contemporary Art Gallery in Geylang: Shop-House by DECK

Shop-House by DECK occupies two neighbouring shophouses at 4 and 6 Lorong 24 Geylang, Singapore 398616, and until 29 November 2026 it is the main exhibition venue of the 10th Singapore International Photography Festival. During the festival it opens Wednesday to Sunday from 12 pm to 7 pm, and a $15 ticket covers the shophouse shows. The headline is Tan Pin Pin's Singapore Index, photographs from 1991 and 1992 that have barely been seen since. If you are searching contemporary art gallery near me from Aljunied or Paya Lebar, this is the most interesting photography stop in the east this autumn.

DECK was founded in 2014 as a non-profit photography art centre by Gwen Lee and Jay Lau, both still its executive directors. Lee had earlier co-founded 2902 Gallery in 2008 and started the Singapore International Photography Festival, which describes itself as Southeast Asia's leading photo festival since 2008. DECK's first home was a building of stacked shipping containers at 120A Prinsep Street, designed with architects from LAUD. It won the practice's first President's Design Award in 2015.

That container centre reached the end of its life and was demolished in April 2021. DECK is now raising money for a three-storey, purpose-built photography arts centre on the same Prinsep Street site, budgeted at SGD 10 million, and says it will be back home in 2028. Until then, as its visit page puts it, the art continues at the Geylang shophouses, which also host its artist residencies. The arrangement gives the festival a very different feel from a white-cube gallery: you are looking at photographs in a domestic-scale building on a residential lane.

Tan Pin Pin is best known as a filmmaker, but Singapore Index shows her earlier camera work. The series was made between 1991 and 1992 and follows the public and private rituals of a country on the edge of rapid change. It was rediscovered in her personal archive of nearly 2,800 black-and-white negatives, and most of the prints are being shown publicly for the first time in over three decades. It stays at the Shop-House from 16 October 2026 to 31 January 2027, longer than the rest of the festival.

Tan returns for a talk with the writer Alfian Sa'at, titled Singapore Everyday, on 21 November 2026. An earlier talk, Seeing Singapore, paired her with Gwen Lee on 17 October. Give the room at least half an hour, because the small black-and-white prints reward slow looking.

Several festival shows here are built around books rather than framed prints, all running from 16 October to 29 November 2026. FEM: Women, Lives, and Korean Photobooks gathers photographers from their twenties to their eighties, including Oksun Kim, Park Young-sook and Noh Suntag, and sets published books beside handmade editions and dummies. The show photo/book/sg, curated by Marvin Tang and Liana Yang, covers self-published Singaporean photobooks from the early 2000s up to 2024. The Open Call Photobook Showcase adds 41 shortlisted titles chosen from 188 entries across more than 37 countries.

There is also In the Comfort of All Things, a collaboration with Fujifilm Photo Festa Seoul. Park Cheol Kyu photographs elderly residents of an ageing multi-family housing block in Seongnam, while MinzouChowon Ghim's The Wonderful Story of Sweet Hospital uses AI editing to scatter dreamlike candies through each image. The contrast between the two halves is the point, so view them in one sitting.

A single entry costs $15 for the Shop-House only, or $20 including the SingPost Geylang Post Office venue nearby. The festival pass is $50, or $40 for concessions, and can be paid with SG Culture Pass credits. Children aged 12 and under and seniors aged 60 and above enter free, with valid identification. The shophouses are closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and public holidays during the festival. For a deeper visit, book Passing By Paradise, a photo-audio walk by Dorothy Wong and Benjamin Ryser, DECK's first artists in residence, which leads from the Shop-House past installations in local shops, homes and public spaces. It costs $25, or $15 concession, includes entry, and runs on 23, 25 and 31 October and 6 and 7 November, with online registration required.

Two related DECK shows sit outside Geylang. The Open Call Portfolio Showcase, 20 portfolios from 16 countries, also hangs in the Esplanade Tunnel until 6 December 2026, handy if you are near the Marina Bay waterfront. The 10th Singapore Young Photographer Award winners' showcase, on the theme Echoes of Home, is at Whitespace on level 3 of *SCAPE until 22 November. Neither replaces the Shop-House, but both let you continue the festival in town on another day.

The festival spreads across this part of Geylang. Figment Club House is at 11 Lorong 24A, one lane over, and the post office venue is at 447 Geylang Road, where levels 2 and 3 show part of the Open Call Portfolio Showcase. Geylang East Library on Geylang East Avenue 1 is also a festival venue. Aljunied MRT on the East West Line is about seven minutes on foot, and the bus stop on Guillemard Road opposite Block 56 is a three-minute walk. Go in the late afternoon and finish with dinner on Geylang Road as the lorongs light up.

Address: Shop-House by DECK, 4 and 6 Lorong 24 Geylang, Singapore 398616. Festival hours: Wednesday to Sunday 12 pm to 7 pm. Closed Monday, Tuesday and public holidays. Tickets: $15 single entry, $50 festival pass. Free for children 12 and under and seniors 60 and above. On view: Tan Pin Pin, Singapore Index, until 31 January 2027. Other SIPF shows until 29 November 2026. MRT: Aljunied.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a late dinner on Geylang Road after the photo-audio walk, or for a second photography stop elsewhere in the festival.