As part of Heritage Fest 2025, Sweet Memories brought together food, heritage, and artistic making in a communal workshop format. Using gula melaka, natural sugar with deep cultural significance, as a guide, the programme explored food cultures, family histories, and shared heritage across Southeast Asia. Through storytelling, food-making, and art-making, participants shared memories, family recipes, and personal experiences, gradually building a communal space of exchange. 

The programme was led by artists and researchers Akai CHEW (SG), Arie SYARIFUDDIN (ID), Natalia TAN (SG), and Sayaka SHINKAI (JP/DE), who invited participants into a multisensory setting to reflect on the diversity, origins, food cultures and shared fates of Southeast Asia and its people. 

Courtesy of south straits art collective

About south straits art collective

south straits art collective is a transboundary collective of artists and researchers co-led by Singaporean artists Akai Chew and Natalia Tan. Through multi-sensory, community-rooted projects, they explore the shared histories, cultures, and ancestral connections woven across the lands and seas of Southeast Asia.