More than Human: Making With the Living World opens at ArtScience Museum on Saturday, 28 November 2026, bringing over 140 works by nearly 55 artists, designers, architects, researchers and communities to Singapore for the show’s Asia debut. If climate headlines tend to leave you feeling small and stuck, this exhibition flips the question around and asks what people could learn by making things with the living world.
That’s the museum’s own framing. ArtScience Museum says it wants visitors to see plants, animals and ecosystems as “active participants in shaping more thoughtful and sustainable ways of living”, and it asks how designing with nature “might help create a better future for people and the planet.”
It’s a big ask for one exhibition. The way it tackles that question is what makes the show worth a trip down to the bay this year-end, starting with a rodent.
When a Beaver Holds the Chisel
If there’s one piece to head for first, it’s Aki Inomata’s How to Carve a Sculpture. According to ArtScience Museum, the work transforms wood gnawed by beavers into pieces that “question whether creativity belongs to humans alone.”
That’s the whole exhibition squeezed into a single object, and it’s a fun argument to have with whoever you bring along. The beaver did the chewing and the artist did the choosing, so whose sculpture is it, exactly? There’s no tidy answer, which is the point, and it’s far easier to chew on (sorry) in front of a real piece of wood than in a think piece.
A Wetland You Can Walk Into
The other headliner is Berl-Berl by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, which the museum describes as a large-scale immersive audiovisual installation that transports visitors into “an ever-changing digital wetland.”
Wetlands rarely get the spotlight that forests and coral reefs do, so a gallery-sized one is a nice change of scene for anyone who has ever scrolled past swamp content without a second look. “Ever-changing” is the key phrase here, since it suggests the wetland you step into won’t be a fixed loop. That makes it the work most likely to reward a second visit.
Mushroom fans have something to look out for as well. The two images ArtScience Museum chose to lead its announcement are Poetics of Soil Fly Agaric I (2025) by Marshmallow Laser Feast, named after the fly agaric mushroom, and Kelp Council by Julia Lohmann, both photographed at the Design Museum in London. Between fungi, kelp, beavers and a wetland, the guest list for this show is mostly non-human!
Mazes, Islands and Woods
The layout deserves a mention, because it’s doing more than holding up the walls. The exhibition runs across three thematic sections, with an exhibition design by Singapore-based practice Lekker Architects.
According to the museum, Lekker’s spaces take their cue from hedge mazes, archipelagos and woodland environments. That’s a clever set of references for a show about the living world: a maze is about losing your way and finding it again, while an archipelago is about separate islands that still belong together. For a Singapore audience, the archipelago nod lands close to home, since the island sits in one of the biggest island groups on the planet.
Born in London, Grown in Singapore
More than Human was originally developed by the Design Museum in London with Future Observatory, its national research programme for the green transition. Future Observatory is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The Singapore edition isn’t a straight copy and paste, though. ArtScience Museum has added 25 works that it co-curated, with support from the DesignSingapore Council, to bring in perspectives from Asia, including regional cultural traditions and wisdom.
Those additions are the strongest reason to go even if you followed the London show online. The Southeast Asian line-up of new and adapted works includes Bewilder, Lêna Bùi, Ines Katamso, Khvay Samnang, Zarina Muhammad, Isa Pengskul, Citra Sasmita, Studio SKLIM, Superlative Futures, and thesupersystem & VAAS, among others. That’s a roster drawing on artists and studios from across the region, which gives the show’s big global question a local accent.
Local Labs on the Credits
Here’s the detail that caught our eye most. The exhibition will feature collaborations with, and loans from, the National Parks Board, the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Experimental Marine Ecology Laboratory and the Asian Civilisations Museum.
A marine ecology lab is not a name you’d expect on an art exhibition’s credits, and its presence is the clearest sign that this edition is plugging into the science happening on our own shores. Pair that with the parks board and a museum devoted to Asian heritage, and you get a show that links what’s growing in Singapore’s soil and seas to the traditions of the people living around them.
ArtScience Museum has history with exhibitions that pull art off its pedestal, from street art back in 2018 to plenty since. More than Human goes a step further by asking whether the artist even has to be human.
The Need-to-Knows
🗓️ Date: From Saturday, 28 November 2026
📍 Location: ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands
🎨 Works: Over 140 artworks, projects, immersive installations and interactive experiences by nearly 55 contributors
🌏 Singapore edition: 25 additional works co-curated by ArtScience Museum, with support from DesignSingapore Council
🦫 Must-see: Aki Inomata’s How to Carve a Sculpture and Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Berl-Berl
🌿 Local collaborators: National Parks Board, NUS Experimental Marine Ecology Laboratory and Asian Civilisations Museum
Climate change can feel too big to do anything about, but More than Human offers a smaller, stranger and more hopeful starting point: a beaver, a wetland, a mushroom and the idea that we could be better collaborators with all of them. Keep an eye on ArtScience Museum’s official website and social channels for tickets and opening hours ahead of the 28 November opening, then put the beaver sculptures at the top of your route!
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