NEO_ARTEFACTS is an experimental initiative by Fazleen Karlan that looks into the intersection between art and archaeology.
Drawing from her past experience as a post-excavation technician, NEO_ARTEFACTS seeks to reassemble fragments of material from different timeframes, constructing personal and cultural realities. Growing up as a millennial, the works conflate a variety of influences including the rise of the Internet and its material culture. NEO_ARTEFACTS has presented in several group exhibitions in Singapore and was an Artist-in-Residence with NTU Centre for Contemporary Art between April - August 2022.
collaborations/say hello: info[at]neoartefacts.com
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Secrets, Sweat and Sand
Artist Collaborators: Izzad Radzali Shah, WALLWORKS (@wallworks_ ) and WAN G (@wan__g)
Blurring the boundaries between fact, fiction, and film set, Secrets, Sweat and Sand unfolds as a speculative excavation at the site of Gunong Perandaian. Conceived as an intentionally unreliable dig, the installation presents artefacts that are fabricated, tools that appear worn yet function as props, and traces that hover between evidence and invention. In this porous landscape of construction and enactment, authenticity becomes a shifting terrain—negotiated rather than assured.
Popular culture has long mediated the public’s perception of archaeology through cinematic tropes and heroic mythologies. These representations privilege discovery and spectacle, often eclipsing the discipline’s slow, collaborative, and interpretive processes. Secrets, Sweat and Sand revisits these popular narratives, questioning how archaeology is consumed, mythologised, and visualised. By foregrounding the aesthetics of excavation and the mechanics of storytelling, the work invites reflection on how histories are assembled from fragments—sometimes from the faintest trace, and often without question.
Here, the viewer becomes archaeologist, actor, and audience in equal measure, implicated in the act of interpretation. The installation is less of an inquiry into what can be known than an exploration of how belief is produced—through repetition, desire, and the sedimentation of images and material over time. In blurring these boundaries, Secrets, Sweat and Sand examines not only the excavation of objects, but also the excavation of meaning itself.
︎ Exhibition ︎ SAM Contemporaries: How to Dream Worlds
Blurring the boundaries between fact, fiction, and film set, Secrets, Sweat and Sand unfolds as a speculative excavation at the site of Gunong Perandaian. Conceived as an intentionally unreliable dig, the installation presents artefacts that are fabricated, tools that appear worn yet function as props, and traces that hover between evidence and invention. In this porous landscape of construction and enactment, authenticity becomes a shifting terrain—negotiated rather than assured.
Popular culture has long mediated the public’s perception of archaeology through cinematic tropes and heroic mythologies. These representations privilege discovery and spectacle, often eclipsing the discipline’s slow, collaborative, and interpretive processes. Secrets, Sweat and Sand revisits these popular narratives, questioning how archaeology is consumed, mythologised, and visualised. By foregrounding the aesthetics of excavation and the mechanics of storytelling, the work invites reflection on how histories are assembled from fragments—sometimes from the faintest trace, and often without question.
Here, the viewer becomes archaeologist, actor, and audience in equal measure, implicated in the act of interpretation. The installation is less of an inquiry into what can be known than an exploration of how belief is produced—through repetition, desire, and the sedimentation of images and material over time. In blurring these boundaries, Secrets, Sweat and Sand examines not only the excavation of objects, but also the excavation of meaning itself.
︎ Exhibition ︎ SAM Contemporaries: How to Dream Worlds
Sand, rocks, excavation tools, artefact props, vinyl sticker, filming & camping equipment, video installation
2025
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Installation view of NEO_ARTEFACTS’s ‘Secrets, Sweat and Sand’ as part of ‘SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.
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Detail view of NEO_ARTEFACTS’s ‘Secrets, Sweat and Sand’ as part of ‘SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.
2025
Installation view of NEO_ARTEFACTS’s ‘Secrets, Sweat and Sand’ as part of ‘SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.
Detail view of NEO_ARTEFACTS’s ‘Secrets, Sweat and Sand’ as part of ‘SAM Contemporaries: How To Dream Worlds’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.