Rubber Dreams of Its Lifetime is an ongoing research-based art project, initiated in 2023 by Kaisa Saarinen & Bart Seng Wen Long, and funded by the Kone Foundation.

The project explores the dualism of rubber as commodity fetish & fetish commodity in Southeast Asia, where most of the global supply of natural rubber is produced, and where rubber fetishism is quickly growing in popularity. At the same time, our research stretches beyond the artificial homelands of rubber, towards global & universal themes.

Grounded in the present that is an accumulation of the past, Rubber Dreams focuses on people across the rubber value chain, from smallholders to tire shop employees, factory workers to latex fetishists. It turns rubber into a prism refracting these seemingly disparate human experiences that have been shaped by the material since its introduction to Southeast Asia as a colonial plantation crop. Through it, we explore the interconnections, entanglements and metamorphic sublimities between the political economy of agricultural commodities; local and global histories of the plantation system; the ecology of monoculture rubber and agroforestry/other polyculture approaches as an alternative; and the transformative potentials, magic and material constraints of fetishishism.

The artistic outputs of this project synthesise empirical & archival research with poetic approaches, seeking a path beyond binaristic assumptions. This multi-disciplinary constellation includes moving image works, photographic objects, creative non-fiction, performances, workshops and installations. With each iteration of Rubber Dreams, our intention is to translate the expansive tangle of rubber’s lifetime into curated forms of presentation specific to the venue and context of its exhibition, including the making of new works, installations, literature and events.

We are also producing large-scale works that we hope will serve as the culmination of this project: Heveaphilia, a feature-length documentary-fantasy film by Bart, and All of it Transformed into Something Nobody Knows [working title], a similarly hybrid book manuscript by Kaisa. A curated excerpt of this manuscript will be published in August 2026 as a riso pamphlet, MILKING MOTHER EARTH, by Gauze Bonnet Press (there will be a launch party in London on August 22, RSVP here x)

 
 

~~ rubber dreams presentations & exhibitions
SO FAR ~~

If you would like to learn more about Rubber Dreams & its creative outputs,
drop an email to kaisa.annikki.saarinen@gmail.com ~~~

 

Online: Four of the Field Interviews created as part of the Rubber Dreams project are freely available to watch on the DIS.art platform until the end of 2026.

  • Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, May 2026: 2-day interdisciplinary programme as part of the ‘Soft School: On Malleability’ — Performances, participatory workshops, installation of research materials & screening of ‘Emergencies’ (Bart Seng Wen Long, 2025) juxtaposed with colonial-era Dutch film ‘Rubber’ (1936):

[Press: Art Review / Frieze / ArtAsiaPacific]

 

EMERGENCIES (Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, UK 2025)
Short film directed by Bart Seng Wen Long & produced by Kaisa Saarinen

Selected screenings:

  • Premiere at Singapore International Film Festival, December 2025

  • ‘Prasasti’ programme at Singapore Biennale, April 2026

  • Queer East, London, May 2026

  • Xposed Queer Film Festival: Emerging Ecologies, Berlin, May 2026 (winner of Lolly Prize)

  • ARKIPEL Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, Official Selection - International Competition, Jakarta, September 2026

Artist talks & presentations

  • Panel Discussion at Peeploch by Klub Verbotn
    EartH (Evolutionary Art Hackney), London, September 2024

  • Residency Artist Talk
    a.e.y. space, Songkhla, Thailand, January 2025

  • Artist Talk
    Bangkok Kunsthalle, Thailand, March 2025

  • Performance Lecture @MTPL Microplastics
    Matchstick Piehouse, London, July 2025