By Jessica Ye (Jessica Yap)
For more than five decades, Sesame Street has existed as one of the most recognisable cultural universes in global media. Its characters have moved across generations, languages and geographies, becoming part of a shared visual memory. This June, that familiar world is reinterpreted at Marina Square through the lens of contemporary art.
Making its Southeast Asian debut, Sesame Street Magical Art World brings together ten international artists who respond to the Sesame Street universe through painting, sculpture and large-scale installation. Presented in collaboration with COEXIST, the exhibition runs from 5 to 28 June 2026 and transforms the atrium into a site where pop culture imagery is reworked through distinct artistic practices.
At the centre of the presentation is Art Crossing, a curated space where each artist engages with Sesame Street’s visual language in different ways. Rather than reproducing familiar characters, the works explore abstraction, distortion and reinterpretation, using colour, form and scale to reframe recognisable icons.
Six monumental inflatable sculptures anchor the atrium. Created by artists including Edgar Plans, Jun Oson, Ryo Laksamana and RYOL, the works translate Sesame Street references into oversized, three-dimensional forms that sit between sculpture and spectacle. Each piece carries the stylistic imprint of its artist, shifting the characters into new physical and visual dimensions.
Across the surrounding walls, large-scale works by Alex Chien, Jeremy Yamamura, Super Future Kid, Jordi Alós, Jade Kim, Suanjaya Kencut and J30000 extend the exhibition’s visual scope. The artists draw from pop surrealism, illustration, abstraction and narrative-driven painting, resulting in interpretations that diverge widely in tone and approach while remaining anchored to a shared cultural source.
Together, the works position Sesame Street less as a fixed childhood reference point and more as a visual system open to reinterpretation. The characters function as starting points rather than endpoints, allowing each artist to construct their own language around familiarity, memory and form.
Presented as a whole, the exhibition reads as a cross-section of contemporary image-making, where recognisable cultural symbols are reprocessed through individual artistic lenses. The result is a dialogue between nostalgia and contemporary practice, structured through scale, colour and material experimentation.
Sesame Street Magical Art World runs from 5 to 28 June 2026 at Marina Square Atrium.
