Nihal J. Singh

St Margaret’s House’s 17th Artist in Residence, April-June 2026.

Nihal J. Singh is an artist whose practice blends carpentry, and the upskilling and confidence building of young people.

Blog Post: 2 Months in

In my ongoing residency, I have taken a step away from my standard practice, to explore music and physical computing. Over the last decade I have dipped my toes in these mediums, but now at SMH, it feels like the perfect supportive environment for me to give them the attention they deserve.

In music, I have started producing with my friend and fellow artist, Lucinda Purkis, under the name of ‘Shynamique’. We are both drawn to the experimental and underground music scenes, treating our tracks like chapters that document our growing digital production skills. As Shynamique, we have started a monthly musician sharing workshop session called ‘Shy Shares’. This is a space for musicians to share in-progress tracks, receive constructive feedback and eat snacks. We ran our first session at The Create Place in early May, and will be running our next session at the end of June. We hope that the workshops can build community and help push others and our own musical skills to the next level.

In tandem with the musical projects, I have been exploring physical computing: essentially coding with computers to make things move and interact with the world. One day I hope I can combine musical exploration with physical computing, to create interactive performances. This can all be very complicated, but like the music, I am enjoying the slow process of learning and making simple, playful outcomes. At the moment I am looking into controlling motors to lower and raise objects, and just seeing where that goes.

Please come back to this page in July, at the end of the residency to see more info on my outcomes.