A Day in the Life: bani haykal

Upcycled bicycles, sound art, and the Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025

A Day in the Life is a series by A&M where we invite artists to share a day in their life.

bani haykal.

bani haykal is a Singapore-based artist and musician working across sound installation, text, and music, attuned to the politics that everyday technologies carry. He works with found, salvaged, and repurposed objects such as decommissioned drums, discarded speakers, upcycled bicycle frames to examine how they carry histories of resistance and colonial rupture. His most recent mixed-media sound installation, RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA (2025), is currently on view as part of the Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025. 

In this edition of A Day in the Life, bani reflects on the bicycle as a tool for resistance, and on the rhythms of making, commuting, and caregiving that shape his days.

bani haykal, RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA, 2025, mixed-media sound installation. Image courtesy of the artist.

At the time of writing this, one of my most recent works titled RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA (2025) is showing as part of the Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025. It is a mixed-media sound installation work which features upcycled bicycle frames modified to become music instruments. These instruments were used to record a collaborative music record with my friends Shivangi Mariam Raj, Randa Jarrar and Hanna Hazzan whose sounds and voices are featured both on site and the album. RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA (2025) is a work which looks at the bicycle as an understated tool of resistance and defiance.

bani haykal, bedok mengamok, 2026, mixed-media sound installation. Image courtesy of the artist.

I would like to share another recent work titled bedok mengamok, exhibited as part of a group show called Auditoria (2026) curated by Louis Quek for Singapore Art Week 2026. Similarly, it is a mixed-media sound installation, which comprises decommissioned marching bass drums, used car speakers and subwoofers, old keyboard stands and my late grandmother’s kain batik lepas. In examining a history of coded communication through music, I learned that one of our regional instruments, the Bedok or Bedug, shares a similar history with those such as the West African talking drums or Tarweedeh, the Palestinian song form.

Installation in progress of RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA (2025). Image courtesy of artist.

The Bedok/Bedug, an instrument still found within mosques in the Nusantara is generally used to indicate a call to prayer. It was also documented to have been used during Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia to broadcast coded messages. With RUPA BENTUK RANGKA DERHAKA (2025), the bicycle is presented as an everyday technology that has been modified to power sewing machines or washing machines as recently circulating during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I have been thinking about these technologies or instruments as portals into imagining ways which ruptures colonialism and its systems/infrastructure.

Transporting artwork for the bedok mengamok (2026) installation at Centre 42 on a cargo bicycle. Image courtesy of @heduhyah.jpeg.

The bicycle is one of my most favourite pieces of technology existing today. My life and work revolves around the bicycle quite intimately. I plan my days around how I would commute and do what I need on a bicycle. This includes transporting the instruments and objects for my work. Unfortunately this does not include the work in Phuket because it would have taken me longer to commute and bring all the parts for the installation to the venue. One can dream of a day when I can install my next work somewhere else in the world on my bicycle!

Bicycling with Inaya on a cargo bike. Image courtesy of artist.

Seeing also that this is a piece centred on a day in my life, my partner Ila and myself, are caregivers to our puting beliung (tornado), Inaya, who happens to also love being on a bicycle! Ila and I both have our own practice as art workers, so we split our time when it comes to caregiving and parenting. When weather permits, we will be out cycling around her favourite spots or going to new places so she can wander and explore on foot. I think everyone who is able-bodied and has the means should ride a bicycle! Although, admittedly, our road infrastructure is still car-centric and gendered, which must change.

Follow bani on Instagram at @fdbckfdfwd and visit his website to see more of his works.