Couple returns from Singapore with 200 artworks and a plan to make London care about extremely particular art category
From Decorating to Documenting: The Accidental Archivists
After spending 23 years in Singapore accumulating what they initially thought were “nice wall decorations,” British collectors Krystina Lyon and Mark Budden have returned to London with 200 works of art and the kind of laser-focused collecting philosophy that makes museum curators simultaneously impressed and exhausted.
The couple has announced plans to establish the Nassim Road Collection, a platform dedicated exclusively to Southeast Asian women artistsa category so specific that even the artists themselves probably didn’t know they needed their own platform.
The Evolution of Expensive Taste
“We started buying art to decorate our home,” Lyon explained, describing a journey familiar to anyone who’s ever wandered into a gallery and left with significantly less money than intended. What began as purchasing “a set of screenprints from Kee Levi” evolved into a collection that now requires academic frameworks, scholarly research, and presumably multiple insurance policies.
The turning point came in 2014 when Lyon volunteered at an exhibition titled “No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia,” where she encountered works that were “no longer about national narratives; they were questioning, reshaping, and telling their own stories.” This is the moment when casual art appreciation transformed into the kind of committed collecting that requires a master’s degree to justifywhich Lyon promptly obtained.
Academic Credentials Meet Razor Blade Baby Shoes
Lyon’s enrollment in a joint MA program in Asian art histories provided what she describes as the intellectual framework for her collecting philosophy. Translation: she needed proper academic justification for spending significant sums on artworks featuring razor blade stiletto heels and restaged colonial photographs.
Among the collection’s prized pieces are works by Bangladeshi artist Tayeba Begum Lipi, including palm-sized baby shoes and stiletto heelsboth meticulously crafted from razor blades. These works draw on Lipi’s roots in Bangladesh, where limited healthcare access means razor blades are used to cut umbilical cords, a brutal necessity transformed into metaphor.
“I was immediately intrigued,” Lyon noted, apparently unfazed by the prospect of displaying infant footwear made from sharp metal objects in her living room. The works sit in glass cases, which is fortunate given their potential to cause significant injury during routine dusting.
The Platform That Probably Needed Building
The Nassim Road Collectionnamed after the Singapore street where the couple lived, not after any particularly innovative naming conventionaims to become “a platform for deeper research into the history of contemporary art in the region.” This translates to: a place where students, scholars, and visitors can engage with works that most Londoners didn’t know existed, from a region they couldn’t locate on a map, by artists whose names they cannot pronounce.
“It would be nice to make it a place of encounter,” Lyon added, using the kind of vague institutional language that suggests grant applications are being prepared. “Where dialogues around gender, history, and contemporary art in Southeast Asia can continue.” Presumably these dialogues will occur among the small subset of London’s population interested in this intersection of topics.
Collecting With Intention (And Substantial Resources)
Lyon’s collecting philosophy shifted significantly after her academic studies. “I realized I had to marshal my resources to build a collection with real depth and coherence,” she explained, employing the kind of passive voice wealthy collectors use when discussing how they spend money most people don’t have.
Early acquisitions include works by Melbourne-based Indonesian artist Octora Chan, who interrogates how ethnographic portraits of Indonesian women from the colonial era continue to shape gender perceptions today. Chan’s work “Ad Infinitum” (2019) restages a photograph of a Legong dancer, while “Recoup 1920: wuorv egnoj” (2023)her first foray into tapestrypresents the artist as the subject of an ethnographic portrait shown from a three-quarter back view.
“It’s as if she’s giving them their agency back,” Lyon explained, referring to the depicted women, though it’s unclear whether any of them were consulted about this particular theory.
From Collection to Publication to Influence
Lyon’s commitment extends beyond simply owning expensive art. She plans to lend pieces to museum exhibitions in London and Boston next year, and has authored a book titled “You Are Seen: Women’s Contemporary Art Practices in Southeast Asia,” set to publish alongside the Art SG fair in January.
The volume spotlights 35 women artists from nine ASEAN countries, which represents either comprehensive coverage or a suspiciously round number depending on your level of cynicism about art world publishing.
“The aim is not to speak for these artists, but to amplify the resonance of their work,” Lyon stated, using language that carefully navigates the contemporary art world’s complex relationship with who gets to tell whose stories.
Dialogue Rather Than Possession (But Also Possession)
For Lyon, collecting has always been about “dialogue rather than possession,” she insists, despite the fact that she literally possesses 200 artworks. “It reflects what I have learned from living here for over three decades,” referring to Singapore, where apparently one learns that the best way to engage in dialogue about art is to buy it and take it to another country.
The collection includes works by artists who represented their countries at various Venice Biennales, British abstract expressionists, and British Balinese artists, creating a curatorial framework that manages to be simultaneously hyperspecific (Southeast Asian women) and surprisingly broad (also some British people we liked).
As Lyon and Budden settle back into London after 23 years away, they bring with them not just a substantial art collection, but the kind of focused cultural mission that London’s art scene didn’t know it needed and may still be deciding whether it wants.
The Nassim Road Collection will undoubtedly contribute valuable scholarship and visibility to underrepresented artists. Whether London is ready for yet another highly specialized cultural platform dedicated to a specific artistic demographic remains to be seen, though given the city’s appetite for niche cultural institutions, it will probably fit right in.
