Ng Yi-Sheng
Happy Year of the Ox, dear browsers! To herald the new and bid farewell to the old, I’ve drawn up a list of artsy people based in and/or from Singapore, singling them out for being interesting, independent and (thus far) a little unrecognised.
It’s a personal response to the front-page article of Straits Times Life! at the end of last year (“FEEL THE POWER”, Thursday, 4 December 2008). You see, every year since 2005, ST has published an annual Power List — a ranking of the ten people/groups in Singapore who’re most important to the arts scene, in their eyes. And this time round, the list was, in the words of one of my friends, “shit”.
Take a look at the lineup:
1. Lee Chor Lin, 46, director National Museum of Singapore
2. Michael Koh, 46, chief executive officer National Heritage Board
3. Esplanade programming team led by JP Nathan, 53, director of programming
4. National Library Board Dr N. Varaprasad, 60, and team
5. The Necessary Stage Resident playwright Haresh Sharma, 43, artistic director Alvin Tan, 45
6. Singapore Biennale curatorial team Fumio Nanjo, 58, Matthew Ngui, 45, and Joselina Cruz, 37
7. Ong Keng Sen, 45, artistic director TheatreWorks
8. Maestro Lim Yau Lim Yau, 56, Conductor
9. Ivan Heng, 44, artistic director Wild Rice
10. Fong Hoe Fang, 53, and Chan Wai Han, 51, Ethos Books
Now, I’ve got a whole lot of respect for the people on the list — I admire many of them and I’ve worked with and been mentored by several. But in the end it’s all the usual suspects; no surprises — the accompanying preamble by journalist Adeline Chia discusses how people moved up and down the list as if they were blue-chip stocks.
Also, five of the ten honorees — the top half of the list, basically — are civil servants or people otherwise on the direct payroll of the Singapore government. Sure, you can argue that people at the Museum, the Esplanade, the Library and the Biennale have a whole lot of freedom when it comes to decision-making in the arts. But when your purse-strings trail back to the ruling political party, it’s impossible to be a truly independent voice. It all harks back to the distressing subtext of the Renaissance City plan: that the vibrancy of today’s arts scene is crucially dependent on the government’s investment in arts infrastructure (ergo, small indie arts groups don’t deserve quite as much money as a makeover for Victoria Concert Hall).
Plus, why is it that there are no visual artists, writers, composers or choreographers in the list? (True, Matthew Ngui is a visual artist and Haresh Sharma is a playwright, but they’re being singled out more as curators of the Singapore Biennale and the M1 Fringe Festival than as original thinkers and practitioners.)
ST Life! is conferring awards on people not for genius, creativity or courage, but for their organisational ability as directors of festivals, curators of cultural institutions, and the like — and, troublingly, for their simple ability to get bums on seats. “The most powerful people in the arts this year know the power the audience wields,” declared Chia as she introduced the catalogue. “Confound them with too may high concept productions and people vote with their feet.”
Thus it mattered little that Ivan Heng’s Singapore Theatre Festival got severely mixed reviews last year, nor that Lim Yau programmes very few contemporary works and no Singapore compositions for the SSO. Their events sold well, which feeds into the standard formula of Popularity = Power.
Nor did it matter that Goh Ching Lee, Director of the Singapore Arts Festival, has incredible “power” in terms of influence over the allocation of money, media exposure and programming for arts groups in Singapore. She was struck off the list, just because the 2008 Festival sold fewer tickets than usual — even though she’d actually taken the brave step of introducing some direction to the line-up for the first time: a move towards cutting-edge, contemporary works, especially from the emergent nations of Eastern Europe.
I’m friends with Chia and the other young arts journalists at ST Life! (hell, I’m actually their colleague ‘cos I also contribute occasional reviews), so I can attest to the fact that they are committed to improving and promoting the arts scene in Singapore. Thus, I’ve a feeling they might take notice if we ask them to adopt a less literal approach to the idea of “power” in 2009’s Power List — or at the very least, acknowledge how problematic their system of ranking is.
Meanwhile, I’ve decided that it’s insufficient to gripe without putting forward alternative solutions. So here’s The Substation Magazine’s POWDER List, a parallel collection of artists and intellectuals I admire in different fields — perhaps powerless, but still worthy of my respect.
Lemme explain my system:
Criterion #1: These guys should be independent — doing things noticeably distinct from mainstream culture and the dominant artistic subcultures of our times. (I dislike the term avant-garde, because it suggests that these guys are creating the mainstream culture of the future. Bollocks: the path that will be taken is often less interesting than the many paths that will remain untaken by the majority. Exploration and experimentation is.)
Criterion #2: These guys should be under-exposed — slightly underground, if you will. Yes, yes, yes: many of these people have been featured in newspapers before, but they haven’t been given the big coverage that other cool deviant people like poet/contralto/critic Cyril Wong or conceptual artist Lim Tzay Chuen or playwright/director Natalie Hennedige have received.
What wasn’t a major criterion was whether their art was any good or not. (Just wanted to throw that out there. You go and decide.)
Admittedly, it’s a biased list: these figures are all people I’ve known personally in some capacity. Due to my own age, and the fact that I’m trying to avoid established figures, they’re mostly rather young — which is of course problematic in a society that’s always looking for the next big thing. Next year (if we do another list next year), I’ll probably ask someone else to draw it up, so you’ll get a different perspective on the hidden community of artists in Singapore.
And now, without any further ado and in no particular order, here’s my list. Each entry is accompanied by a brief profile and a Q&A’s (kudos to those respondents who refused to give straight answers). The names here may perhaps never have the spending power, influence or rank to make it to Life!’s front pages, but it matters not: I hereby pronounce them POWDERful.
1. Seelan Palay — the artist activist
2. Bani Haykal — the jongleur
3. Tang Fu Kuen — the info kiosk
4. Usha Nathan — the critic
5. Syamil Dasuki — the prankster
6. Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei — the café curators
7. Sha Najak — the worker
8. Wang Meiyin — the director in exile
9. Fredi Sonderegger — the piper
10. Proletariat Poetry Factory — the wordmongers
1. Seelan Palay — the artist activist
http://seelanpalay.atspace.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/seelanpalay
A lot of us artists love to talk about social responsibility and protest. Few of us, however, are willing to commit to activism the way Seelan does. He’s been detained for questioning over his anti-IMF protests, is currently between trials for rallying against rising consumer prices, and once mounted a one-man hunger strike outside the Malaysian High Commission over the arrest of the HINDRAF leaders.
One thing I find intriguing about Seelan’s work (he’s still a very young artist, so his style’s still developing) is that his paintings are pretty apolitical – Chinese ink daubings, Tamil graffiti on neon-coloured pop art canvases. He also places a sharp divide between his artistic video work, like his abstract piece “The Moon”, and his socio-political video work, such as his documentary “One Nation Under Lee. He’s willing, in many cases, to be an activist first and an artist second — and that’s pretty damn unusual in Singapore.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
SP: I’m not sure about the word, “proudest”, but the work that I am currently happiest with, and that’s happiest with me, is a drawing called Fuck Hell.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
SP: I cannot tell what is wrong with Singapore arts. My personal opinion is that it exists exactly the way that it would, determined and dependent on the way that this island/country exists. And that (art’s) existence may be liked by some, disliked by others, and ignored by my Mum.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
SP: The only beings that actually inspire me are all animals and dinosaurs. But my favourite visual artists are Alberto Giacometti, Frank Auerbach & Georg Baselitz.
2. Bani Haykal — the jongleur
http://www.misinterpret.tk
Bani’s a poet who isn’t part of the (somewhat overgrown) national poetry scene — even in the context of the Velvet Underground Poetry Slams, he was pretty unusual. Mixing his concrete/rhythmic/abstract poetry with laptop-synthesised sound, he does mesmerising text performances that bear little resemblance to anything else being written here. Plus, unlike most performance poetry worldwide, Bani’s stuff is completely apolitical. How counter-culture can you get?
You might know Bani better as the lead singer of B-Quartet, the alt-rock band he founded with his brother and two cousins in 1999. The group’s recently released a lauded album called “Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address” (the name’s taken from an e. e. cummings poem). Reception was more mixed to “sit quietly in the flood”, his first published book (not counting the ones on lulu.com). Anyhow, the kid’s venturing into drama, too: after some performance collaborations with choreographer Daniel K and poet Cyril Wong, he’s putting up his first solo director theatremajig at the Esplanade’s SPARKS programme on March 7.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
BH: I think I have a weird connection with whatever works I have attempted. They all stand as these manic experiments which I could have started purely on impulse. but on a very personal note, I have a very close affinity for Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
BH: Two old folks at a retirement home just sitting by the porch on a Sunday afternoon. The old man got up and said “Maggie, tomorrow’s my birthday. And I’ll bet you don’t know how old I am.” So the old woman said, “well, sure I do. Drop down your pants”. The old woman held her hand out and groped the old man’s crown jewels and she said, “you’re 85 years old”. So the old man’s absolutely shocked and he said, “damnit, you’re right. How’d you know?” And she said, “you told me yesterday”.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
BH: Among many brilliant ones, I’m influenced and inspired by the works of Charlie Kaufman, Terry Gilliam, Bjork and Duke Ellington.
3. Tang Fu Kuen — the info kiosk
Scratch below the surface of almost any international contemporary dance show in Singapore and odds are that you’ll find Fu Kuen. For years he’s been the go-to guy for festival programmers, valued for his up-to-date, intimate knowledge of the avant-garde in dance in Europe and Asia — but sadly, he gets way too little credit and zero cash for this vital, informal service as advisor.
Veteran theatre buffs will probably remember seeing Fu Kuen in pretty much all of Ong Keng Sen’s TheatreWorks productions from 1994-2000 (including the original “Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral”). Nowadays, he writes criticism, dramaturgs (e.g. “Forward Moves” during this year’s Arts Fest), and just brings interesting people together — in fact, he’s the guy who introduced choreographers Jerome Bel and Pichet Klunchun to each other, inspiring a decade of collaboration between the two. A little bird tells me that he’s stepping into visual arts curatorship, too.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
FK: Most people locate my work within the contemporary sphere. But actually I love traditional art forms too. In 2001, I was invited to work as in UNESCO headquarters in Paris to launch the first world proclamation of intangible and oral heritage. I had a big task for a then 29-year-old to research and put on stage six different “living cultural treasures” each night. From working with bureaucrats and diva artists way older than me, to battling the French system of operating things, I received the best lesson in diplomacy and cultural management. That wonderful experience is also what led me to work full-time in heritage matters for the government in Thailand from 2004-8 (contrary to popular belief that I was some Bangkok bohemian).
Today, I am continually challenged to deepen my views and knowledge on classical and contemporary idioms, and proud that I have been able to chart a journey within institutional frames while keeping my autonomy. Because of my mobility, I have been lucky to keep my eyes on the horizon by constantly slipping in and out of Singapore, of the region and Europe, of thinking and doing, of different art mediums, of old and new philosophies. The job at UNESCO marked the start of this blessed constellation.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore Arts?
FK: It is easy to point the finger at the system. But I propose that artists in Singapore are themselves problematic. They choose to remain passive and pessimistic. They are merely intelligent but not intellectual enough. They are mostly descriptive, seldom expressive. They still subscribe to spectacle, sentimentality and smut on stage. They wish to strategically disrupt the status quo, but stop short at formulating the tactics. And they dare demand for public funding for the work they repeat ad nauseam. They also cannot take criticism. They end up parroting the system.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
FK: I like film very much. Cinema gives me room to re-enter the performing and visual arts with a critical perspective. That’s why I did my postgrad in media studies — to learn about the phenomenon of the medium. Even a so-so film teaches me a thing or two about time, space and (mis)representation.
4. Usha Nathan — the critic
A couple of years ago, there wasn’t a single respectable arts magazine in print in Singapore — the Esplanade’s “Arts Magazine”, PKW’s “Vehicle” and “FOCAS” seemed to have gone the way of the dinosaur, with only online journals and odd little broadsheets like “Create Le Voyage” filling in the gaps.
Who’d’ve thunk that a pamphlet like “The Singapore Art Gallery Guide” — previously pretty much just a calendar of exhibitions — would blossom this year into a magazine of serious, independent, well-written criticism? Plus, it’s glossy and colourful, published monthly and available for free at galleries everywhere. It’s all the doing of Usha, the executive editor of the rag, as well as her publisher René Daniels, who founded it all the way back in December ‘04. Advertisers, we’re counting on you: don’t let this journal die!
YS: What’s your proudest work?
UN: The “Article” project with The Substation was personally very satisfying. I am also very happy with the Gallery Guide’s Nov issue that reviewed the Biennale with contributions from various writers and critics. These have been important as personal milestones.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
UN: In my understanding, art or for that matter writing or anything else needs to come from a place of true belief and honesty and not produced for and by outside standards. And so long as we continue to work within the constraints of evaluating art from external perspectives (international acclaim, business success) it is never going to be possible to truly create anything that can be called art.
Recently I wrote in one of my editorials about whether or not arts in Singapore is ready to be weaned off public support. I think that is precisely the issue here. Art has always existed to fulfill an agenda such as history, nationalism, “culture” and more recently creativity, if and when this stops and art exists for its own purpose and can be understood for what it is rather than what it does, we will begin to see some change. Of course all of this is easier said than done.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
UN: Inspiration for me comes from people I have come to know over the years and those whom I admire for their integrity and courage to stand by their values. These two qualities, to me, are the most important for a human being and they are integral to my aspirations as a writer and editor.
One of most important people who inspire me is Ranger Mills, a practising artist from New York whose has been based in Singapore for a while and collaborated on various stage productions by Noor Effendy and others, as well as working for artists like Tang Da Wu. His own paintings, sculptures and other works have not been publicly shown for over 20 years as a result of his self-imposed exile from the “art world”.1 His artworks themselves are fine and technically brilliant, but even more importantly it is his fortitude in sticking to his beliefs, and the dedication and purpose with which he continues to push his artistic practice in an endeavour to further his art that is most inspiring to me. He has also helped with critical advice and feedback on my own writing.
Another person who inspires me is also someone whom I have had the opportunity of working with as a writer/editor, Seelan Palay. As a writer, but more so as a well-known human rights activist, Seelan is someone who has shown determination, courage and strength of character for someone his age. There are others like Philip Cheah whom I had the opportunity of meeting only once, who has laid the groundwork and done a splendid job in establishing the Singapore International Film Festival.
But most of all it is my father who has been my greatest source of inspiration. He has always strived to uphold his principles, which are Gandhian, like truth, simple living and dignity in one’s work though these have not always be compatible with governmental service given the political circumstances in India.
5. Syamil Dasuki — the prankster
http://www.mission-singapore.com
http://www.youtube.com/missionsingapore
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=-3&id=670023029#/group.php?gid=13844842091&ref=ts
You might’ve seen him on Youtube: Syamil, a.k.a. Agent Caboosukin, is the founder of Mission: Singapore, the local branch of the urban prankster group Improv Everywhere. These guys perform mass acts of tomfoolery in public: fingergun fights, absurdist art auctions, lip-synced rock concerts, freezes in Orchard Road (and yes, this was a copycat event, which is why Syamil didn’t plan to do it until the artscommunity group got a movement going).
Syamil’s credentials as an original Singapore artist are shaky: he’s basically importing a New York-based culture of pranking and his videos have pretty iffy production values. Hell, he says he’s shocked that anyone would consider him “an actual artist, ahhaha”. Still, I’m impressed by him for a number of reasons. First, he’s only 17. Second, he’s often able to get humongous numbers of people (many even younger than him) to turn up to participate in his events. That’s got interesting implications in a country where people used to be nervous about illegal assembly laws. Third, he categorically does view his events as accessible forms of “performance arts”. His dad is the Malay dance choreographer Osman Abdul Hamid, which may have something to do with it.
YS. What’s your proudest work?
SD: I have to say “Silent Dance Out”. It was the mission where everyone gathered around in a circle and danced to the music from their mp3 players.
Watching the agents dance the way they did was simply moving. I was struck by the amount of resistance some of them had initially when we did the rehearsal. It was as if there was a lock that seemed to hold back all the creative monsters inside them. However, as they warmed up, they came “alive”. Free movements has a kind of therapy on the soul I think, when the body is given the rights to move however it feels like it, it creates an opportunity for us to reach into our unconscious. At the moment of expression, there is a deep honesty that can be seen. And that was what I saw as they danced in that circle. So yeah it kind of made me proud somehow.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
SD: “I don’t know leh…. The government problem lah not mine, no need to care lah, got art people or not. Got difference one ah if got art or not? As long as got food, got drink on table can already what? no need for art people one. Chingay, NDP all that can already lah no need to waste money one. Hai yah! No need to think long long about problem all this waste time only”.
That’s my answer, I can’t express it in any simpler way.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
SD: Honestly, I have to say that my biggest inspiration has to be my father. My father is an artist himself, a Malay dance instructor and choreographer. Throughout my childhood his art had always influenced me more than I could ever admit. My father never forced me or my brothers into any of it but instead; he gave us the freedom and encouragement to do whatever we want within our abilities as long as we do not do wrong.
My father has always told me that laws exist to govern and maintain and throughout my childhood, I’ve always appreciated boundaries. I made a game to do as many things I can without breaking those boundaries. It was also him who thought me the difference between illusions of restriction and the objective boundaries. I learnt this through his dances where he always strives to push the envelope of contemporary Malay dance. To challenge his dancers, he always asks questions about definitions, “what is Malay?” or “what is Malay dance?” He asks these questions to make them think about limits to an idea, to challenge the boundaries that hold something to its identity. How far can one change something before it becomes something else. I guess having such mind games allowed me see deeper into the nature things my life, especially of the cultural misconceptions about things. I find it especially interesting how clueless people are to questions of definitions.
My other source of inspiration comes in a form of an Icelandic woman, Bjork. She inspires me not just through her voluminous vocals or her ingenious musical crafts, but through her carefree and innocent personality. There is a quality of timeless innocence in her that I find simply amazing. I believe that it takes a resolute soul to acquire such innocence and honestly beyond childhood. Her disregard for the status quo in all things makes her every act so honest and just strangely beautiful. It takes great courage and determination to live fully from within as she does. She inspires me because, as a teenager, I am constantly being reminded that the life of the “unconventional thinker” holds very little appeal amongst others, no one wants to be too different. But to succumb to the pressures of society, I would lose my originality. Seeing her and listening to her music however, reassures me that being different and unconventional is possible in this society, that there is an acceptability for the unconventional one.
6. Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei — the café curators
http://www.food03.sg
http://www.post-museum.org
http://www.server-foundation.org/woontienwei/ [artist requests suggestions for improvement!]
Jennifer and Tien already earned themselves some alt cred back in 2004 when they opened the project space of p-10. Rather than just being interested in contemporary-arty stuff, they were intent on documenting Singapore’s artistic history — motivated, no doubt, by their connections with the original alternative contemporary art group on this island, The Artists’ Village.
In late ’07, however, they opened up HQ at Post-Museum — and this isn’t just a gallery-cum-studio-cum-office, it also hosts Tien’s ongoing relational-aestheticky artwork, an über-PC vegetarian café called Food #03. Artists need cute little makan joints like this as informal spaces for communion and dialogue — and unlike pretty much every other art-friendly restaurant in this country, this place is actually affordable ($2 for the house pour! $4 for the soup!). SinQSA (a local queer-straight alliance) has also set up camp here, which naturally ups its coolness quotient in my eyes.
YS. What’s your proudest work?
JT: I think working with the artists’ village, p-10 and now the post-museum, we have as independent initiatives and groups of people contributed to independent contemporary art practice in Singapore. The projects we’ve done have led people to think more about being based in Singapore, in a Singapore art context. For example, the p-10 project Errata: Page 71, Plate 47. Image caption. Change Year 1950 to Year 1959; Reported September 2004 by Koh Nguang How.
WTW: I am most excited about starting Post-Museum and Food #03. Post-Museum is an independent cultural space initiated by p-10 while, Food #03 is my art project / café/social enterprise. In case it gets confusing for the readers, I don’t exactly paint as an artist.
My artworks have always been interested in examining the system and proposing new ways of thinking about it. So these two projects took a lot of resources to get off the ground and we are still in the infant stages now. But as it has developed, I have become very excited about all the different possibilities which resulted from these two projects.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
WTW: Nothing much. The arts in Singapore is very busy. That’s the only problem. But I would really like to see more people from the arts going to see other arts stuff. 70% of our audience is not involved in the arts. [Ed: Huh?]
YS: Who are your inspirations?
WTW: Many. Kuo Pao Kun, Tang Dawu, The Substation, The Artists Village peoples, Google, Facebook, our peers in other fields (design, architecture, music, NGO work) who are doing good work….
7. Sha Najak — the worker
http://www.artbysha.blogspot.com/
http://mycontemporaryworld.blogspot.com/
Sha does a lot of artsy stuff — photography, poetry, painting — but it’s the way her art overlaps with her work that really commands my respect. She’s a founding committee member and, until recently, the president of Migrant Voices, an arts society that runs art events and programmes for the migrant worker community in Singapore. In that capacity, she’s facilitated domestic and construction workers in music, photography, drama and poetry, working with established artists like Alvin Tan and Kok Heng Leun as well as with colleagues like current president Shaun Teo and vice-president Susy Bungsu.
Now studying art therapy at LaSalle and working part-time with Transient Workers Count Too, Sha serves as the outreach officer for Migrant Voices. She’s most recently been in involved with adapting and emceeing the forum theatre play “Let Me Off!”, performed at the Arts House by a mixed group of Singaporean, Indonesian, Filipina and Bangladeshi actors in December.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
SN: This was in 2007 during International Migrants’ Day when Migrant Voices performed Blinded, Binded & Trapped in Love at Lembu Road in Little India. Although the aim was to reach out to non-foreign worker audience members, we were struck by a strong sense of nationalism by Bangladeshi migrant workers who came to watch the show. As Lembu Road, is a favourite hotspot for Bangladeshi migrant workers to congregate on their day off, they were amongst the mass. At the end of the show, one of our volunteers who is a Bangladeshi migrant worker (Mostafa) stood up to sing the Bangladeshi national anthem. He rallied other Bangladeshi migrants to do the same. This was a strong show of nationalism within foreign lands which is important for migrants who feel isolated from the majority. I was more struck by the fact that Migrant Voices has been able to become their platform of expression which we’ve set ourselves out to do so. Mostafa and a group of others went on to create a play of their own which was performed at Post-Museum for Labour Day.
One other important work that sprung out of my few years in migration, was working with volunteers to empower them. One such example was the Cuff Road project where a midnight fact-finding mission gave way to a sustaining project which lasted for more than six months already (free meals programme at Sutha’s in Cuff Road). This programme helped target homeless migrant workers or financially incapable workers temporarily and more importantly, allowed volunteers to be exposed to their calls of distress. Volunteers have been able to tap onto their resources and mobilise plans of action. It is important in our work to continue sensitizing and exposing others to sustain the cause.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
SN: We criticise each other too much when we should be giving positive support to each other.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
SN: Bollywood. Ketna Patel for her use of colours. Edvard Munch, Gottfriend Helnwein for subject matters on death. Frida Kahlo for her strong sense of identity in her paintings. Kok Heng Leun and Alvin Tan for subjects on culture-building within Singapore’s theatre scene. Jacqueline Tan, my fellow Migrant Voices team member for her positive community outlook when we work together. I also happen to like Ng Yi-Sheng’s poetry performances for it is unapologetic. Another poet I’ve always loved throughout my Islamic life is Rumi.
8. Wang Meiyin — the director in exile
http://www.qualitymeats.org
When Meiyin started making theatre in Singapore, she rose fast — in 2000, while still in college, she wrote and directed the full-length play “Postcards from Persephone” which was produced to rave reviews by the short-lived feminist theatre group Livid Room Productions. This earned her a Life! Theatre Award nomination and an associate artist position with Singapore Repertory Theatre — a nice comfy position with a guaranteed audience in the surprisingly burgeoning theatre community we’ve got on this island.
That wasn’t for her. She left for graduate theatre studies at Columbia, then stayed on in New York to do festival programming and low-budget, undergroundish theatre with her own company, Quality Meats. And though she came back in ’05 to direct SRT’s star-studded rendition of Pinter’s “Betrayal”, her home’s clearly in the stacked black boxes of NYC. And that’s great, I think. I name Meiyin here as an example of one of the many Singapore artists who work abroad not to make it big, but to be free. Renaissance schmenaissance: you don’t have to go home.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
WM: Sarah Kane’s “Cleansed” (New York 2006).
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
WM: I’ve been away and out of the system too long to be a critic. I’ll just answer as to why I’m in New York.
I get lazy in Singapore. It’s too comfortable and there’s no danger of falling off the edge. It’s the same people working and asking the same questions. Those questions are worth asking but they are not mine. To me theater has to be the constant state of confrontation and for the time being I have nothing to confront in Singapore.
One is confronted with so much here. New ideas, new questions, new techniques. The democracy of how all those things jostle with one another is exciting. Here I get to see world-class work at anytime. I get to be in the company of people who are masters of their craft. I have the breathing space to try out my ideas and be free to fail and try again.
What I really want is to see the world with my work and see how it stands in the world. I can’t get that staying in Singapore. There’s a German word, Fernweh, which translates into “the ache for distance”. That’s what I have. Being the perennial outsider pushes me into a state of confrontation and into thinking differently and making different work.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
WM: They change. The following is a list of artists whose work is transgressive, deeply aggressive and darkly funny in their analysis of human nature. Anne Carson, Sophie Calle, Roland Barthes, Phlip Guston, David Markson. In contemporary theatre there’s Sarah Kane, Harold Pinter, Elevator Repair Service, Theatre de Complicite, Michael Thalheimer, back to back theatre, Anne Bogart and Robert Woodruff. For today.
And my family who, whether I like it or not, drives everything I do.
9. Fredi Sonderegger — the piper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku_1S7gwP04
How many classical musicians do you know who do performance art? Too few. Fredi, a native of Switzerland, came here in 2002 to join the Singapore Symphony Orchestra after touring all over the U.S. and Europe on the trombone. Here, he also plays the bass trombone, the euphonium, the bass trumpet, the sackbutt and, as I recently observed, the PVC pipe.
Last year, Fredi joined Rizman Putra and Effendy Ibrahim in their annual spontaneous performance happening, this time titled “Circus”, a show that required him to dress up in a birdcage and diaper and lots of powder while a singing mermaid sprayed organic liquid on him, occasionally breaking into a solo on an improv instrument. To become expert at a classical instrument takes discipline and genius; to break away from the bow-ties and jive with clowns for an evening takes courage, curiosity and a good deal of humour. We need those qualities in more people.
YS: What’s your proudest work?
FS: Not an easy question to answer. My pride and in many ways also joy lies in the large variety of genres I have been able to get involved.
As primarily a performer there have been moments that filled me with pride on stage. One proud moment was when I stood as a soloist in front of Lausanne’s world-renowned chamber orchestra in front of a fully seated concert hall. Another memory filled with pride was when I had the opportunity to perform the extensive trombone solo of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony in the Tanglewood Music Festival with over 200 musicians on my stage.
However, especially because I am a performer, the first time a work, in this case my installation Sonic Living Room was exhibited in Kaoshiung Taiwan, a country I haven’t even visited at that time was a proud event for me.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
FS: Well, when I read this question, what pops straight into my mind is pessimism. Why ask a question in such a negative manner? There are great opportunities surrounding us. Singapore has a great wealth of cultural and social backgrounds living on its soil. With the very fast changing surroundings we have living people from other generation who have witnessed completely different worlds. These facts seem to open up unlimited possibilities in a small place.
I also often hear complaints about too much restriction in this country. Again a negative approach. Just imagine your school day when you had to write an essay in English class. I voice two scenarios and you think about the answer: First, if your teacher puts a large stack of paper on a table and sais to the class: “take as much paper as you like and write!” In the second scenario the teacher tell you: “Please write me 500 words in blue ink, discussing the dishes of your favourite coffee shop and hand it in 5 days”. Which one of these two scenarios would result into more creative writing? I know what most common people would choose.
Point is, restrictions can be valuable help to boost creativity. At the end it can be interesting to play with the borders and the sometimes gray zone near those borders and provoke in witty ways. So I stick to the answer: “Negativity”.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
FS: Inspirations are all around. I can be inspired by the birds singing outside my window in the morning, the smell and taste of the food I eat for breakfast or the people I see on my way to rehearsal on a normal morning. My art and my creations originate mostly as responses. A response to anything around me when my senses are tuned in. Of course the responses can often be inspired by people and conversation or writings of them as well as their works and performances. If I visit an exhibition or a performance and live the place inspired and full of ideas the visit was a great success. To mention one artist who truly inspired me with his efforts, ideas and also skills it is trombonist, composer, producer and director Mike Svoboda, who lives with his family in the south of Germany.
10. Proletariat Poetry Factory — the wordmongers
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Proletariat-Poetry-Factory/24625166018
As a poet in a small literary scene that takes itself a little too seriously, I’m rather pleased to close my list of artists with this group. Making stochastic appearances at events like FleaFlyFloFun, the Literati readings and the National Museum Night Festival, these guys embrace the dubiousness of the printed word by celebrating the mechanics of its manufacture in the name of world domination.
Anywhere from one to nine men and women sit at desks tapping on old-school typewriters while headphones blast productivity-maximising music into their ears. You give them a word and the payment of your choice, they’ll write a poem for you. The crew’s mostly composed of volunteers, none of whom are canonised in our anthologies of literature, but the main non-hierarchical contact people are freelance-writing siblings Rage and Daren Goh.
(Incoming news flash! Just realised that Rage Goh = Rachel Goh, the hitherto unknown conceptual artist who debuted in the Singapore Biennale 2008! Which means that anyone who’s viewed her work “Who Is This Family” has seen both her and Daren nekkid.)
YS: What’s your proudest work?
DG: Proudest work has to be a poem that we wrote (I believe it was quite shitty), and got 50 bucks in return from some rich businessman-type. Ahhhh the sweet smell of cash.
RG: The PPF was conceived and sustained with such enormous self-deprecation that I’m unable to give an answer.
YS: What the hell’s wrong with Singapore arts?
RG: I haven’t the foggiest. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell’s wrong with Singapore.
DG: Nothing’s really wrong — think it’s the same everywhere else. Maybe except that we have a small population. SO. Smaller population = lesser people = lesser artists. Besides, we’re still an infant nation; chill with da arts lah.
YS: Who are your inspirations?
RG: Chiam See Tong. He has taken what’s hardest for a singaporean to express and made it his art.
DG: Erm. Don’t really have any. I guess one of my biggest inspiration is Vargus Pike. See if you can dig out any info on him/her/it.
notes- Usha on Ranger: I can’t summarise his reasons here. You would better understand them if you read his comments on the Biennale and state of arts which were published in my interviews with him in the Nov and December issues of the Gallery Guide. [↩]
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