Capturing The Imagination: Art Installations at The Arts House
Text and Photos by Grace Baey Amidst the line-up of events at Singapore Art Week 2022, The Arts House is currently a site for three new installation works by artists Speak Cryptic, Jason Wee and WY-TO, and the National Library…
4 Movies That Showcase The Amazing Action Talent In Indonesia
By Nabilah Said (1,355 words, 4-minute read) There is no denying the spectacle that modern Hollywood blockbusters are capable of producing. However, I believe the action displayed in Asian cinema has consistently been a step above those we typically see…
The Secret Life Of Haw Par Villa: How tours are bringing the arts to life
By Dia Hakim (1,270 words, 4-minute read) Ever since the pandemic hit, the notion of travel in Singapore has manifested in a variety of forms. The word “staycation” is now commonly associated with a quick getaway from the same walls…
The top ArtsEquator articles of 2021
Below is a list of the top 10 ArtsEquator articles in 2021, in random order: The Substation: How many more canaries in the coal mine? by Hoe Su Fern Published on: 20 Feb 2021 “Although the current situation facing…
2021: Singapore Visual Arts at Year’s End
By @sgmuseummemes (1,920 words, 5-minute read) Let’s face it, 2021 in Singapore sucked harder than 2020. The waves of mildly inconvenient restrictions did more to chip away at everyone’s mental health than 2020’s “shut-everything-down” Circuit Breaker. Amidst the litany of…
How the Singapore literary ecosystem tackles mental health
By Sarah Tang (1,450 words, 5-minute read) cw: Contains mentions of suicide There appears to be more local books and writing about mental health in the Singapore lit scene in recent years. In Mahita Vas’ book A Good Day…
Re Somma and Tamil Theatre in Singapore
By Vithya Subramaniam, in conversation with Karthikeyan Somasundaram (2,330 words, 8-minute read) Why stage a piece about, and play your own father? What is Tamil Theatre in Singapore? And did Karthik really need to put on a full face of…
Phuong M. Do: The Puzzle of Photography, or What Fits and What Does Not
By Đồng Hà Nhuận (Ha Nhuan Dong) (3,330 words, 12-minute read) This article is published as part of the inaugural AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency 2021/2022. Last year, I embarked on a two-month research that sought to sketch…
Our Cultural Medallion Story: 3 ways to explore this showcase of Singapore artists
By Janice Yap A new interactive showcase is shining the spotlight on the 130 artists who have been conferred the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest accolade for the arts. Titled Our Cultural Medallion Story, the exhibition consists of a physical exhibition–with…
WrICE 2021: Writers Ask Writers, Asia Pacific edition
We asked 11 writers and translators of poetry, fiction and non-fiction to participate in an exquisite corpse-like Q&A session, with each person answering a question and then asking one. These writers, who hail from countries in the Asia Pacific such as…
Rethinking contemporaries: Asian Producers’ Platform Speaker Series
By Wennie Yang (690 words, 2-minute read) There is a quiet and perhaps stubborn optimism that underlies the work of a producer. Perhaps one could call it an occupational hazard, always seeking new ways to do things. This spirit seemed…
SEE WHAT SEE: SEA AT SGIFF 2021
By ants chua, Ruby Thiagarajan and Janiqueel (1,200 words, 4-minute read) In this edition of See What See, we review three films made by Southeast Asian directors and featuring Southeast Asia currently showing at the Singapore International Film Festival 2021…
Barbarian Invasion: Malaysian New Wave’s return to self
By Fiona Lee (1,330 words, 4-minute read) While watching his pupil spar, the martial arts master instructs, “Trust your instinct, feel your own body. Only then you can express yourself…” “Sifu,” the pupil replies, “What is myself?” The scene above…
ANCER Lab 03 Manila: How arts managers are surviving COVID-19
By Wennie Yang (1,200 words, 4-minute read) Pandemic restrictions have put arts and cultural workers and institutions in a bind: choosing between sustaining their missions at times of a global pandemic or ceasing operations altogether. How have Southeast Asian arts…
SEE WHAT SEE: BOYS’ LOVE (BL) DRAMAS
By Lainie Yeoh I grew up in an era where queer films were rare exceptions and it was your holy gay-af duty to watch all the ones you could access. Yes, even if they’re mostly about white people processing their…
Shock Horror: The Southeast Asian monsters we love
ArtsEquator chats with five writers about their favourite horror characters and monsters from Southeast Asian lore and mythology. We then asked two Singapore artists, Natalie Christian Tan and Divyalakshmi, to respond with a custom illustration based on the replies. Singapore…
So You Wanna Be An Independent Art Curator in Singapore?
By Syed Muhammad Hafiz (1,000 words, 3-minute read) For the uninitiated, art curators are a mysterious bunch. Even scary, sometimes. Usually associated with big, stuffy museums, they speak a particular language that only they would recognise, and write essays that…
Keluarga Besar En. Karim: Pressing play on family drama
By Faezah Zulkifli (921 words, 3-minute read) The setting is familiar—every Sunday night, my family gathers in the living room to watch TV. Tonight, we are watching Checkpoint Theatre’s Keluarga Besar En. Karim (The Karims). It was déjà vu; versions…
Yale-NUS closure: Artistic legacies and loss in (de)liberation
By Clara Che Wei Peh and Tee Zhuo (2,500 words, 10-minute read) In August, the National University of Singapore (NUS) announced unilaterally that Yale-NUS College would be shut down by 2025, marking what many see as a premature end to…
The working processes of artists: Daly Filsuf
“I want to bring all the Asian kinds of music to the world, with our language,” says rapper and music producer Daly Filsuf. In this video, the artist talks about dikir barat as a genre, and how he has fused…
Performance Making during a Pandemic: Of Innovation, Form and Embeddedness
By Adriana Nordin Manan (1,000 words, 3-minute read) If arts panel discussions are meant to reflect the times, “Critical Responses to Performance-Making in A Post-Pandemic World” positioned itself well: at this stage of the pandemic, it was less about open-ended…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Jo Kukathas for Air Con
We cakap-cakap (chit-chat) with Jo Kukathas about The Instant Café Theatre Company’s upcoming screening of Air Con, an award-winning 2008 play written by Shanon Shah. The play revolves around the murder of a sex worker near an elite boys school…
OPEN CALL: Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Documentation
<Deadline extended to 15 October 2021> ArtsEquator invites applications for the position of Researcher for a regional arts censorship documentation and publication project it is piloting. The programme runs from Jan 2022 – Dec 2023. There are six positions available,…
The working processes of artists: Luqman (Flair Brothers)
Singapore hip-hop dancer Luqman from Flair Brothers gives us a lesson in the dance and also the lifestyle, introducing terms that are well known in the scene, and sheds light on how the scene has changed over the years. “If…
Dear Waterloo Street, From An Emerging Arts Manager
Text and illustrations by Ho Shu En (1,600 words, 4-minute read) Waterloo Street is for me, a place of beginnings. It has accompanied me through my journey as an arts management student from Singapore Management University (SMU) to my current…
Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021: Bold claims on identity
By Patricia Tobin (1,382 words, 4-minute read) Led by artistic director Noorlinah Mohamed, this year’s online edition of the Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021 explores issues pertaining to women that are often forgotten or overlooked. There is Not Grey: Intimacy,…
The working processes of artists: Bani Haykal
Artist, composer and musician Bani Haykal shares about his video work Trouble With Harmony, created in collaboration with art critic and writer Lee Weng Choy, as well as his other experimentations with text and music. In this video, directed and…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Salty Xi Jie Ng
In this month’s Cakap-Cakap (chit-chat), ArtsEquator speaks with artist Salty Xi Jie Ng, whose most recent project, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being, excavated what intimacy means for older Singapore women (hint: it’s not all about sex!). The digital experience, comprised…
Saya Takut Untuk Mengkritik Sehinggalah Saya Berjumpa Sekumpulan Pengkritik: Refleksi Terhadap AAMR
Oleh Sukhbir Cheema dan diterjemah oleh Fasyali Fadzly Bila anda mendengar perkataan “pengkritik”, apakah yang anda bayangkan? Saya sering membayangkan orang yang pakai cermin mata; ulat buku, sangat serius, dan payah untuk puaskan hatinya. Daripada pandangan saya dulu, pengkritik adalah…
The performing arts industry of Malaysia is drowning
By Joe Hasham (986 words, 2-minute read) As many parts of Southeast Asia are hit by recurrent waves of Covid 19 infections, arts industries across the region face imminent collapse due to prolonged closures and scant state support. In Malaysia,…