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…
Reframing The Mental Health Discourse ‘With Time’
By Isaac Tan (1,262 words, 4-minute read) CW: Mentions of issues about mental health and suicide. For his directorial and playwriting debut, Drama Box’s resident artist, Chng Yi Kai, wants to reframe the discourse around mental health. This might seem…
Open Calls and Opportunities: Oct 2021 (Singapore/SEA)
Updated 22 Oct ArtsEquator Lobang is a list of available open calls, job postings and other opportunities open to people from Singapore and Southeast Asia. “Lobang”, a Malay word for “hole”, is used in Singlish as a shorthand for an…
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…
Air Con: Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
By Dhinesha Karthigesu (1,330 words, 5-minute read) Who do you want to be when you grow up? At the end of the play AIR CON, the character William (Nick Davis) asks the character Asif (Ryan Lee Bhaskaran) this question. This…
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…
Cultivating Arts Writing Ecosystems: Criticality and Creativity amidst Necessity
By Adriana Nordin Manan (995 words, 3-minute read) Personal narratives on professional pathways to becoming arts writers in four Asian countries were the departure point for the rich discussion at “Critical Writing Training: Models, Methods and Pitfalls,” a panel session…
The working processes of artists: Sonia Kwek
“Probably your body is the one space you can be the most autonomous still”, says artist and performer Sonia Kwek. In this video, the artist talks about the politics of using the female body in her works, and how this…
Open Calls and Opportunities: Sep 2021 (Singapore/SEA)
Updated 30 Sept 2021 ArtsEquator Lobang is a list of available open calls, job postings and other opportunities open to people from Singapore and Southeast Asia. “Lobang”, a Malay word for “hole”, is used in Singlish as a shorthand for…
BIPAM 2021: Delight, despair, dialogue and the despot
By Nabilah Said (1,800 words, 6-minute read) I’ve never actually attended the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM). This year, the pandemic allowed me to, as BIPAM offered a five-day digital programme full of showcases, talks and other activities. It…
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,…
10 Things You Should Know About: Malay Dance
10 Things You Should Know is a series of short animated videos on aspects of Malay culture and heritage, made in partnership with Wisma Geylang Serai. In the first video of this series, we share 10 things you should know…
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…
W.O.W Classics: Neo Wen Xin on Constance Singam
In this video, part of the W.O.W (Women on Women) Classics project, Neo Wen Xin shares about “Where I Was”, a 2013 memoir by Singaporean activist Constance Singam. Constance Singam is known for being a longterm president of AWARE, and…
Bedside Banter: Cyril & Michael by Bridging the Gap Collective
By Naeem Kapadia (800 words, 2-minute read) Two strangers meet on gay dating app Grindr and share an encounter in a hotel room. Except it’s not just fast, meaningless sex. Budding playwright and theatremaker Theo Chen’s assured two-hander, presented by…
Open Calls & Opportunities: Aug 2021 (Singapore/SEA)
[Updated 9 Sept 2021] ArtsEquator Lobang is a list of available open calls, job postings and other opportunities open to people from Singapore and Southeast Asia. “Lobang”, a Malay word for “hole”, is used in Singlish as a shorthand for…
Where are the Malays?: Locating the Singaporean Malay in Singa-Pura-Pura
By Lily Jamaludin (1,368 words, 4-minute read) Singa-Pura-Pura boasts an eclectic collection of short speculative fiction from a minority ethnic group in Singapore, exploring worlds where robots are therapists, prayers are read from preloaded cards, and humans are migrating to…
The working processes of artists: Grace Kalaiselvi
Theatremaker Grace Kalaiselvi talks about her journey in theatre, the Tamil theatre scene and issues of diversity and representation in Singapore theatre in this video, titled Creating as a Tamil Artist in Singapore, directed and conceptualised by LASALLE students Nur…
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…
Podcast 95: Three Sisters and _T0701_ at SIFA 2021
In this episode of the ArtsEquator theatre podcast, Naeem Kapadia, Matthew Lyon and Nabilah Said discuss Three Sisters by Nine Years Theatre and _T0701_ by Zeugma, which were both part of SIFA 2021. Stream Podcast 95: ArtsEquator · Podcast 95:…
Dialogues with Mountains: Preserving indigenous culture in Taromak and Kelecung
By Wennie Yang (1,400 words, 6-minute read) Let’s face it. Leisure travel feels like a distant memory at the moment. I’ve been trying to envision what a collective future means for destination hotspots in Southeast Asia, whose economies used to…
Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space
By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be. I’ve always had issues with the greeting – I used to think that it was a statement/question that…
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…
Fragments of History: Loc Vang, the Yellow music singer from Hanoi
By Duong Nguyen Thuy (800 words, 3-minute read) It was perhaps the melancholy of history that was the most palpable presence in the livestream action Fragments of History, which I organised as part of Mekong Cultural Hub’s Mini-Meeting Point held…
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…
The frenemy’s handshake: The Singapore Trilogy as political theatre
By Clarissa Oon (2,650 words, 8-minute read) My phone vibrated one night, with a notification that Singapore political party Workers’ Party (WP) was premiering a live video on Instagram. Curious, I tuned in – digital and social media being the…