Two Cultural Medallion recipients, sitcom stars and an arts administrator who raised Singapore’s international profile
ArtsEquator remembers the artists and cultural workers from the Singapore we lost in 2022.
Singapore
To See My Plainsunset
Revisiting a favourite Singaporean band, Plainsunset, Diana Rahim fleetingly captures her youthful self and recalls the creativity of the local music scene in the early 2000s.
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Make Hantus Great Again: Breaking Bread With the Undead
“Make Hantus Great Again”, Teatre Ekamatra’s latest production, combines kooky supernatural characters with social commentary this Halloween.
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Isabella Chiam: Cultivating Risks
SMU students Caitlin Leong and Joy Lo interview Isabella Chiam about her gardening workshop, ‘The Last Gardener’, gaining insights into the risks and challenges that artists face in the creative sector.
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The Growing Up Anthologies & the Diversity of Being “Brown”
In the latest installment of AWARE’s Growing Up anthology, Diana Rahim finds that in an environment where our experience of race and womanhood may be constricted, personal stories can be powerful acts of re-making and re-narrativising.
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Slated for [ ]: on Declutter Me! and Frequencies
Xiao Ting Teo is moved to consider how the detritus of being shapes us anew as she encounters two works, “Declutter Me!” and “Frequencies” at the The Substation’s annual SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless.
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Berak: Letting it Go
Naeem Kapadia reviews ‘Berak’ by Singapore’s Teater Ekamatra and comes away moved by the sensitive trancreation of the original play by Chong Tze Chien.
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Reconsidering the Commandments with Wild Rice’s Animal Farm (2022)
In Wild Rice’s restaging of Animal Farm, Rebecca G finds a production that leavens the darker aspects of the text by drawing out the absurdities of the narrative.
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Podcast 106: Boom
In our latest podcast, we discuss Boom, a production by A Mirage which took place on 1-20 July 2022.
Contemporary Moves In Modern Singaporean Tamil Theatre
Hemang Yadav was involved in a recent development program, Tunjuk Arah/ Iyakkunar, for Malay and Indian theatre directors in Singapore. He shares his views and reflections on the current state of Singaporean Tamil theatre, and how the programme was an important platform, while also identifying some entrenched ideas underpinning the design of the masterclasses.
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Tan Boon Hui: A Cultural Leader Of Grace and Courage
The Executive Director of Singapore’s Arts House Limited’s untimely death last week reverberated through the international art world. His colleagues pay tribute to his vision, leadership and friendship.
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“What if we do it this way?”: Imagining new Possibilities with Producers SG
With change and transformation being an agenda for the past two years, we talk to Producers SG and uncover how they plan to accommodate the shifts in the art world.
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Producers Lab: “What if we do it this way?” | Banupriya Ponnarasu, Mark Benedict Cheong and Deanna Dzulkifli
Have you ever been a part of a project in the arts, and felt something needed changing? Or have you been either the creator or spectator of a programme, and went away from it thinking, “what if we do it this way?” ?
Remotes X Quantum: Daring Collaboration Defies Cohesion
Remotes x Quantum, a Singapore-Philippines collaboration, is a daring, experimental work that never quite attains cohesion, which Jennifer Anne Champion finds is on-brand for SIFA 2022’s experimental nature. This performance is a part of the Singapore International Festival of the Arts.
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MEPAAN: The Air Bandung Conundrum
Dr Shahril Salleh reflects on the challenges and rewards of intercultural collaboration in the Singapore Festival of the Arts 2022’s opening show, MEPAAN, using a beloved local drink as an analogy.
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Disability Arts — Expanding Ecosystems, Protecting Foundations
Disability arts researcher Yeongmin Mun reflects on ecosystems, access and platforms in response to the online panel discussion, Ground Up: Building Effective Ecosystems for Disability Arts. The full video is also available to watch, with Singapore Sign Language and Korean Sign Language interpretation, and captions in Korean and English. Art has no borders — that’s
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Disability Arts – Notice us for our art, not our disability
Isaac Lim outlines conversations in online disability arts panel discussion, Nothing About Us Without Us: Artists on crafting their voices. The full video is also available to watch, with Singapore Sign Language and Korean Sign Language interpretation, and captions in Korean and English. The writer of this piece is a plus-sized male with short hair,
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5 Advertisements That Are So Southeast Asian
Some advertisements are works of art. These contain well-told stories, interesting characters, and meaningful insights, while making a marketing message go down that much more smoothly. Mira Sharon recommends 5 advertisements you can watch to learn more about what makes us Southeast Asians tick. To tell stories is a beautiful act, and advertisements are an
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장애예술 – 장애가 아닌 우리의 예술을 보라
아이삭 림은 장애 예술에 관한 온라인 포럼, 우리가 없으면 우리에 대한 것도 없다: 목소리를 만들어 내는 예술가들에 대한 글을 썼습니다. 싱가포르 수어, 한국 수어, 언어 통역과 한국어와 영어 자막이 제공되는 전체 비디오도 보실 수 있습니다. 지금 이 글을 쓰고 있는 사람은 짧은 머리에 안경을 쓴 플러스 사이즈 남성으로, 티와 반바지 차림으로 편하게 입은 채 집필
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장애예술 – 생태계를 확장하며, 토대를 지켜내기
문영민은 생태계와 접근성, 플랫폼 등에 대해서 이야기한 그라운드 업: 장애 예술을 위한 효과적인 생태계 구축에 대한 글을 썼습니다. 싱가포르 수어, 한국 수어, 언어 통역과 한국어와 영어 자막이 제공되는 전체 비디오도 보실 수 있습니다. 예술에 국경이 없다고 했던가. 알레시아 니오, 김원영, 피터 사우 세 작가의 발표를 들으며 장애예술 창작자들의 고민과 시도에도 경계가 없다고 느꼈다. 싱가포르와 한국의
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How Art And Culture Podcasts Are Sweeping Through Singapore
Podcasts are more prominent today, especially in the arts and culture industry. Bernice Soh covers the growth of podcasts in Singapore, and how podcasters today are engaging with their audiences. Podcasts are everywhere these days. You can talk about almost anything in a podcast, from social issues and political events to conspiracy theories and celebrity
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UNHEARD: Hearing Singapore women composers loud and clear
In the notoriously male-dominated classical music sphere, seven Singaporean women composers take centre-stage. “When do women get to be heard for who we are?” That was the question raised by Rachel Lim, a Singaporean soprano and UNHEARD’s founder at the start of the concert. Lim started the UNHEARD concert series back in 2019 in Boston
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Experiencing a slice of life: Artist’s Block by ArtWave
Experience an audio-guided walking trail along Singapore’s historic Waterloo Street.
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Disability Arts: Critical Conversations between South Korea and Singapore
Disability Arts: Critical Conversations between South Korea and Singapore Presented by ArtsEquator, Equal Dreams and Taeyoon Choi Studio Disability Arts has emerged as a powerful and dynamic area of practice within the wider arts and cultural landscape regionally in recent years. Yet, the work of rethinking and rebuilding disability-centred arts ecosystems is an ongoing process
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Podcast 77: Fika and Fishy by Patch and Punnet
In this latest podcast episode, Nabilah Said, Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia discuss the recent production of Fika and Fishy by Patch and Punnet, the collective’s first production for the year about the friendship between a dog and a fish. Trigger/Content warning: Allusions to domestic/sexual abuse Nabilah Said (NS): Hello everyone, welcome to the
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“Four Horse Road”: buried histories and blind spots
By Corrie Tan (2,400 words, 13-minute read) Four Horse Road is The Theatre Practice’s show pony of the year. It’s got a lot of performance buzzwords going for it – site-specific, interactive, multi-generational, multilingual – and promises an epic odyssey into both the history of the company and of the country it shares a birth
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The Loud Echo of “In the Silence of Your Heart”
By Corrie Tan (1,160 words, six-minute read) The audio tours of spell#7 – the husband-wife duo of Kaylene Tan and Paul Rae – promise a variety of small adventures. In their previous work, they’ve invited us to move through several spaces in Singapore, peeling back layers of stories and eavesdropping on conversations as the tours
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Dinh Q. Lê’s “Monuments and Memorials”: A Double Haunting
By Elaine Chiew (1,135 words, six-minute read) Spectral and iconic, Dinh Q. Lê’s first major solo exhibition in Singapore premieres his Monuments and Memorials series of works, created as artist-in-residence at STPI – Creative Workshop and Gallery. Born in 1968 in Ha Tien, on the border of Cambodia and Vietnam, Lê fled the Khmer Rouge
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“Potong” by Teater Ekamatra: Of Kin and Skin
By Akanksha Raja (825 words, four-minute read) We’ve been seeing a variety of theatre revolving around dementia and its effects on families in Singapore over the past few years, such as Pangdemonium’s The Father, The Necessary Stage’s Don’t Forget to Remember Me, and Drama Box’s forum theatre shows The Wind Came Home and Exit. The
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“Ngopi” by P7:1SMA: Stop and Smell the Coffee
By Chan Sze-Wei (1,110 words, six-minute read) Norhaizad Adam’s second full length work with his company P7:1SMA (say “prisma”) is set in another world. The audience steps through the door of the Drama Centre Black Box into an arena of wooden crates and sacking, the whiff of wood and coffee beans in the warm light
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