Reimagining Singapore: Self and Society in Contemporary Art 9819908639, 9789819908639

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Chee-Hoo Lum Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

Reimagining Singapore Self and Society in Contemporary Art

Reimagining Singapore

Chee-Hoo Lum · Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray · Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

Reimagining Singapore Self and Society in Contemporary Art

Chee-Hoo Lum Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Chor Leng Twardzik Ching Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

ISBN 978-981-99-0863-9 ISBN 978-981-99-0864-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword

When approached to pen a foreword for this book, we thought of Siapa Nama Kamu?, the opening exhibition of the National Gallery of Singapore. It is the first and only permanent exhibition on the history of modern art in Singapore. The title is derived from National Language Class, a painting by Chua Mia Tee in 1959, which is based on the historical moment of Singapore’s self-governance from the British. Siapa Nama Kamu? addressed a wide spectrum of questions on Singapore art, but we thought that some of the observations provided entry points for Reimagining Singapore: Self and Society in Contemporary Art. One was its provocation to the “viewers to consider the parameters of personal and national identity”. The other was a reflexive curatorial note posing an open question lobbying for “two types of art histories, one of the museum and the other of the academia?”. Reimagining Singapore: Self and Society in Contemporary Art unpacks layered readings of identities that are often blurred within the parameters of personal and national identities. The book unravels insights into artistic practices and lived experiences of artists working in or ‘around’ conditions in Singapore. The authors provided various frameworks to illuminate the diverse artist strategies in navigating state and societal mechanisms. This book is a wildly ambitious project as the authors attempt to draw some kind of ‘sense’ from the constellation of artists. In doing so, they reveal the ‘messy logics’ which would be too adventurous for most research journeys. In an age where arts professionals are asked to simplify our artistic message for better communication, the ‘messy logics’ come closer to unpacking the blurred parameters of personal and national identities. Returning to the curatorial note in Siapa Nama Kamu? on “two types of art histories, one of the museum and the other of the academia?”: We read this as the curator’s perception of art histories as an open work that is worked on from different fields of knowledge. Reimagining Singapore: Self and Society in Contemporary Art is the “other of the academia”, providing a strand of knowledge that would extend and expand the art discourse. The authors’ research methodology in conducting in-depth interviews with 26 practicing artists would be a valuable resource for other researchers. The v

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project also provided an intervention on each chapter as each chapter is followed by an afterword where artists (some being respondents of these chapters) and art professionals respond to it. There is no doubt that this research gesture signals an ethos of openness and the intention of holding space for the subjects to talk back. The artist is an anomaly in a capitalistic, pragmatic and highly regulated society such as Singapore. Everyone has imagination and creativity, but to insist on and persist in a creative practice “in difficult circumstances” takes a certain sort of crazy/rebellious/unreasonable/free individual. Anomalies indicate gaps and errors in our thinking and are necessary to help push for a better system; similarly, artists embody the potential of society by pointing out what we are missing. The essays in this book highlight the incredible diversity of art practices in Singapore and the multiple ways in which these contribute to society. This is long overdue as artists are still largely despised, ignored or maligned here—22 years after the first Renaissance City Plan which aimed to create “a global arts city conducive to creative, knowledge-based industries and talent” and “strengthen national identity and belonging among Singaporeans by nurturing an appreciation of shared heritage”, and 10 years after Our Singapore Conversation, meant to build “A Home with Hope and Heart”. Reimagining Singapore: Self and Society in Contemporary Art has resulted from taking the time to understand artists’ perspectives and offering opportunities for criticisms and feedback; without empathy, reflexivity and trust, these real conversations would not have happened. As such, we would like to thank Juliette, Chee-Hoo and Chor Leng for their loving attention in engaging with the artists herein and putting this book together. We consider this book a valuable contribution not only to art discourse but also to everyone who is interested in knowing this country and invested in its growth. The artists have been reimagining the future we want and busy manifesting it through our work. This book is a call for you, dear reader, to reimagine that future Singapore with us. Jennifer Teo Post-Museum Woon Tien Wei Post-Museum

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the generosity of the artists we interviewed. We will remain forever inspired by your passion, spirit and boundless creativity. A special thank you to those who took the time to read our drafts and provided much welcomed feedback and edits. Warmest thanks are due to our wonderful and talented Afterword Contributors (in order of appearance)—nor, Farizi Noorfauzi, Cecily Cheo, Amanda Heng, Seng Yu Jin, Natalie Alexandra Tse, Salty Xi Jie Ng, Alecia Neo, Louis Ho, Zen Teh, Regina De Rozario, Priyageetha Dia, Dawn-joy Leong, Loo Zihan and anGie seah, for your time and care in responding to each respective chapter, and sharing your ideas via poetry, drawing, creative writing, CGI artwork and essays—all of which have added a symphony of depth to the book, transcended its limits and opened up vast new horizons. We are also eternally indebted to the awesome dream team Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei, founders of Post-Museum and tireless socially-engaged artists, for generously reading the entire manuscript and penning a thoughtful Foreword full of wisdom and personal insights. Our gratitude to Alexandra Westcott Campbell and the amazing team at Springer Nature, for believing in us and our book proposal and making the process so smooth. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for taking the time and effort to read through our proposal and manuscript and for providing us with very insightful feedback. The research was supported by the National Institute of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund (RI4/19LCH). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the National Institute of Education, Singapore. To everyone at NIE’s Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group, thank you for your collegiality and support through all these years. To our hard-working colleagues at NIE’s GPL office, thank you for supporting our research project. Juliette would like to thank Chee-Hoo and Leng for sharing this meaningful collaborative adventure, Randy for his constant love and support and maopao for sheltering (and putting up with) a feral creature during the writing season. Chor Leng would like to thank her Ph.D. supervisor Chee-Hoo for insisting that she continues to vii

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sharpen her research skills by participating in this research project. Chee-Hoo would like to thank Chor Leng and Juliette for journeying together with him into the diverse Singapore visual arts scene.

Contents

1

2

3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, and Chor Leng Twardzik Ching 1 About the Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 About the Afterwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identity Negotiation in Context: Three Artists and Their Works . . . Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray 1 Theoretical Grounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Part I: Artists’ Agentive Processes and Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 nor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Zhiyi Cao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Farizi Noorfauzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Part II: Agency in Context (Internal–External Dialectic) . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 nor ↔ Prescriptive Normative Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Zhiyi ↔ Collective Myths and Structures of Surveillance . . . . 3.3 Farizi ↔ Dominant Notions of Malayness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterwords by nor and Farizi Noorfauzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Voicing the Nation Through Visual Arts Education: Pedagogical Cues from Singapore Contemporary Artists . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Vignette 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Vignette 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

4 8 10 11 12 14 14 20 25 30 31 35 38 41 44 48 53 53 53 54

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1.3 Key Values in Visual Arts Education in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 National Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Singapore Contemporary Artists on Matters of the Nation . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Allowing the Land to Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Respeaking History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Body Versus The State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Implications for the Visual Arts Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterword by Cecily Cheo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54 55 57 57 60 62 64 66 68 72

4

Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Chor Leng Twardzik Ching 1 ila: Layering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2 Choy Ka Fai: Hybridization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 3 Zarina Muhammad: Multiplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 4 Dream On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Afterwords by Amanda Heng and Seng Yu Jin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

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Soundscapes of Our Lives: Lessons from Singapore Contemporary Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum 1 Situating Soundscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Creative Processes and Works of Four Singapore Contemporary Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Sound and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterword by Natalie Alexandra Tse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6

Social Practice Art in Singapore: Creative Approaches Towards Participation and Social Amelioration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A Note on Definitional Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Social Amelioration and Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 National Context of Community Art and Contemporary Art . . . . . . . 5 Social Practice Art in Singapore: Four Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Buangkok Mall Life Club (2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Everyday Life Orchestra (2014) and Homework (2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Unseen: Constellations (2014–2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 I Am LGB (2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

107 107 108 120 124 125 128 131 131 133 134 135 138 138 143 147 152 156

Contents

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Afterwords by Salty Xi Jie Ng and Alecia Neo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 7

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Negotiating Truths, Realities and Puns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chor Leng Twardzik Ching 1 Ezzam Rahman: Fooling the Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Shayne Phua Shi Ying: The Functions of Dysfunctional Malfunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vertical Submarine: Punny Subversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Punchline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterword by Louis Ho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Land and Environmental Art: Reflecting on Creative Processes of Singapore Contemporary Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A Brief Survey on Land and Environmental Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Context of Land and Environmental Art in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Perspectives from Singapore Land and Environmental Artists . . . . . 5 In Conversation with Zen Teh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Environmental Artist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Urbanization and Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Inquiry-Based Process: Connecting Through Observations and Personal Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Sustainability and Advocating for Living Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Pedagogical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterword by Zen Teh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giving Voice to Queer Feelings: Creative Choices of Singapore Contemporary Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum 1 Setting the Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Queer Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Expressing Queer Lives and Queer Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Untold Queer Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Self-portraiture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Queerness in Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Passive Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Returning to Queer Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 A Turn Towards Public Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterword by Regina De Rozario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

169 170 172 177 183 184 185 187 187 187 189 192 192 192 193 193 199 200 200 203 212 215 215 217 218 218 220 223 226 230 231 234 239

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10 Hopes for Our Contemporary Art Scene: How to Improve Singapore’s Arts Ecosystem, According to Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray 1 Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Independent Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Spaces to Work and Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Mental Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Less Elitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 More Open to All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Rethink Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Less Emphasis on Scholastic Achievement and Academic Research-Based Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Better Representation and Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Express, Listen to and Hold Space for Historically Marginalized and Under-Represented Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Inclusion at the Intersections of Race and Gender . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Representation of Local Artists and Countering Trend-Seeking Commercialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Valuing the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Changing Mindsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Compensation and Labour Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Investing in Arts Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Mind Map of Hopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Limitations and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterwords by Priyageetha Dia, Dawn-joy Leong, Loo Zihan, & anGie seah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Correction to: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chee-Hoo Lum, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, and Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

243 244 244 248 248 250 250 251 251 252 252 255 257 259 259 260 261 262 262 265 268 282 C1

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

About the Authors

Chee-Hoo Lum is Associate Professor of music education with the Visual & Performing Arts Academic Group at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the Coordinator of NIE Centre for Arts Research in Education (CARE) and a member of the UNESCO UNITWIN: Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development. CheeHoo’s research interests include examining issues towards identity, cultural diversity and multiculturalism, technology and globalization in music education; children’s musical cultures; creativity and improvisation; and elementary music methods. He has served as co-editor of the IJME (International Journal of Music Education) and is currently on the editorial board of RSME (Research Studies in Music Education) and IJMEC (International Journal of Music for Early Childhood). Chee-Hoo has published a number of edited books: (1) Contextualized Practices in Arts Education: An International Dialogue on Singapore; (2) Musical Childhoods of Asia and The Pacific; (3) Arts Education and Cultural Diversity: Policies, Research, Practices and Critical Perspectives; (4) The Artground Ecology: Engaging Children in Arts and Play Experiences; three co-authored academic books: (1) Teaching Living Legends: Professional Development and Lessons for the 21st Century Music Educator; (2) Semionauts of Tradition: Music, Culture & Identity in Singapore; (3) World Music Pedagogy: School-Community Intersections, academic book chapters, refereed journal articles and made numerous conference presentations at local and international settings. Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray is an artist and co-author (along with Chee-Hoo Lum) of the book Semionauts of Tradition: Music, Culture and Identity in Contemporary Singapore. She has been conducting research on the arts for the National Institute of Education, Singapore, since 2016. In 2021, she curated Dialogues with the Unseen, an exhibition featuring experimental and documentary films by Southeast Asian artists, at Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in New York City. Before researching the arts, Juliette worked in international development. She has lived and conducted anthropological research in Indonesia, Brazil, Cuba and Argentina, and she has taught English in India and Nepal. xiii

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About the Authors

Chor Leng Twardzik Ching is currently Senior Lecturer at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. As a Contemporary Artist and Art Educator, Chor Leng believes in developing local talent and resources in the arts. As such, she has served at the National Arts Council (NAC) Scholarship Committee, Lasalle College of the Arts Faculty of Fine Arts Industry Advisory Board, Ministry of Education (MOE) Art Syllabus Development Committee, and MOE Special Education Branch’s Curriculum Advisory Group, and was recently invited to give a Keynote Address at the SZTU (Shenzhen Technology University, China) International exhibition and art forum 2020. As a curator, she has overseen international exhibitions such as Secrets in Life and Death (2017), an exhibition of paintings and prints by renowned Cheyenne and Arapaho artist Edgar Heap of Birds. She has served as judge and curator in the Singapore Youth Festival 2011 and 2014, as well as Singapore Art Museum’s (SAM) President’s Young Talent Curatorial Committee (2014/15). She has also co-curated a multi-national travelling exhibition known as the Field Trip Project Asia (2015–present) that has travelled to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and Myanmar. Chor Leng has exhibited internationally, at the Jakarta Biennale #14, Indonesia, Ahrengsburg, Germany, Tokyo, Japan, and Calgary and Regina in Canada. Corporate collectors of her work include Google Asia Pacific, Crown Life Canada and the University of Regina, Canada. In Singapore, public commissions of Chor Leng’s works include the Istana, the Esplanade, the Singapore Art Show, Singapore Management University, NIE, National Museum of Singapore and SAM. Her recent commissions include the National Gallery Singapore (2015), Roppongi Art Night, Tokyo, Japan (2018), the 5 Stones public art commission by the NAC in commemoration of the Singapore Bicentennial (2019/20), the Singapore Night Festival (2022) and the Land Transport Authority for the Orchard Boulevard MRT station (2022).

About the Foreword Contributors Post-Museum founded by Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei, is an independent cultural and social space in Singapore which aims to encourage and support a thinking and pro-active community. It is an open platform for examining contemporary life, promoting the arts and connecting people. In addition to their events and projects, they also curate, research and collaborate with a network of social actors and cultural workers. (www.post-museum.org)

About the Afterword Contributors nor’s artistic practice is rooted in self-portraiture. Their works span the disciplines of photography, film, video, performance, text and spoken word poetry to engage

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with ideas of belonging and identity through frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. Cecily Cheo is a painter, writer, educator and independent curator. She has extensive experience in teaching in the fields of visual arts practice and visual arts pedagogy. After living and working in Singapore and Melaka for over 20 years, she has recently relocated to Sydney, Australia, where she shares a studio and a life with her partner, artist Cheo Chai Hiang. Priyageetha Dia is a visual artist. She works at the intersections of moving image and installation. She lives and works in Singapore. Regina De Rozario is an artist and writer based in Singapore. Her practice and research look at how artistic practices in public space can uncover embedded notions of power and control. In 2018, De Rozario received the National Arts Council Postgraduate Scholarship to conduct her doctoral studies on art in public space at the Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media (2018–2020) and National Institute of Education (2020–present). As an adjunct educator, De Rozario has served as a research supervisor with the LASALLE College of the Arts’ MA Fine Arts programme, and lecturer with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ BA (Hons) Fine Art programme. Amanda Heng has been a contemporary art practitioner since the mid-80s. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to her art practice that expresses her concerns in identity politics, communication, human relations, changes in advanced technology and its impact on the contemporary world. Heng was awarded the Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 2010 and is the recipient of Singapore Biennale’s Benesse Prize in 2019. Louis Ho is a curator, critic and art historian based in Singapore. His work is concerned with the contemporary visual cultures of Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on the specific socio-cultural contexts in which various visual vernaculars have emerged in this part of the world, especially the vocabularies of queerness. He was formerly a curator at the Singapore Art Museum, and co-curator of the Singapore Biennale in 2016. He has been published in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture and Religion and the Arts, and is a regular contributor to publications such as ArtAsiaPacific. He has taught at various Singapore institutions, including the National Institute of Education. Dawn-joy Leong is Autistic with multiple medical disabilities. A prolific researcher and multidisciplinary artist, she has found Autistic Joy in Being, tells truthful stories via a signature blend of hyper realism and Fantasia, and is recently trundling along in a rickety wheelbarrow through this most exciting part of life’s journey with the Love of Her Life, a rescued Greyhound, Lucy Like-a-Charm. Loo Zihan is a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MFA in Studio Practice (Filmmaking) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and

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MA in Performance Studies at the New York University Tisch School of Arts. His research focuses on the performance of resistance in Singapore. Alecia Neo is an artist and cultural worker. Her collaborative practice unfolds primarily through installations, lens-based media and participatory workshops that examine modes of radical hospitality and care. She is currently working on Care Index, an ongoing research focused on the indexing and transmission of embodied gestures and movements which emerge from lived experiences of care labour. She cofounded Brack, an art collective and platform for socially engaged art. Active since 2014, her ongoing collaborations with disabled artists manifest as an arts platform, Unseen Art Initiatives. Salty Xi Jie Ng co-creates semi-fictional paradigms for the real and imagined lives of humans within the poetics of the interdimensional intimate vernacular. Often playing with relational possibilities, her transdisciplinary work proposes a collective re-imagining through humour, care, subversion, play, discomfort, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal. Visit saltythunder.net. Farizi Noorfauzi contemplates gestural and uncanny energies in his work, trudging through cultural narratives to articulate remnants of alternative possibilities. Working loosely between sculpture, video, performance and music, he is interested in processes of unbecoming, with a deep interest in doing things wrongly. anGie seah The oneness and porousness of life and art are a hallmark of anGie, who thrives on being, living and practising art with a radical acceptance of the agency of life’s uncertain elements. Her multidisciplinary practice includes drawing, sculpture, performance art, sound, installation and video. She has been involved in creating participatory art projects for communities both locally and internationally for over a decade. Working within a community allows her to be in touch with the reality of life through people and to uplift the human spirit. www.toliveforever.me https://lin ktr.ee/anGieseah Seng Yu Jin (Dr.) is a Senior Curator and Deputy Director (Curatorial and Research) at National Gallery Singapore. He was previously a Lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts in the MA Asian Art Histories and BA Fine Arts programmes, and now lectures at the National University of Singapore’s Minor in Art History programme. Seng’s research interests cover regional art histories focusing on Southeast Asian art in relation to studies on diaspora, migration and cultural transfers. He is currently researching on artistic activities and its histories, focusing on the history of exhibitions and artist collectives in Southeast Asia. Zen Teh is an environmental artist and educator interested in the interdisciplinary studies of nature and human behaviour. Her art practice spans across photography, sculpture and installation art. As a research-based artist, Teh has initiated numerous collaborative projects with artists, art professionals and scientists over the years to investigate the impact of rapid urban development in Southeast Asia.

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Natalie Alexandra Tse (Dr.) plays with sound, sonic objects, and the environment. Curious about the ancient past but eager to find a place in the contemporary, she uses experimental techniques on the guzheng, strings, and other found objects to evoke emotions in sonic performance. A mother to three children, she integrates her passion in sound with early childhood education and research.

Chapter 1

Introduction Chee-Hoo Lum, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, and Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

Ultimately when it comes to creative practices … it is up to the individual, and I am not so sure that that term “individual” is sufficiently respected or respectful here. It is still a cautionary term. I am not saying there are huge damning obstacles against it, but on the other hand, it is not sufficiently freed up. I think that is the germinal source for it … the willingness to let an individual grow, and several individuals grow, at their own pace, taking the kinds of risks that they have to take, taking time, producing things that might not quite make it but continuing to produce it, in difficult circumstances … And one should not be fearful of that, that it’s going to lead to the destruction of society, the destruction of family, the destruction of relationships. Nonsense. I don’t think so at all. We have to think of it positively, imaginatively—and joyously. Then maybe Singapore will be more than just a site of transshipment of art. —T. K. Sabapathy (2017)

This book approaches the subject of contemporary art by exploring the social embeddedness of Singaporean artists’ identities and practices. Linking artistic and creative processes and products to artists’ personal lives and broader structures of power, the book examines how artists negotiate between Self and society, internal and external realms, individual freedom and social responsibility. Through negotiations and adaptations, contemporary artists are actively reimagining Singapore and their place within it, asserting the multiplicity and fluidity of their identifications and contesting hegemonic norms and notions about the world around them. The book is the culmination of a research project funded by a grant from the Academic Research Fund at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (RI 4/19 LCH). Our findings are the result of research carried out between 2020 and 2022 in the Singapore arts ecosystem. Our methodology consisted primarily of in-depth qualitative interviews with 26 practicing artists, visits

The original version of this chapter has been revised: The corresponding author changed from “Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray” to “Chee-Hoo Lum” has been updated. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_11 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_1

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to exhibitions and art studios or residencies and the analysis of artworks. The selection of artists was multigenerational, with a slight focus on emerging and younger artists. Our respondents currently live and practice art in Singapore and all actively explore issues of culture and identity, gender and identity, history and identity, identity construction, place-making as identity and national identity in a variety of ways. Collectively this group covers a wide variety of artistic media—performance, music, painting, sculpture, installation, text, photography, film to new media which they deploy through the experimental language of contemporary art. But this is not a representative sample of all artists and art practices existing in Singapore today. Below is the list of interviewed artists (in alphabetical order based on surname) along with the dates of our interview. Unless otherwise stated, interviews were conducted in person. Song-Ming Ang, December 2020–March 2021 (via email) Zhiyi Cao, 17th December 2020 Kray Chen, 24th November 2020 Priyageetha Dia, 11th November 2020 ila, 19th September 2020 Fairuz Jaafar, 29th October 2020 Maisarah Kamal, 20th November 2020 Justin Loke, 14th October 2020 Loi Cai Xiang, 28th November 2020 Loo Zihan, 5th October 2020 Masuri Mazlan, 13th November 2020 Zarina Muhammad, 21st December 2020 Alecia Neo, 16th September 2020 (via Zoom) Salty Xi Jie Ng, 28th November 2020 nor, 1st October 2020 Farizi Noorfauzi, 7th December 2020 Ong Kian Peng, 30th September 2020 Seelan Palay, 3rd December 2020 Shayne Phua Shi Ying, 11th December 2020 Ezzam Rahman, 19th September 2020 anGie seah, 15th September 2020 (via Zoom) Divyalakshmi Suressh, 9th October 2020 Zen Teh, 16th October 2020 Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, 10th September 2020 Green Zeng, 23rd September 2020 Zulkhairi Zulkiflee, 24th October 2020 All consent forms and interview protocols were cleared by the Institutional Review Board of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (IRB-2020-06-072-01). We sought to explore the multiple and complex identities of artists and understand how their identities manifest and are expressed in their discourse and practice. We did so by designing interview questions aimed at understanding how artists conceptualize their own identifications and what aspects of their identities they seek to explore and

1 Introduction

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put forth in their work. Since social identities are relational, i.e. they come into being and salience in relation to a wider context, the processes by which people construct their identities is always in negotiation with broader society. Thus, we sought to comprehend artists’ construction of identity in relation to their perceptions and conceptions of the Singapore society in which they live and navigate. Examining how emerging artists construct, negotiate and perform their individual identities in relation to and in context of broader society and social phenomena meant touching on questions of policy, structures of power, dominant social mores and narratives, in order to better understand the different ways in which artists respond to and are informed by these. Keeping in mind the interconnectedness of the individual and the society allowed us to weave together a sense of the dialectical relation between the two and identify the processes through which dialectical identity negotiation occurs. As our findings make clear, identity construction is a processual phenomenon that is constantly in flux and throughout the book, we’ve attempted to contest rigid social categories and reinforce the intersectional, constructed and relational nature of identity. As the title Reimagining Singapore indicates, we found that artists conceive of and express their multiple identities through their art in ways that convey new narratives about the world around them. They are thinking out of the box, embroiled in creative negotiations to manoeuvre and unsettle what is supposedly fixed and given. They do not take the relationship between Self and society for granted and are constantly questioning their dependence on, responsibility towards and roles and places within the wider collective (be it the state, communities, the public, the region and even the planet). Our research showed artists seek to have their voices and perspectives heard, seen and recognized, to be understood as existing beyond rigid social categories, as complex, heterogeneous and multifaceted beings actively contributing to creative meaning-making and place-making in a society which often does not value the arts as much as they wish it did. While expressing their need to celebrate their own individualities, the artists we interviewed also harbour a strong sense of social responsibility and idealism about making positive change in society. Reimagining also occurs quietly, within. As some artists adopt strategies of safe contestation in their efforts to speak truth to power. This book also reveals these modes of subtle resistance engaged by some artists, which though veiled are no less powerful. In recent years, discussions about identity in Singapore have proliferated. There have been calls to expand existing conceptual and analytic frameworks employed by the state. There have also been efforts to better understand the production of identities from the ground up—how Singaporeans construct and express their selfidentities. Not enough attention has been given to the ground-up construction of individual identities—the concrete processes and strategies through which this is done, especially among younger generations, as opposed to the top-down construction of identity in terms of the state and policies. The perspectives and subjectivities of artists, notably those of the younger generations, are also lacking from academic discourse about contemporary art in Singapore. We hope this book contributes to the growing local scholarship about Singapore art and generates local knowledge including endogamous terms and concepts through which to view local art practice.

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Our inquiry into the diverse identities of Singaporean artists is rooted in a commitment towards understanding and celebrating the richness and multiplicity of cultural expressions, affiliations and identifications that make up contemporary society. The rich mosaic of ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identities in a hyper-globalized and multicultural context such as Singapore, makes the country an interesting site for research. The research touches on artists’ identity politics, i.e. the politicized alliances according to race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexuality and other identifications that artists engage in as individuals inhabiting a multicultural country and working in a globalized field of practice that is rife with its own set of identity discourses and power dynamics. Understanding identity expression and the life worlds of artists, especially younger generations who are the future creative leaders of the nation, is helpful to take stock of and grapple with the ever-changing dynamics of identity politics in increasingly complex social contexts faced with the threat of social atomization and communalism in the 21st Century. It also covers a wide range of topics that intersect and are interwoven in individual’s identities, from macro-level national identity to micro-level embodied sensorial practice of everyday life, exploring spiritual and religious identity, heritage and cultural identity, community building and belonging, queerness and environmental existentialism.

1 About the Chapters In Chap. 2 (Identity Negotiation in Context: Three Artists and Their Works), Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray explores the processes by which Singaporean artists nor, Zhiyi Cao and Farizi Noorfauzi negotiate their identities in their practice and personal lives. The chapter draws on Richard Jenkins’ “internal–external dialectic of identification” (1996, 2008) as a conceptual framework through which to understand the concept of identity. It frames individual identification within the entangled relationship, and imbalanced field of power, between Self and society, within which all identity negotiations take place. The driving questions were: (a) In what ways do the artists define and externally express their identifications? (b) How is their agency to self-define, and express these identifications outwardly, influenced or constrained by social norms/values and state policies? We shall highlight the artists’ strategies (both artistic and personal) that contest, expand and transcend existing identity boundaries, while shedding light on the situated process of identity negotiation. Through an analysis of their works and self-narratives, we shall investigate how these artists deconstruct notions of identity as stable, bounded and unchanging, and defy rigidly demarcated social categories. In so doing, this chapter aims to evoke the inherently strategic, performative and relational nature of these artists’ (and indeed, all human) identifications. In Chap. 3 (Voicing the Nation through Visual Arts Education: Pedagogical Cues from Singapore Contemporary Artists), Chee-Hoo Lum examines the practice of some Singapore contemporary artists from the research study who have articulated

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their relationship with the nation state through their words and creative works. Tapping on lived experiences, observations of the material land, current cultural and social issues, and references to history, politics and policies of the nation as critical points of departure, these artists voice their opinions through their creative output, serving as open platforms for dialogue and engagement with the public sphere. The ambiguous and self-censoring ways with which artists articulate their opinions and speak about their works that have associations with the nation state, point to the layered and oftentimes subversive ways with which narratives of difference are weaved into the artistic outcomes as they negotiate and comment on state mechanisms. Arts subjects such as Music and Visual Arts have been called upon within the Ministry of Education (Singapore) Character and Citizenship Education 2021 syllabus to include “content knowledge that provide opportunities for exploration into national identity, contemporary issues, as well as Singapore’s constraints and vulnerabilities” (MOE, 2021, p. 15). Thus, the chapter ends with a reflection on pedagogical cues and suggestions that visual arts educators can take away from the words and works of these Singapore contemporary artists. The emphasis on utilizing the arts as a safe space to explore multiple perspectives on social issues and to challenge misconceptions and stereotypes certainly encourage and broaden possibilities for students to engage more reflectively and critically in their art making processes towards becoming a more active and concerned citizen. In Chap. 4 (Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms), Chor Leng Twardzik Ching studies the hybridizations, layering and multiplicity of representations engendered by the overwhelming diversity of cultures, histories and religions practiced in the region through the artworks of Singapore contemporary artists Zarina Muhammad, Choy Ka Fai and ila, who delve into the mystical realms of magic, spirit mediums, and ritual performance practices. Zarina Muhammad examines ritual magic and myth-making in Southeast Asian traditions in her performance/installations, opening up discourses in the appropriateness of appropriation of these belief systems and issues of self-exoticizing. Her performance rituals create an open space for individuals to connect with these traditions in polysensorial ways. Choy Ka Fai’s CosmicWander (2021) explores shamanic rituals across Asia in order to tap into the power of folk traditions to discover new possibilities of being. Having met over fifty shamans, Choy filmed dance rituals from the Buryats and Mongol Shamans of Siberia to Dutch Javanese Hybrid Spirit Mediums of Indonesia, connecting Gender Fluid Spirit Mediums in Vietnam to trance experiences in Chinese Indian Hybrid Spirit Mediums in the Singapore heartlands. His film surrounds and overlaps, circling and enveloping unsuspecting viewers into a hypnotic trance. ila’s ritual performances merge speculative fiction with factual histories, beguiling the viewer into realms of varying realities and truths. In her video-installation bekas (2019), ila’s body is inscribed with black ink, momentarily branding it. But when the ink slowly bleeds into the sea, one longs for its return so as to uncover the lost narrative. It speaks of labelling a person without thought on its many iterations, it also speaks of loss as individual stories get washed away in the grand narratives that facilitate easy categorization. These contemporary Southeast

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Asian artists’ reinterpretation of traditional ceremonies, practices of magical rites, shamanistic dances, and ritual performances serve in part to preserve these practices but more so to challenge assigned identities. This chapter proposes a turn in the discourse of contemporary performance art practices inwards by grounding it in the local and rooting it in the land/body of the ritual’s origins. Chapter 5 (Soundscapes of Our Lives: Lessons from Singapore Contemporary Artists) is an invitation to listen deeply to the sounds and observe the images and objects around us, to let our lived and living cultures unravel before us in their multitude of possibilities and perspectives. Chee-Hoo Lum leads us through the psychophysiological foundations of soundscapes, of keynote sounds, sound signals and soundmarks, as a key theoretical thread to examine the works of Singapore contemporary artists that utilizes sound as a significant medium threading through their creative process. Works of four artists who have journeyed into the sound worlds of daily living to create reflective and collaborative works, utilising the arts in socialemotional and communicative ways, as well as the articulation of identity politics and environmental concerns, were extracted as points of departure towards a critical dialogue in the implications of deep listening, the use of technology and creation of soundscapes. Lum also suggests strategies within the general arts classroom to uncover and recognize students’ sense of space and place in their lived environment. This safe space created through the arts has the potential of allowing students to reflect upon their musical well-being while also encouraging empathy towards self and society. Chapter 6 (Social Practice Art in Singapore: Creative Approaches Towards Participation and Social Amelioration) explores different participatory frameworks and their potential for social impact, via the analysis of four artworks by Singaporean artists/collectives: Buangkok Mall Life Club by Salty Xi Jie Ng, The Everyday Life Orchestra by anGie seah, Unseen: Constellations by Alecia Neo and I am LGB by the LGB Society of Mind. The chapter begins with a discussion of the relationship between aesthetics and social amelioration based on existing literature on social practice art. It then connects that discussion to the national context of contemporary art and community art in Singapore, before delving into an analysis of the four works. Responding to different contexts and issues within contemporary Singaporean society, each work manifests a particular mode/framework of participation (as well as aesthetic, conceptual and ethical notions/values), yet a connecting thread is their shared desire to provoke a rethinking of societal norms. We hope the chapter conveys how the creative and embodied approaches deployed in these participative works open spaces for community engagement, and invite participants’ rethinking of assumptions about art, community, and how to be in the world. We would also be delighted if the discussion helps to blur the demarcated lines between contemporary art and arts-based community development (or “community art(s)”), by highlighting existing overlaps, connections and possibilities of greater cross-pollination. Chapter 7 (Negotiating Truths, Realities and Puns) explores the various notions of truths, realities and visual puns that artists use to navigate our postmodern world. The skepticism of modernist ideals, universal truths and one-dimensional objective reality is an attitude that is found running through the contemporary works of Vertical

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Submarine, Ezzam Rahman and Shayne Phua. At first glance, Ezzam’s Here’s who I am, I am what you see (2015) looks like precious fossils of flowers that the artist preserves in bell jars. Only upon closer inspection would the viewer realize that they have been fooled, and that the flowers are actually made from skin that the artist spent months harvesting from the bottom of his feet. As the title suggests, the artist’s skin is used to confront the world with who he is because, “sometimes being a brown Southeast Asian, Malay-Muslim body, you disappear”. In Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 (2017) Phua uses functional objects such as traditional coffee pots, watering cans, smoking pipes and spittoons, and reconstructs them into unusable forms. Being the antithesis of pragmatism, the artwork challenges rampant consumerism and uniform obsessive consumption that impinge upon creativity, innovation and authenticity in the urban construct of Singapore. Disguised as post-war advertisement posters at classy art events, Vertical Submarine serves up Hokkien rhymes that are common vernacular in local coffee shops in Penetrations (2015). The posters act as a hidden mockery of the wealthy elite who are often the benefactors of these art events but are oblivious of the meanings behind the artworks. Through these subversive tactics, Ezzam, Phua and Vertical Submarine negotiate official “Truths”, actual “Realities” and serious “Puns” to peel off layers of lenses, screens, tints and veils that cloud, colour and hide different versions of truth. The sometimes fun and witty nature of these tactics catch us off guard and seep into the fabric of our collective consciousness to shift our perception of reality in subtle ways, instigating subversion, undermining fixed identities and questioning absolute truths, ending the era of grand narratives. These artists have planted the seeds of doubt in universal truths and metanarratives within their artworks. It is now our turn as viewers to step up to the challenge, to have an open mind in order to perceive these alternate truths and realities. Chapter 8 (Land and Environmental Art: Reflecting on Creative Processes of Singapore Contemporary Artists) reflects on the ways in which the beauty and fragility of our environment can be understood and amplified through how artists relate to the environment in their aesthetic processes and works. This chapter focuses on the inquiry-based creative processes and works of a few Singapore contemporary artists who have devoted their artistic practice towards examining local and global environmental issues and concerns. Zen Teh, environmental artist and educator, focuses her artistic works on the relationship between man and nature, highlighting environmental issues that require investigation and collaboration across multiple disciplines. The resultant work often serves as a platform for Teh to better understand her micro–macro relationship(s) living within her urban environment, while also serving to raise awareness for the audience about the issues highlighted be it oil pollution, secondary forests or wild plants surfacing from the pandemic. The works, A Familiar Forest, Garden State Palimpsest, and Mirror of Water, will be specifically discussed. Ong Kian Peng, media artist straddling art, technology and the environment, is also keen in examining the relationship between man and nature particularly in drawing audiences to appreciate nature and to encounter issues of climate change such as sea-level rise. Ong taps on technology to allow the audience particularly in urban environments to re-encounter nature, to experience in immersive and visceral

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ways through sound, videos and sculptures. Creative works like Too Far, Too Near will serve as points of encounter. Other local contemporary artists such as Tang Da Wu and Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, will be discussed in tandem with the creative processes of Zen Teh and Ong Kian Peng. The chapter concludes with some pedagogical implications for the arts classroom, focusing in on the significance of personal experience, developing an inquiry-based collaborative mindset, developing immersive works and possibilities of effecting change. In line with the continued narrative of the heteronormative ideal guiding and guarding policies and law in Singapore, Chap. 9 (Giving Voice to Queer Feelings: Creative Choices of Singapore Contemporary Artists) turns to Sara Ahmed’s (2004/2013) proposition of ‘queer feelings’ as a possible theoretical lens arguing for how queer lives negotiate within the heteronormative space of this city-state and how queer feelings arise and what purposes these feelings might serve. ln Singapore, within a Southeast-Asian space, the context of queerness in terms of resistance to heteronormative norms cannot just be understood from American and Euro-centric models but “seen as doubly relative in a part of the world where religious syncretism, vestiges of animism, and gender-play remain part of the social fabric” (Lenzi, 2015). This chapter thus examines the intentions and creative processes of four Singapore contemporary artists (Ezzam Rahman, nor, Masuri Mazlan, and Loo Zihan) captured through the qualitative interviews of our research study, in voicing queer feelings through their works, by means of untold queer lives, abstraction, self-portraiture and passive resistance. Chapter 10 (Hopes for Our Art Scene: How to Improve Singapore’s Arts Ecosystem, According to Artists) collates Singaporean artists’ ideas on how to improve the arts ecosystem in Singapore. The artists interviewed in our research study highlight concerns and areas for potential improvement, which are organized around four main themes in the chapter. These are i) the need for alternative spaces; ii) ways to reduce elitism in the art world; iii) the necessity for real inclusion of marginalized and minority communities and perspectives, especially on the part of larger art institutions; iv) and the reshaping of social perceptions towards the arts, via valuing the arts more positively and reforming arts education. The discussions contained in the chapter are further enriched and expanded thanks to the invaluable contributions of four artists, whose perspectives are presented as Afterwords.

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About the Afterwords

All the chapters are followed by responses from artists and art workers, with the intent to open spaces for new perspectives and dialogue and expand discussions beyond the limits of our writing. We were inspired by the literary device of the afterword which are typically penned by someone other than a book’s author and share fresh insights and a critical perspective on the preceding written work. We re-envisioned the concept of the Afterword as a platform to encourage a diversity of voices, forms

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About the Afterwords

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and registers. As such we invited a number of people to contribute Afterwords to each chapter: artists and art professionals whom we believed could expand discussions in meaningful ways. Those who agreed to participate were invited to respond in written, sound-based or visual forms. We encouraged poetic, philosophical, artistic or personal responses that would allow artists to follow their intuition and contribute however they wished to. Thanks to the creativity of the artists, we were blessed with a range of responses, from drawings and CGI artwork to poetry, essays and creative writing. The artists who generously contributed Afterwords are: – – – – – – – – –

Chapter 2: nor and Farizi Noorfauzi Chapter 3: Cecily Cheo Chapter 4: Amanda Heng and Seng Yu Jin Chapter 5: Natalie Alexandra Tse Chapter 6: Salty Xi Jie Ng and Alecia Neo Chapter 7: Louis Ho Chapter 8: Zen Teh Chapter 9: Regina De Rozario Chapter 10: Priyageetha Dia, Dawn-joy Leong, Loo Zihan and anGie seah

Chapter 2’s two creative Afterwords have been generously provided by artists nor and Farizi Noorfauzi, whose works are discussed in the chapter, and who decided to share other sides of their identities in an attempt to further expand the chapter’s boundaries. nor explores questions of fantasy and desire, while connecting their experiences (and aspirations) of love to their identity. Farizi poignantly addresses his mother, and the complex feelings that emerge in the gap between her expectations of him as her son and his own personal identifications. In response to Chap. 3, Cecily Cheo speaks from her critical perspective as an experienced visual artist-educator. The afterwords to Chap. 4 include a conversation between Amanda Heng, pioneer of performance art in Singapore and chapter author Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, inspired by a conversation they had over 20 years ago about drawing strength from local history and heritage as art makers. The other response to this chapter is by Seng Yu Jin, who shares his perspective as an art historian and Senior Curator at The National Gallery Singapore. Natalie Alexandra Tse’s afterword to Chap. 5 speaks to her experiences working with young children and their sonic perceptions in the early years. Chapter 6’s Afterwords are invaluable contributions by artists Salty Xi Jie Ng and Alecia Neo, whose works are discussed in the chapter. Salty’s creative response poses questions that help us rethink our assumptions about the field of social practice art, like feelers probing its intangible and nebulous aspects, revealing tensions and contradictions, as well as possibilities. Alecia’s clear-eyed and candid reflections on her long-standing journey collaborating with disabled artists bring to light the shifting dynamics and expanded paradigms required to engage in meaningful socially-engaged art. Louis Ho’s response to Chap. 7 aligns with his penchant towards using subversion to discuss serious topics, as he has in his work as an independent curator and critic. Zen Teh complemented Chap. 8 by adding more critical dimensions on ethics and technology illuminated through the creative works of other contemporary artists in the field of

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1 Introduction

Environmental Art. In her commentary, Regina De Rozario, the first person to read the draft of Chap. 9, shares her knowledge of public pedagogy and learning about difference and diversity in Singapore through the arts. In response to Chap. 10’s inquiry into artists’ perspectives about how to improve the arts ecosystem in Singapore, several artists shared their personal visions. Priyageetha Dia’s CGI render still— Burn (Still)—which the artist created in response to the chapter, is a powerful and poetic visual metaphor about, in her words, “dismantling hierarchies to make way for fluidity.” Dawn-joy Leong’s eye-opening essay addresses the problematic “inclusion” of disabled and neurodivergent artists as it is often practiced in Singapore today, by sharing her personal experiences, both locally and abroad. She advocates for individuals and institutions to better support disabled artists, and gives concrete examples of how to do so. Loo Zihan shares his views on some of the themes discussed in the chapter, such as the link between intellectualism and elitism, which he helpfully calibrates. Last but not least, anGie seah’s original artwork and accompanying writing conceptualize the overlaps between art and life, and reimagine an integrated system that acknowledges and makes room for the multiple spaces, emotions and needs of artists.

References Ahmed, S. (2004/2013). Queer feelings. In Hall, D. H., Jagose, A., Bebell, A. & Potter, S. (Eds.), The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pp. 422–442). Routledge. Jenkins, R. (1996). Social identity (1st ed.). Routledge. Jenkins, R. (2008). Social identity (2nd ed.). Routledge. Lenzi, I. (2015). Looking out: How queer translates in Southeast Asian contemporary art. Intersections: Gender and sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 38. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/iss ue38_contents.htm Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition. Manchester University Press. Ministry of Education. (2021). Character and citizenship education (CCE) syllabus: Secondary. https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/secondary/syllabuses/cce/2021-character-and-citize nship-education-syllabus-secondary.pdf?la=en&hash=D41C87D627D3AA6CF52C1453812 1EA5E1B9E0B44 Sabapathy, T. K. (2017, September 12). TK Sabapathy on the Singapore Art Scene [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mC101BcXhM

Chapter 2

Identity Negotiation in Context: Three Artists and Their Works Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray

Since action acts upon beings who are capable of their own actions, reaction, apart from being a response, is always a new action that strikes out on its own and affects others … the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation. —Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 1998, p. 190

In recent years, discussions about identity in Singapore have proliferated. There have been calls to expand existing conceptual and analytic frameworks employed by the state. There have also been efforts to better understand the production of identities from the ground up—how Singaporeans construct and express their self-identities. This chapter is an attempt to shed light on the processes by which Singaporean artists negotiate their identifications in their practice and personal lives. The chapter frames individual identification within the entangled relationship, and imbalanced field of power between Self and society, within which all identity negotiations take place. It delves into the agentive strategies deployed by artists as they seek to self-identify, while situating their agency in context of the wider social structure in which they exist. The driving questions are: (a) In what ways and forms do the artists define and externally express their identifications? (b) How is their agency to self-define and express their identifications impacted, influenced or constrained by social norms and values, and state policies? I selected three artists to focus on—nor, Zhiyi Cao and Farizi Noorfauzi. The personal and artistic strategies they deploy question, contest, expand and transcend existing identity boundaries in ways that shed light on the situated process of identity negotiation. They deconstruct notions of identity as stable, bounded and unchanging over time, and none of them fit prevailing rigidly demarcated social categories. The works discussed are representative of the inherently strategic, performative and relational nature of these artists’ identifications. As a preamble to our analysis of these artists and their work, I shall provide a conceptual framework through which to understand the much critiqued, and fraught, concept of identity—or the non-essentializing and discursively constructed ‘identifications’ which I prefer to use where possible. I shall begin by discussing a topic of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_2

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prevalence in the literature, namely the dialectic between Self and society in identity construction, by drawing on Richard Jenkins’ “internal–external dialectic of identification” (1996, 2008). The chapter is divided into two parts. The first explores the processes and strategies of identity negotiation used by nor, Zhiyi and Farizi in their respective artistic practices and lives, drawing on specific works and artists’ selfnarratives. Part II delves into the negotiating process in which artists engage within the context of wider social structures. We will shed light on how their identification strategies are informed by externalities as per Jenkins’ internal–external dialectic. By examining the situatedness of identity negotiation and its embeddedness in power differentials, the possibilities and limits of ‘agency’ are queried.

1 Theoretical Grounding Literature on identity has drawn attention to its relational nature, i.e. how it is constituted in its relationship with others: “individual human selfhood is initially realised vis-à-vis others: they are the necessary foils against which we come to know ourselves.” (Jenkins, 2008, p. 71). Our understandings of who we are, are the result of an interactive process, a perpetual negotiation between Self and society. As Taylor and Spencer (2004, p. 4) describe: Identity is a work in progress, a negotiated space between ourselves and others; Constantly being re-appraised and very much linked to the circulation of cultural meanings in a society.

This process occurs within what Jenkins has termed the “internal–external dialectic of identification” (Jenkins, 1996, 2008, p. 40). He describes the process as follows: Self-identification involves the ongoing to-and-fro of the internal–external dialectic. The individual presents herself to others in a particular way. That presentation is accepted (or not), becoming part of her identity in the eyes of others (or not). The responses of others to her presentation feed back to her. Reflexively, they become incorporated into her self-identity (or not). Which may modify the way she presents herself to others. And so on. As presented here, it appears simple, sequential and linear. It is in fact multiplex, simultaneous and often tortuous (Jenkins, 2008, p. 71).

Thus, when discussing someone’s identifications, there are two entwined levels— their self-image and their public image: The individual’s reflexive sense of her own particular identity, constituted vis-à-vis others in terms of similarity and difference, without which she would not know who she was and hence would not be able to act (…) is always a to-ing and fro-ing of how she sees herself and how others see her. These represent opposite ends of a continuum, one her self-image, the other her public image. Each is constructed in terms of the other and in terms of her perceived similarity or difference to others. The difference is who is doing the perceiving, who is doing the constructing. This is the internal–external dialectic of individual identification (Jenkins, 2008, pp. 72–73).

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The literature is equivocal about the relative power and autonomy of individuals to shape their self- and public images. Some emphasise individual agency over external ascriptions (Goffman, 1959; Marranci, 2008). Others have analysed the ways in which social structures inform and constrain a person’s ability to self-define (Bourdieu, 1997; Giddens, 1991; Hall, 2000). Jenkins (1996, 2008) argues that the external-internal dialectic is constantly shifting and in flux, and depends on an individual’s psychological and behavioural propensities, as well as point in her life cycle. Moreover, identity is intensely political and these struggles to define the Self and Others are about power. As Barley (2013, p. 111) notes, “There are constant efforts to escape, fix or perpetuate images and meanings of others. These transformations are apparent in every domain, and the relationships between these constructions reflect and reinforce power relations.” Thus, “studying identity by its very nature has to deal with frameworks of power and (state) politics, as no identification of oneself or others happens outside—more or less hierarchical—contexts” (Finke & Sokefeld, 2018, p. 2). Identity therefore is also about who has the power to define who. Identifications typically refer to socially-constructed categories such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. (some more embodied and visible than others). Their selection, as well as how much each variable is perceived to ‘define’ a person’s identity, is a subject of much contestation (Finke & Sokefeld, 2018, p. 2). These socially-constructed categories are overlapping and interlinked in their impacts on a person’s life (see Crenshaw’s (1989) concept of intersectionality; and McCall’s (2005) development of the idea). Certain markers are more fluid while others are more anchored and less changeable, and this is tied to an individual’s embodiment and to their position of power in society, as Jenkins described: Other constraints are grounded in embodiment. That selfhood is routinely entangled with identities that are definitively embodied, such as gender/sex, ethnicity/‘race’ or disability/impairment, makes the matter more complicated than my attempt to deal with it via punctuation can communicate. Nor are the accessories of identification equally available to each individual. The world is not really everyone’s oyster. Various factors systematically influence access to the resources that are required to play this game: in any given context, some identities systematically enhance or diminish an individual’s opportunities in this respect. The materiality of identification in this respect, and its stratified deprivation or affluence, cannot be underestimated (2008, p. 72).

Fluidity to identify versus fixity of identity is accessed differently and for different purposes. Fixity tends to be something more easily grasped and actionable by both individuals and societies; actionable in the sense of offering clearer parameters for social belonging and perhaps even codes of behavior, but also in terms of how politically useful fixed labels can be. Chiang (2010) pointed out that the degree to which social categories are affixed more rigidly to a person or group can be a matter of ease for some (as complying with the labels ascribed to them is comfortable), but it can also be instrumental, both for the purposes of solidarity and social control:

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2 Identity Negotiation in Context: Three Artists and Their Works The fixed notion of identity provides comfort for certain individuals because they act upon given roles accordingly; it also functions as political solidarity to mobilise nationalism. But the reduction of identity to a simple statement is, in a postcolonial and transnational context, functions as a result of European colonialism. The question could be asked: who defines whom and for what purpose? (Chiang, 2010, p. 31).

With this understanding of the complexities and stakes of identity negotiation, let us now turn to the three artists—nor, Zhiyi Cao and Farizi Noorfauzi—and explore their self-definitions and the strategies they deploy in the expression of their identifications.

2 Part I: Artists’ Agentive Processes and Strategies 2.1 nor nor (b. 1993) is a Singaporean multidisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in selfportraiture photography, performance and the spoken word. Their constellatory work explores the articulations of identity with history, ethnicity, gender and transness. According to their artist bio (at the time of writing), nor seeks to “investigate the performative aspects of our identities” (nor, n.d.). Myth and fantasy often seep into their work in various ways. nor’s early photographic works consisted of speculative self-performances and embodiments of different historical and fictional characters. nor’s interest in embodiment, representation and performance of the Self was entangled with their own negotiations about how and on what terms to explore and express their gender identity as a transgender woman. More recently, nor has become interested in connecting with their cultural heritage and excavating the history of the Nusantara1 of which their native Singapore is a part. “To know one’s history is to know one’s land and its histories,” they wrote in their essay Semangat 2 in Practice (nor, 2021, n.p.). nor’s reinterpreting and re-storying of the past feed into the artist’ conceptualizations of Self. As we turn to one specific work in which nor actively re-interprets the past, we shall draw out specific narrative and conceptual threads and explore how these inform the artist’s self-identity and artistic practice. 1

The term “nusantara,” which means “archipelago” or “outer islands” in Old Javanese, first appeared in fourteenth century Javanese texts written during the Majapahit empire. In contemporary usage, it can refer to slightly different things depending on one’s perspective: the Indonesian archipelago, the Malay world or maritime Southeast Asia which comprises the countries of Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore (see Evers, 2016; Shaffer, 1996). This historical term resurfaced in the late twentieth century and was reclaimed in line with various political agendas (e.g. Indonesian President Joko Widodo naming Indonesia’s new capital “Nusantara” in January 2022). 2 nor translates the Bahasa Melayu term “semangat” as “life-force.”

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Fig. 1 Past & Present Lives of ___ (2019). (Image courtesy of the artist)

Past & Present Lives of _____ (2019) In this video performance piece (Fig. 1), nor enacts moments in the lives of three women whom they identify as hailing from the Nusantara at different points in time. nor believes these women to be incarnations of their past lives which entered their awareness during a past life regression hypnosis session. The initial conception of the work was back in 2015 when I was still in National Service. (…) I was very depressed, so I was listening to a lot of YouTube meditations, because it’s a thing, right? Like because people who can’t afford therapy, go to YouTube… and then… (…) the YouTube algorithm recommended me past life regression, so I decided to try it out for myself. And in that one hour session, I was led to three different past lives.

Past life regression uses hypnosis to excavate what practitioners believe to be memories of prior reincarnations. The method, generally used for psychotherapeutic or spiritual purposes, has elicited some controversy.3 For the purpose of this chapter, we will discuss the work in terms of the intent of the artist, not the reliability of past life regression as a method, nor the truthiness of its claims. Discussing nor’s intent enables us to better understand how the artist constructs their own identity which is our concern here. nor identified one past life as a “Javanese princess” who committed suicide after being trapped in a loveless marriage to a man they identified as a “Muslim trader.” 3

It should be noted that past life regression therapy is not backed by scientific evidence; the accuracy of memories conjured via this practice and hypnosis in general have been disproven by some studies (Andrade, 2017; Nash, 1987).

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Another past life came to nor in graphic detail: they envisioned a woman hiding under a house with a baby on her breast. The woman appeared to be persecuted by villagers for practising rituals that, in nor’s interpretation, were “no longer aligned” with the predominant Islamic beliefs at that time. Village folk thus set the house on fire, burning her alive. nor recalled a glimpse of a third past life as a pregnant woman who ended up being brutally murdered, though the details were not as clear. The nine minute multi-channel video work consists of the artist enacting imagined and envisioned moments from these three past lives, juxtaposed with a more constant kneeling figure who is visibly pregnant (also played by nor). Surrounding this central figure, women in different attires fade in and out, alongside soundscapes associated with each of their contexts. One woman emerges in the foreground clutching a baby while weeping inconsolably; sounds of burning wood reach a crescendo before her image disappears into darkness. The ghostly characters are immersed in darkness but for a few highlights. Some are veiled and partly hidden beneath undulating shrouds that denote regal ethereality. Others are more connected to the earth, appearing low in the frame, crouching or sitting on the ground. The pregnant woman is surrounded by a ring of earth. The atmosphere of the work is mysterious, dramatic and solemn. It was during their final year at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media that nor decided to make an artwork based on their past life regression. In the months leading up to Past & Present Lives of ___, nor began to research the history of the Nusantara in an attempt to locate the women they envisioned via hypnosis, in the archives. However, frustrated at how women were portrayed in works such as Sejarah Melayu4 (Malay Annals)—one of the most significant Malay historical texts, nor began to question these portrayals and pondered about the invisibilized and untold stories of Nusantara womanhood. With the goal to uncover some of these stories, the artist organised and led a workshop called Siapa Dia Wanita Nusantara? (Who is the Nusantara Woman?) which explored this question as well as how participants’5 own experiences of gender and womanhood overlapped or differed. Reinterpreting and re-storying the past nor’s past life regression and subsequent research and workshop have profoundly impacted their journey of identity construction and expression. These experiences prompted the artist to re-interpret the past and identify significant elements—stories, 4

The Malay Annals is a collection of stories that depict the history of the Melaka Sultanate and its maritime empire from its origins to its demise, focusing on the lives of rulers and their courts. The oldest version dates back to somewhere between 1614 and 1615, but it has been added to and edited many times over the years (Braginsky, 2004). Despite it being considered a work of classical Malay literature (and despite its glorification of the Sultanate and its rulers), it does describe in interesting detail a number of historical events (Liaw, 2013). 5 According to nor, participants included cisgender, transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming individuals who were either assigned female at birth, or identify or have identified as women in their lifetime. The participants were all Singaporean, with varying connections with other parts of Southeast Asia.

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conceptual frames, vocabularies, as building blocks with which to (re)construct and (re)negotiate their self-identity. These elements include: (a) historical trauma and healing; (b) reclaiming the life-giving potency of the feminine; (c) drawing on the syncretism and hybridity of Nusantara cultures; and (d) tersirat (Bahasa Melayu for “implicit” or “implied”) as a strategic mode and reframing identity expression. Let us look more closely at these elements and how they inform nor’s personal identifications and self-narratives. (a) Historical Trauma In their readings of Sejarah Melayu, nor encountered tales of great oppression and violence inflicted upon women6 which led them to ponder about inherited trauma and healing: There’s a chapter in Sejarah Melayu, it’s an explicit rape scene,7 right? Yeah, that I think really affected me a lot during the point of research. And also how women, even if they have power (…) were being used either as tools of kingship, and then the common women were being used either [to get] access to trade, or they were just written [about] pretty badly. So I think there was a lot of… trauma and the body remembering it.

For practitioners of past life regressions, the memories generated via hypnosis are embodied and feel very real (Loftus, 1997). The visions, thoughts and sensations triggered are believed to be memories of one’s soul, continuous through one’s past lives. The discovery of, and embodied claim to, traumatic histories or “herstories” (the term nor uses) increased the artist’s sense of identification with, and empathy towards, past victims and survivors of violence. As nor contemplated the legacy of past violence on bodies whose soul they feel continuity with, nor pondered about “inheriting Malay womanhood” and asked themselves “what it means to inherit those identities as a transgender woman.” Moreover, their research opened up questions about who had/has power over whom, and how was/is power wielded, and to what ends. Understanding the structural nature of past inequities and how violence stemmed from these allowed nor to reframe their own experiences of trauma and injustice. By connecting the past to the present, nor can view contemporary struggles for equity and social justice as the continuity of longstanding battles against sexism, misogyny and gender-based oppression. (b) Reclaiming the Divine, Life-Giving Feminine The trope of the Earth, or land, as female and the centrality of women in cultural transmission are historically notable across the various cultures and religious cosmologies of the Southeast Asian region. Past & Present Lives of____ recenters attention on 6

nor described a violent story they read about in Sejarah Melayu which they connected to their third past life. They shared: “What happened was Dang Anum, a wife of Laksamana Bentan was murdered while he was absent. She craved for a slice of the nangka (jackfruit) meant for Sultan Mahmud Shah the second. Upon realising the fruit was eaten before it got to him, Sultan Mahmud ordered her punishment. She said the fruit was not for her, but for her child. Upon slicing her up, they found her child holding the fruit.” 7 Referring to the story of the sordid and forceful violation, and subsequent forced marriage of Tun Manda by the Prince of Surabaya Patih Adam in Sejarah Melayu (Story 27).

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the life-giving potency of the feminine and is a form of feminist re-storying of the past, as nor describes: The one feminine trope that kept being brought up during my course of research [on the Nusantara] was the idea that the Earth, or the land, is female or feminine, right? So for Past & Present Lives of ___, you will see right in the centre, while all of my past lives are changing, is this very pregnant figure of me, and sometimes she looks into the camera, but you can never see her face. So for me, that was the main figure of femininity or herstory that I want to bring back into people’s consciousness. The idea that while history is very male-dominated and violent, the land and its energy is feminine, and we should honour that, la. We should honour.

Recentering their gaze on the mythical place of the feminine unlocked new insights about the perduring influence of Hinduism on the contemporary cultures and languages of the region: I think it’s very funny in the sense that… Malaysia, Indonesia, they are now very Islamic, but the terms that people there use to address the land is very Indic. It’s very Hindu. Like “Bumi” and “Pertiwi,” these are elements that they borrowed from our Hindu times. And I think [Bumi/Pertiwi] is the main figure that I am most intrigued by. And that is something that was brought to my consciousness during the Siapa Dia Wanita Nusantara? workshop.

Etymologically, “Bumi” comes from the Sanskrit

(romanized as Bh¯umi),

(romanized as the Hindu goddess of the Earth and “Pertiwi” from Sanskrit Phrithvi), the ‘Vast One’ or Mother Earth herself as well as one of the many names of the goddess of the Earth. The concept of Mother Earth and the idea that the land is feminine informed nor’s representation of womanhood in Past & Present Lives of ___; for instance in the central image of a pregnant mother-to-be which anchors all the others. Reflecting on the work and its ramifications on their own life and self-image, nor wrote: In wanting to remember and embrace a forgotten divine feminine energy deeply embedded in this region’s subconscious, I casted myself as a very pregnant Bumi. (…) This embodiment of a pregnant Bumi was emotionally cathartic for me as well. I could conceive an image of myself as a pregnant woman that outside of art and image-making, I was unable to. Remembering the figure Bumi allowed my self to see my body as hers, no matter the body I was born in (nor, 2021, n.p.).

(c) Embracing Syncretic Hybridity nor’s explorations into the region’s past propelled them to become attuned to the syncretic nature of the region’s religious landscape, particularly in pre-colonial and pre-Islamic eras. Describing themselves as having been “raised Muslim” and as being “culturally Muslim as well,” nor has come to interpret their faith and cultural background through the lens of syncretic hybridity. Historically, the spread of Islam across Southeast Asia, via trade and migration from the seventh century onwards, was a complex and long drawn historical process involving the interplay of political, economic and cultural factors. Overall, the Islamisation of the region is generally

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characterised as one of gradual assimilation and adaption to and of pre-existing belief systems and traditions—namely Hinduism8 and Buddhism which were predominant in large parts of the region. nor described this process of assimilation and how Islamisation across the Nusantara was facilitated by the appeal of Sufism due to its congruence with existing belief systems9 : I think the identity of this region is so syncretic, right? And even when Islam first came around to this region, the reason why it was so well received was because there was a huge trend of Sufism in the early spread of Islam and … people could reconcile that easily with their animist, Hindu and Buddhist beliefs that were already existing.

The artist’s personal interpretation of God and their faith is strongly influenced by animism and Islam’s mystical Sufi traditions in which the natural world is a manifestation of the divine: There are many different versions of Islam based on where you are in the world. And it just so happened that in this part of the world, we attribute energy to everything, like to trees, to rocks, and… what I would just say is that, I see everything as an extension of God.

For nor, the perdurance of certain pre- and early Islamic cultural traditions in the region (of which Bumi and Pertiwi are but two examples) after centuries of Islamisation and colonisation is testimony to the potency of such traditions. In nor’s words, Considering how strongly the region has embraced Islam since the 14th century, it is rather mind-blowing that syncretised ideas of an earth-based goddess are still referred to in the Malay lexicon even after independence from colonial powers (nor, 2021, n.p.).

(d) Rethinking Tersirat nor’s dissatisfaction about the portrayal of subalterns in historical archives fueled the artist’s desire to give voice to the powerless and to bring to light “tersirat history” (i.e. history that nor described as “hidden in plain sight”). “Tersirat” in Bahasa Melayu can also mean “implied”, “implicit” or “veiled.” In Past & Present Lives of ____, nor brought to light hitherto-tersirat herstories by retelling the violent past from the perspective of three women.10 nor’s description of the work is telling: “mediating the past through both video and performances via their transgender body, they [nor] position themselves within history that is “tersirat,” or hidden in plain sight” (artist’s website, n.d.). In mediating the past and the violence exacted on women’s bodies 8

Rahim (1998) has written about how Hinduism was a marker of Malay identity earlier and for a longer time than Islam has been. 9 Interestingly, the expansion of Islam in the region has often been linked to the mystical appeal of Sufism, but Johns (1995) cautions against ascribing too much importance to this over other political and economic factors. 10 Sejarah Melayu for example focuses on the lives of sultans, princes and (male) courtiers, and is known to favour the Bendahara (de Josselin de Jong, 1961), who occupied the highest rank of advisers to the Sultan, an inherited role bestowed upon male descendants.

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(e.g. the burning alive of the mother-to-be), nor is empathising with the suffering of the women while re-subjectifying them and restituting their humanity. Moreover, referring to the central pregnant figure in the video, nor explains that “the use of Bumi could perhaps point to what I would like to call a feminine subconscious that is tersirat, or hidden in plain sight, within the Nusantara” (nor, 2021, n.p.). Their aesthetic choices—chiaroscuro, the dark enveloping background, the hidden gaze and face of the Bumi figure—were designed “with ideas of tersirat in mind,” to produce “an image that [is] obscure and muted, but very much potent” (nor, 2021, n.p.). Recognizing the potency of the concept, nor applies the possibilities of tersirat to contemporary life where sometimes the unseen and unheard may be hidden for a purpose—a matter of survival even. Speaking of LGBTQ communities in the region today, nor argued that tersirat is often deployed as a strategic mode by which queer Muslim artists express their queerness in veiled, implicit and ambiguous terms: There are a lot of queer Muslim artists who are actually doing this. (…) they are able to tell their story without giving too much of themselves away. Yeah. And I think that is… maybe the word is ‘subtle’. And that is something that I am interested in. And also, I think maybe the word ‘subtle’ is something that speaks to our Asian sensibilities?

Interestingly, nor contrasts these “subtle” “Asian sensibilities” to “EuroAmerican” modes of representation and tropes of queerness: From what we see… dominant ideas of representation are often overt and direct. And maybe they’re also Euro-American ways of representation, versus say, what already exists here, for example the strategies that they (queer Muslim artists) have taken. I think that is something that I’m interested to look at, I’m interested to see if I can do it for myself: representation that is subtle and tersirat.

Furthermore, the obfuscation of one’s identifications, or the rendering tersirat of one’s identity, can be understood as not just a mode of survival but one of empowerment: nor: “Maybe some things don’t want to be seen, you know? And maybe some things don’t want to be represented either. And… yeah, how timelines can purposely be complicated for the sake of not wanting to be understood like that.” Interviewer: “To be revealed, to be brought into the light of day…” n: “Yeah… yeah.” I: “Is existing in the shadows somehow strategic as well? And useful?” n: “Yeah, strategic. And maybe even empowering!”

2.2 Zhiyi Cao Zhiyi Cao (b. 1995) is a Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist whose work centers on the moving image . Zhiyi “reflects upon millennial expositions and exigencies” as

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she explores postmodern subjectivities, their fragmentation and the multiplication of sociality in the contemporary age (Cao, n.d.). Interested in docufiction and reality TV, Zhiyi blurs the line between real people/stories/experiences and self-mythologizing narratives. She “[seeks] to exercise strategic complicity with the narratives she creates. In doing so, she hopes to dissolve the distinction between fact and fiction, subject, object and project” (Ibid.). This blurred delineation is achieved through the artist’s harnessing of the intrinsic performativity of individuals and the theatricality of social encounters, be it in virtual and televised spaces or in real life (IRL). By foregrounding various facets of interpersonal performativity through mise-en-scène, Zhiyi’s video art explores the links between the production and self-performance of networked selves and the neoliberal logic of expenditure, exhibitionism and excess. Before delving into her work, we will focus on the artist’s reflections relating to her flexible and fluid sense of identity and how she self-performs, as well as her observations of fellow artists’ identity performativity. Identity fluidity and relational performativity Having lived in China, Japan, the UK and Singapore over the years, Zhiyi has had first-hand experience participating in and observing social codes across different art scenes. Zhiyi has always been interested in how artists and creatives relate to each other in the different scenes they are in. Her observations led her to realise the fluid and context-adaptive ways in which people change their behaviour and present themselves in certain ways, depending on where they are and whom they are speaking to: Having those experiences [living outside of Singapore] definitely made me more aware of how different scenes operate and how performativity is wielded differently at different places. Say, in London, the more apathetic or sleepy you sound, the more of a desired enigma you are, versus here in Singapore, relatability and wholesomeness is kind of like a sought-after characteristic.

Zhiyi’s observations of how people modulate their self-performance according to culturally specific norms and values (“wholesomeness” in Singapore and being “apathetic”/”sleepy” in London) have informed her views on identity construction and negotiation. Recognizing this same adaptability in herself, Zhiyi has come to embrace the relationality inherent to her identity construction and expression (and those of her peers). Relational adaptability means bringing to the fore some identification(s) while letting others take a back seat, depending on the interpersonal context. Thus, as vastly complex and multifaceted as identity goes, it can only be displayed or made apparent in episodic phenomenological glimpses, as its limited outward expression flits like a choreography constantly morphing and responding to externalities. Zhiyi described identity along these lines: It [identity] is something that’s completely fluid to me. (Laughs) Yeah, I don’t really subscribe to the idea of having a core identity as a super important part of living and being. Say, when taking A Level Art, a lot of students will make works and be like, “oh, it’s about identity”.

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2 Identity Negotiation in Context: Three Artists and Their Works I never truly understood what that means. Like… knowing what they are about? Because to me, that changes every day! Today, I’m a video artist, tomorrow, I’m a kindergarten school teacher, because I need to make money. So to me, it’s just fluid all the time. I can identify with a gender, a race, a profession, a genre, but that does not constitute or restrict my actions and thoughts.

Embodying fluidity in one’s identity presentation entails being responsive, perhaps even malleable or porous, to external influences—something which Zhiyi prefers over asserting a fixed notion of who she is: I’ve realised that I am a highly relational person. And that means I don’t act in one singular way in front of everyone. I would adapt and mould myself to particular situations and persons. I guess in a positive light that’s adaptive, but in another light—that’s reactive. But at this point in time, I decided I am okay with existing as this relational being over having a monolithic or secure, cemented sense of self.

Fluidity is a fundamental trait of the postmodern conceptualization of identity. From the perspective of self-determination, it is a means to resist being categorized by others, and provides an individual with more freedom to choose their own identifications. It also facilitates opportunistic or strategic behaviour in social contexts; for example, presenting oneself differently according to one’s interests. Zhiyi shared one such example when she discussed the linguistic code-switching done by Singaporean artists: There’s this kind of colloquial speaking, even when you’re discussing intellectual subjects with friends, that is pure Singlish. But the moment you are in a more professional setting, international art English—IAE—that comes out. And you can’t say like, you’re just one of them [identities conveyed through speech] and you’re just pretending to be the other. Because both sides are steeped in yourself and you can’t really separate the two or try to extricate one from the other.

According to Zhiyi, individuals who code-switch are not doing so cynically or manipulatively; the switching is just the expression of another side of themselves. Indeed, code-switching may be linked to internalized social conditioning or subconscious thinking, rather than the consequence of rational calculation. People may be strategic or opportunistic in the way they curate their self-performance, but that doesn’t mean that the role or persona they are performing is necessarily inauthentic to who they truly believe to be. Parallel to her personal views and observations, Zhiyi’s work delves into questions of identity fluidity and strategic self-performance. These themes are central to one work in particular called Live Creatives Show (LCS), co-created with Singaporean artist Chong Lii (Fig. 2). Live Creatives Show (2021) Described as a “fermented lovechild between Japanese ‘slice-of-life’ hiTV Terrace House and all time Daddy-surveillance show Big Brother”, LCS followed the lives of three Singaporean “artist-creatives”—Diva, Sher and ZZ—who were confined to

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Fig. 2 ZZ, Diva and Sher in “Ebisode” 1, LCS (screenshot, courtesy of Zhiyi Cao and Chong Lii)

a co-working space for seventeen days (LCS, n.d.). They did not sleep there but were “encouraged to spatially confine their creative pursuits” to the space (Ibid.). The work brings attention to the nature and intangibility of creative labour and to the ontology of young, emerging contemporary artists in Singapore. Like the Japanese hit reality show Terrace House, every moment the cast spent in the space was filmed. The footage was subsequently screened to a group of commentators, whose reactions to the confined lives of the three cast members was also filmed then spliced into each episode’s edit. In addition to the camera crew, surveillance-style cameras installed throughout the space captured every moment. Co-creators Zhiyi and Chong also invited “mystery guests” to come interact with the cast members at the co-working space. The guests were tasked to engage the creatives in different ways—one did Tarot readings, another pair coached them on how to market themselves as artists. As intended by the co-creators, these encounters often triggered unexpected situations and even conflicts. Impression Management and Self-Performance In our interview, Zhiyi described how the entire work relied on cast members’ performativity on camera: Interviewer: “And was the brief for the artists to act like themselves? Or are they creating their own characters?” Zhiyi: “So, I think we told them that we are happy with any sort of performativity. So, it’s up to them if they wanted that to kind of be their true, genuine selves, or if they want to be like, a larger-than-life version of themselves. Or they can, you know, switch in between… We were quite flexible on that.”

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Like all “reality” shows, there was a high level of performativity at play. Cast members and commentators alike appeared highly attuned to the conventions, exigencies and simulacra of reality TV. For example, Diva self-reflexively commented he was taking on the role of the snarky cast member who judges his fellow cast members in his confessional style testimonials (a key feature of reality TV in which cast members share their thoughts direct-to-camera). Some commentators also asked leading questions to help the narrative move along (e.g. pretending not to know Diva’s art practice despite having shown together with him a few years before). Moreover, the cast members engaged in processes of self-performance (performing a certain image of themselves), and impression management (attempting to control how others perceive them). As one commentator noted, they were “very aware of the optics” (LCS, n.d.). Though all cast members performed (versions of) themselves, the commentators zeroed in on how Sher in particular attempted to stagemanage her self-presentation. Isaac Chan, one of the commentators, contrasted Sher’s self-performance with ZZ’s: I think the difference is, we see so much of Sher in confessionals, where she’s in front of the camera and she can articulate and manicure what she wants to say. But with ZZ we see her being in her element. Like she’s not pretending. And I feel that as much as we have a lot of exposition for Sher, we know who ZZ is (LCS, n.d.).

Reality TV is very good at distilling and spotlighting the intrinsic theatricality of human relations and the relational (and interactional) nature of human identity. It revels in blurring the line between people ‘being themselves’ and performing/projecting images of themselves. Interestingly, all three artists invited to be cast members have a background in performance art, and ZZ and Sher even improvise an actual performance for the cameras. Tellingly, when ZZ describes how performing on stage is not just being “a character,” but is also “real,” Sher replies, “I don’t think any of us are never not performing anyway” (LCS, n.d.). In the spirit of reality TV, LCS can be viewed as a social experiment in how people handle being watched all the time, including having their every move and word potentially dissected and analyzed by crew/commentators/viewers. This can create tensions as cast members attempt to control the narrative and how they are perceived. On several occasions, Zhiyi described how the cast members retroactively justified their behavior and comments by brushing them off as inauthentic fictions performed for the cameras. Zhiyi describes their retroactive attempts at impression management: You can definitely tell that some of the cast members became discombobulated themselves— it is a persistent, harsh environment, to be filmed for so long each time. Sometimes they can react very emotionally to something, like a clash between two of them. But the next day, they will come back to us and say, “Oh, I was just putting on a show for you guys because I knew the camera was on”. Chong [Lii] and I would look at each other and think, “Yeah, that was definitely not acting”. It was probably a real, visceral reaction. Yet for some reason, the cast member chooses to—or wants us to think that it was a performance. So there’s a lot of that kind of internal confusion and then housekeeping on their part as well.

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This “internal confusion” followed by attempts at “housekeeping” is linked to cast members’ inability to read cues from audiences directly. In normal social interactions, social cues are deduced directly from one’s interlocutor(s). In LCS, cast members only receive cues from the other cast members or invited guests. At the same time, as in all reality shows, cast members are conscious of being observed at three levels by: (a) other cast members (directly); (b) production crew (indirectly) and c) audiences who view the show (indirectly) (Gater & McDonald, 2015). This lack of immediate interpersonal feedback can interfere with one’s strategy of impression management, and the awareness of being observed indirectly can lead to discomfort and the desire to control one’s self-presentation. The cast members are left to second-guess their performance during social interactions on camera (and attempt to correct their public image) retrospectively. While a reality show is definitely not “real”, it does reflect the performative culture that exist within social interactions more broadly, and the ways in which individuals engage in impression management. LCS, like Zhiyi’s own views on the concept of identity, explores the agentive power of the ego-centered individual to strategically and adaptively project an image of Self to external audiences. We have noted here the inherently strategic and opportunistic nature of human self-presentation and adaptation (to external contexts), which will be good to keep in mind when discussing the internal–external dialectic later.

2.3 Farizi Noorfauzi Farizi Noorfauzi (b. 1998) is a Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist who works at the intersection of media and performance. Delving into his Malay and Islamic cultural heritage as a point of departure, he has often deployed the body as a site of inquiry into the interiority and enactment of cultural and religious traditions. His work delves into complex topics such as religious identity and ethnic and racial stereotyping in popular Singaporean culture. Farizi described his contemporary art practice as a means for him to explore, negotiate and position himself in relation to his religious background and to the racial and cultural categories ascribed to him. During our extensive interview, he talked about feeling a sense of disconnect and alienation early in his life vis-à-vis these ascribed and inherited identifications, including growing up “feeling not very Malay”. He pinpointed this feeling to two personal experiences: (a) his family background and upbringing in a very religiously conservative home context, and (b) his experience studying at the School Of The Arts, Singapore (SOTA). We shall explore these two experiences via Farizi’s self-narratives, before delving into an analysis of two of his works. Understanding the artist’s journey and personal context which inform his art will allow us to better grasp his strategies of identity (re)negotiation.

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Farizi joined SOTA at age thirteen. He recalls the Malay student body to be disproportionately small compared to its proportion within the country’s total population. Farizi began to view his enrollment at the elite school as a privilege, compared to what he described to be the stereotypical educational path of Singaporean Malay youth today. This discrepancy coupled with the low number of Malay students at SOTA, triggered Farizi’s sense of disconnection towards dominant notions of Malayness present in Singapore society: SOTA especially, it’s a very, very liberal arts school… There is that sort of privilege in my position to kind of have been in that situation… Because I was privileged enough to have an education, obviously. But especially, because in SOTA, the Malay environment was very, very, very small. I had less than 10 people in my Malay class in SOTA. (…) Yeah, about 10% [of his graduating class]. But even then, I feel like we still don’t… Or what we understand as a conventional experience… I guess, within the general Malay community, I’m also in the minority that gets to have this sort of education. And so that’s tough to navigate, because we understand the education route of Malay communities to be very, you know, standard. From primary school to secondary school, to Polytechnic, and to whatever goes on from there. And so … I grew up feeling not very Malay. Which kind of motivates this whole idea of unpacking what it means to be Malay.

Meanwhile, at home, Farizi was beginning to question his strict religious upbringing: I grew up Malay Muslim, but I felt that I was never really, really Muslim, because it was never my intention. It was more so an inherited kind of thing. Like, it was something that my parents wanted for me. Religion was something that was very forcefully enforced in my family, which gets, you know, extremely suffocating. Because when it comes to like, religious beliefs, it always takes a lot of time, you know. And for me, at that time, I couldn’t really deal with it. And so I chose to… There was a lot of questioning involved.

It is in the context of Farizi’s personal experiences at home and in school, and his resulting journey towards self-understanding, that his artistic practice may be more fully situated. Turning now to an analysis of two works—Self-Haircut and Prostration within a mediated assembly, I describe each work then suggest several strategies deployed by Farizi, via which he deconstructs and queries his ascribed identities while (re)negotiating his self-determined identifications. Self-Haircut (2017) Self-Haircut is a live video performance in which Farizi shaves his head in a private booth and the live video feedback is transmitted to the audience in separate space (Fig. 3). The act of shaving one’s head (halq) or trimming of hair (taqsir) are rites practiced by pilgrims upon the completion of Hajj or Umrah. Farizi is interested in: Exploring the interventions of media and video in religious rituals and rites. For Self-Haircut, it was more of looking at the specific ritual of people shaving their heads to mark the finality of their pilgrimage—so at the end of the pilgrimage, like after they’ve done rounds around the Kaaba—that they will shave their heads. And so, kind of recording myself doing that

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Fig. 3 Self-haircut installed at Farizi’s SOTA Graduation Show. (Image courtesy of Farizi Noorfauzi)

was kind of a way to archive or look at archive as a way to cheat my way out of these rituals [without going on the Hajj or Umrah]… I still shaved my head.

Prostration within a mediated assembly (2021) Prostration within a mediated assembly revisits the idea of media as intervention in religious ritual and experience (Fig. 4). Part of ON/OFF/SCREEN, an exhibition organized by Moving Picture Experiment Group (MPEG), the closed-circuit video installation featured a live performance—during which Farizi performed the gestures and bodily movements of Islamic prayer, while a camera recorded him, and two screens beside him displayed the live feedback. The installation was in a glassenclosed gallery space and the audience stood outside. The work is described as “the artist’s attempt of constantly (re)navigating his position within spiritual contexts” via performance that “borrows from the gestures of praying in Islam, referencing purely the performativity in religious rite and how the body is explored as an agent for worship” (MPEG.DIGITAL, n.d.).

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Fig. 4 Prostration within a mediated assembly at the ON/OFF/SCREEN Opening Night on 21 January 2021 at DECK, Singapore. (Image courtesy of Farizi Noorfauzi)

Compartmentalizing Though Farizi identifies more closely with agnosticism today, he has not been able to fully disclose his renunciation of Islam to his family11 : The background is that my family is a very Muslim household, and I’m the only non-Muslim in my household, but none of them know that (…) I kind of have to navigate through my life with this identity being hidden away from my parents. Yeah. And the several times I kind of talk it through with them have all kind of failed. And so … For the longest time, I’ve had to navigate that in my household.

After trying many times to share his feelings, Farizi came to the realisation that: Even if I were to tell my parents they wouldn’t be able to accept it… I’ve had very terrible experiences trying to have conversations with my parents about it and it has gone very poorly in the past. I only realise now how that has shaped how I deal with it now, where I just keep it to myself. Over the years, I also realized that the person who is best able to understand my identity is myself at the end of the day, and I think my parents have very little leverage on how I would define myself (personal conversation, June 20th 2022).

At home, Farizi therefore keeps his true feelings to himself while abiding by the wishes of his parents who “enforce things like prayers and religious rituals in 11

We have made sure that Farizi is comfortable with disclosing this information in the book. He has given us his informed consent.

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general, with the basic expectation that [he] would be able to fulfill that” (personal conversation, June 20th 2022). As Mohammad (2013) observes in her article about ex-Muslims in Singapore, maintaining family ties and keeping the peace are the main motivations behind people choosing not to officially renounce Islam and make it public. This has led to an emotional and psychological distancing from his family, but is part of Farizi’s process of coping and preservation (of Self and others): When I started to question what religion meant to myself, was when I felt a certain kind of distance from my family. Because even my household right now is not really a safe space for myself, because I have to perform this idea of me being Muslim, for everything to be okay.

Compartmentalizing is a strategy through which Farizi socially navigates and negotiates the outward expression of his identifications and decides on what terms to disclose information about himself. By compartmentalizing his family context and other areas of his life, Farizi is able to switch between distinct public and private identities depending on the context. It is a strategy deployed primarily in his personal life to maintain interpersonal harmony, yet it also appears in his art practice where he explores the idea of self-performance (in his words: “perform[ing] this idea of me being Muslim”). Farizi described art-making as a “safe space” for him to work through and examine the questioning, doubt, discomfort and sense of displacement he feels as a result of not corresponding to others’ expectations and not fitting into social categories. Projecting an image that is not what it seems Farizi’s use of technology is a decontextualizing and distancing means to decouple himself from an image of himself—reality versus projection, truth versus mimicry. In so doing, he explores the complexities of his personal identifications, and the ways in which these may be externally expressed versus internally felt. Audiovisual technologies lend themselves well to metaphors of decontextualisation. The filming apparatus, as the philosopher Walter Benjamin asserted, estranges and alienates the actor from the audience (for whom the actor performs). The potentially infinite reproducibility of the image, particularly in the era of the internet, heightens its decontextualization and artifice. Via recording and live feedback displayed on multiple screens in the same space (as in Prostration within a mediated assembly) or projected in another space altogether (as in Self-Haircut), the two works play with the notion of representation within new contexts. Moreover, the technology of live feedback produces a slight delay in the streaming, which can sometimes be picked up by the naked eye. The infinitesimal displacement in time provoked by live streaming therefore adds a temporal dimension to an already spatialized fragmentation. Through the decontextualizing effect of technology, both works explore the splintering between reality and representation, the real and the performative. By borrowing the gestures of religiously significant acts but removing their underlying meaning, the artist is distancing the signifier from the signified. Thus, rites become simulation of rites. Farizi even describes Self-Haircut as “cheating” in the sense that

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he performs as a pilgrim without having gone on a pilgrimage. A visible representation of having completed a pilgrimage (a shaven head) signals specific meanings and confers a certain status to others. But in a contemporary art space, these meanings are suddenly uncertain. Highlighting the interiority/exteriority of identity Another way in which Farizi hints at the complexity of his identity is by exploring the duality of, on the one hand, externalized self-performance and, on the other, internal processes of self-identification. Just as the artist “performs” a version of himself that appears to align with his family’s expectations when at home, his works present an unresolved, ambiguous Self which can be interpreted differently depending on the viewer. His self-performances can be seen as empowering or self-objectifying. Arguably, Prostration within a mediated assembly and Self-Haircut possess an almost self-sacrificial quality, whereby Farizi exposes private and intimate gestures, vulnerably offering these up to be potentially consumed as spectacle. In exhibiting his body, he becomes a sign and symbol of other people’s projections. Yet this blurred line between Farizi’s subjecthood and objecthood poetically conveys the chasm which often exists between one’s internal identifications and others’ perceptions of one’s identity. How much are we able to control others’ impressions and views of who we are? By touching on the subject of religious beliefs, Farizi’s work also points to the ineffable interiority of faith versus the exteriority of (religious) performativity. In querying the internal/external duality and the relationship between the two, Farizi’s work confronts viewers with the deceptiveness of perceptions, and asks how he fits into society’s conceptions; in his words: “The ultimate question for me to deal with is, am I still Malay? Or what does Malayness mean to me if I don’t—if I detach from all these cultural signifiers?”.

3 Part II: Agency in Context (Internal–External Dialectic) While the previous section highlighted the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of identity negotiation (what = identifications, and how = the means and strategies deployed to express/disclose or withhold/hide those identifications), this section focuses on the negotiating process—specifically who/what these artists may be negotiating with, and why. Negotiation brings to mind two parties bargaining for their own self-interest in order to settle a conflict and come to an agreement. Anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1969) contended that humans are instrumentalist by nature and that identification with groups are by-products of self-interested negotiations. Jenkins also wrote that:In fact, identification and interests are not easily distinguished. How In fact, identification and interests are not easily distinguished. How I identify myself has a bearing on how I define my interests. How I define my interests may encourage me to identify myself in particular ways. How other people identify me has a bearing on how they define my interests, and, indeed, their own interests. My pursuit of particular interests might

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cause me to be identified in this way or that by others. How I identify others may have a bearing on which interests I pursue. And so on (2008, p. 7).

These negotiations are an unfinished and perpetual process in which humans are engaged in relation to the different contexts they find themselves in. In this section, we explore in greater depth the dialectic between the artists’ agency to self-define (and express who they are) and the wider structures which impact them and in which they are situated. We contextualize the artists’ strategies of identity negotiation in terms of Jenkins’s internal–external dialectic, drawing on both local and global contexts within which their multiple identifications are interwoven.

3.1 nor ↔ Prescriptive Normative Structure As we have seen, one way in which nor (re)constructs and (re)negotiates their identifications is via reinterpreting and re-storying the past in various ways. We now look more deeply at the broader context in which these strategies are deployed. nor’s expression of their identifications is not only identity-affirming in the individual sense, but in context of wider sociopolitical processes, can be seen as a strategic and politically-conscious act of advocacy and empowerment. This becomes clear when taking into consideration their subsequent works Siapa Nama Kamu?12 (a performance from 2019) and Sekali Lagi!13 (a video performance from 2020). Together with Past & Present Lives of____, the three works form a trilogy through which nor continues to reframe local historiography via the lens of herstory, race, gender and the tersirat. In the artist’s own words, the two later works: [Articulate] the pain and long-lasting effects of imperialism through historical texts, original spoken word pieces and songs. The performances’ collaborators are intentionally women and individuals from ethnic minority communities who do not conform to colonial ideas of gender (nor, n.d.).

Diasporic studies offer interesting insights about how the reinterpretation and re-storying of the past can be instrumental to contemporary identity politics and community empowerment. Georgiou (2006, p. 51) describes how diasporic communities are actually future-oriented in terms of their goals of community building. Van Gorp and Smets (2015) note how strategic empowerment is an undeniable factor when it comes to self-representations of ancestral heritage; citing the work of Adamson (2008), they contend that the diasporic condition enables groups to: Position themselves as members of a larger transnational community that exists beyond borders. Diasporic practices can therefore be understood as a source of empowerment. Thus, diaspora is not simply a descriptive term alluding to groups, experiences and belongings, but also a prescriptive term that allows for a cultural and political repositioning of groups (Van Gorp & Smets, 2015, p. 74). 12 13

Bahasa Melayu for “What Is Your Name?” Bahasa Melayu for “One More Time!”

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The idea of transnational reimagining as a “source of empowerment” and “cultural and political repositioning” resonates with nor’s practice. It calls attention to identity politics that are oriented beyond the individual and towards a wider collective. Community building plays an important part of nor’s work. The artist cultivates continuity in relationships; for instance, some of the Siapa Dia Wanita Nusantara? workshop participants went on to perform in nor’s later works Siapa Nama Kamu? and Sekali Lagi!. Through nor’s journey of reinterpreting the past and finding out more about their identity and history, nor is bringing gender diverse, gender nonconforming peers from minority backgrounds together with them. They are holding space for people from the communities they identify with, to express who they are and help each other: “I find that I am no longer interested in trying to build a bridge with people who do not want to see me. I find that what works better is learning strategies for me and for others like me to be able to survive in this world” (AWKNDAFFR, 2022, p. 120). In addition, nor’s choice to focus on the Nusantara (which englobes maritime Southeast Asia, of which Singapore is but one small part) is highly symbolic. Since independence, the ruling party in Singapore has tended to emphasize the role of British colonialism in laying the foundations of the modern nation-state as we know it today.14 There is no doubt this was true in many respects. However some historians have noted that “[t]he historical narrative of Singapore has been much more focused on and influenced by the colonial standpoint” (Rasheed et al., 2010, p. xxix). By contrast, there is a lack of research into, and knowledge of, precolonial Singapore beyond the stereotypical portrayal of it as sleepy fishing village.15 In some ways, nor’s reinterpretation of Nusantara history is an attempt to move away from the colonial logic inherent in prevailing celebratory narratives about British colonial rule, and to recenter attention on regional interconnections. nor wrote that they: Wonder how differently Singapore and our neighboring nations would be if we move beyond the interests of our self-imposed borders. What if we looked at the sea as a connector and a living continuous flow of energy and resource instead of seeing ourselves as isolated islands? (nor, 2021, n.p.).

Later they expanded on the spiritual possibilities of symbolic reunification with neighbouring countries and peoples: When we are able to acknowledge the interconnectedness of our identities—our shared histories beyond the lens we occupy and our interdependence through the seas we share— instead of competing capitalistically to be the nation with the best resources and living

14

One recent example was the 2019 Bicentennial commemorations, which marked the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Stamford Raffles on the island, and mobilized a great deal of public resources. 15 Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Wan Hussin Zoohri, and Norshahril Saat argued that “[t]he historical gap in the account of the Malay royalty between 1819 and 1867, when Singapore became a Crown colony, is not adequately covered in the history of Singapore. More research should be done, taking into account indigenous and non-Western sources, including Arabian and Indian sources to throw new light on the history of the Malays in Singapore.” (2010, p. xxix).

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conditions, maybe then will we be able to connect to the semangat16 of Mother Earth again (nor, 2021, n.p.).

nor’s desire to transcend the boundaries of the nation-state is also significant in another sense. It has been shown that certain external factors can severely hamper the fluidity of a person’s identifications, blocking the individual from developing his/her/their own self-identifications. For example, institutional racism (Gillborn, 2008) and caste systems (Rao, 2009) lead to social discourses that fix categories and labels on individuals and groups, and arranges identities into hierarchies. When reinforced through policy, public political debate, the media and everyday social interactions, such discourses can deeply impact a person’s self-perception and identity construction. Hall (2000, p. 4) observed that a person’s identity can be impacted by “the misrecognition of others,” i.e. when people ascribe to us certain identities which we do not claim, or which reduce our identity to a single dimension. Taylor (1995, p. 25) writes that “nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm and can be a form of oppression imprisoning someone in a false, distorted and reduced mode of being.” To use an example that is close to nor’s lived experience, let us briefly discuss misgendering. Someone who gets constantly misgendered can feel isolated, as the misrecognition acts as a reminder that a majority of the population may not understand or even approve of the person’s gender identity. Hegemonic cis-normativity and heteronormativity produce social discourses and policies that restrict gender nonconforming and sexual minorities’ freedom in very real ways (see Chap. 9). Though things are slowly changing for the better,17 Singapore is still largely conservative18 when it comes to gender and sexuality relative to other cosmopolitan democracies. Both personally and artistically, nor is confronted with prescriptive cisnormativity and heteronormativity, which remain dominant in Singaporean society and constrict their ability to be seen and recognized19 for who they are. nor contests 16

Bahasa Melayu for “life-force” as translated by nor. In his 2022 National Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Section 377A (the discriminatory colonial era law criminalizing sex between men) will finally be repealed, a hard-won victory for LGBTQ rights groups and communities in Singapore. An earlier survey indicated people’s attitudes towards homosexuality are becoming more open and accepting compared to before: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/support-for-section-377a-drops-as-att itudes-to-same-sex-relationships-shift-survey-finds. 18 However, even as 377A is abolished, the government promised to concurrently uphold the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, in order to appease conservative groups. PM Lee stated that “many national policies rely upon this definition of marriage, including public housing, education, adoption rules, advertising standards, film classification” and that “[t]he Government has no intention of changing the definition of marriage, nor these policies.” (Mahmud, 2022, n.d.). 19 During our interview, nor shared how they have experienced frequent misgendering throughout their lives, e.g. being called “mat” (a Bahasa Melayu term to designate a Malay man) when they are not dressed a certain way; and being addressed as a male during much of their school years. In an interview for A Weekend Affair, nor also shared how “[in] the early stages of embracing my transness, I was very afraid of being denied my identity” and so they “really put in the effort to make myself look more feminine” (AWKNDAFFR, 2022, p. 115). 17

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the male/female gender binary, deeming it a relatively recent sociopolitical construct that has reformatted the region via Christianity as well as Islam. Looking to precolonial and pre-Islamic Nusantara, nor—who identifies as being of Buginese, Orang Selat and Javanese ancestry, noted that Buginese culture recognized five genders, one of which was the Calabai, “a gender we might closely understand and associate with the transgender woman” (nor, 2021, n.p.). By excavating and foregrounding “nonconforming bodies” from the past in their work, nor renders tersirat histories visible, while validating non-cisgender identifications in contemporary society. The hegemonic gender binary has erased much of the variations in gender that once existed, leading to a disconnect between how society views the identities of some individuals, as nor explained: Some of us know we are transgender, or queer, for that matter—let’s just start there. But not all of the people around us, due to their cultural upbringing, maybe, know how to make sense of it, despite the fact that transgender and queer people have been around, even before we had these terms (AWKNDAFFR, 2022, pp. 119–120).

That’s why acknowledging and excavating the various genders of the Buginese, and other gender diverse modes in Nusantara’s cultures, allows for a broadening beyond the male/female binary, while tersirat as a concept holds space for people to express these ways of being, subtly, without any overt signs that signal queerness or transness, because sometimes ambiguity is the safest or only option. In his canonical essay on “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” (1996), Stuart Hall asked two questions which I believe are meaningful in understanding nor’s work in context: Is it only a matter of unearthing that which the colonial experience buried and overlaid, bringing to light the hidden continuities it suppressed? Or is a quite different practice entailed—not the rediscovery but the production of identity. Not an identity grounded in the archaeology but in the re-telling of the past? (1996, p. 224, emphasis his).

Hall identified two different views of cultural identities vis-à-vis the past. The first seeks “oneness” (as in a unitary collective identity) by “imposing an imaginary coherence” and emphasizing a “shared history and ancestry” (1996, pp. 223–224). This view develops a “rediscovered, essential identity”, gets at the “truth” of who we are (that lies beneath all the imposed superficial ascriptions) which we must “discover, excavate, bring to light and express” (1996, p. 223). This view has played a critical role in fueling anti-colonial, feminist and anti-racist struggles and movements throughout history. Hall asserted that this way of thinking “continues to be a very powerful and creative force in emergent forms of representation amongst hitherto marginalized peoples” (1996, pp. 223–224). It has also been important in terms of hope. Indeed, to quote Franz Fanon (1963, as cited by Hall, 1996, p. 223), one turns to the past to transcend the constraints of today with: The secret hope of discovering beyond the misery of today, beyond self-contempt, resignation and abjuration, some very beautiful and splendid era whose existence rehabilitates us both in regard to ourselves and in regard to others.

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Yet, despite its strategic and empowering qualities, Hall also saw the limits of this take on identity: namely that it relies on and reinforces essentialisms, while laying claim to authenticity and authority. Hall therefore proposed a second view of cultural identities—one that is more open-ended and which he espoused: Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past (1996, p. 225).

Following Hall (1996, pp. 224–225), it may be more useful to understand how nor bridges between their identity and the history of Nusantara, not as a “mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found” but a creative act of “imaginary reunification” between nor and their heritage. A reunification that establishes meaning, belonging and community and is ultimately part of a larger process of healing. Despite navigating dominant regimes that pathologize non-conforming identities, constrain individual agency to express those identifications, and mis-recognize or fail to see individuals for who they are, nor has found ways to contest and transcend boundaries, and (re)construct and (re)negotiate their identity in empowering and restorative ways.

3.2 Zhiyi ↔ Collective Myths and Structures of Surveillance With regards to Zhiyi’s concept of identity and her work which reflect upon the agentive power of the ego-centered individual to strategically and adaptively project an image of Self to external audiences, Erwing Goffman’s notion of self-presentation elaborated in Dramaturgical Analysis (1959) is useful. He suggests individuals strive to control how others view them in any given social interaction. They do so by adapting how they behave and present themselves physically, and by modulating what information they share and how they do so. Goffman called these “impression management strategies” which he argued are deployed by individuals in any social encounter, whether consciously or not. Not unlike Live Creatives Show, Goffman’s theory frames social interactions through the lens of performativity and puts a premium on individual agency and strategic orientation. The connotation of “agency” may be of freedom/autonomy, but a person’s goals and desires are informed to lesser or greater degrees by external influences, such as social expectations and norms, as a result of processes of sociocultural conditioning. Therefore, while the identity performance itself is carried out by the individual, what is performed is influenced by culture and society. An individual’s performative agency, even if deployed in

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one’s best interest as Goffman posited, is in effect not free from structure, whether internalized or not. Another interesting entry point to contextualise the performativity seen on Live Creatives Show is the notion of the “artistic personality.” Alison Bain (2005) found the myth of the artistic personality to be widespread across Euro-North American literature, and to influence how people self-perform the role and identity of an artists. She examined how “characterizations of the artistic personality, whether fact or fiction, provide a repertoire of attributes that artists can relate to and can selectively draw upon to reaffirm their occupational identity” (Bain, 2005, p. 30). She observed how individuals “consciously articulate and act upon an occupational identity that they have carefully and deliberately chosen” and that “professional status comes largely from drawing on a repertoire of shared myths and stereotypes to help create an artistic identity and project it to others” (Bain, 2005, p. 25). For instance, some traits enduringly associated with the artistic personality include the tendency to question, challenge and defy social expectations and norms of acceptability, as well as having a highly emotional, socially reclusive, introverted or even antisocial nature (Boden, 2004; Csikszentimihalyi, 1996; Dacey & Lennon, 1998; Feist, 1999; Piirto, 1998; see also Fürst et al., 2016). The projection of an image corresponding to the artistic persona may be linked to artists’ need to constantly reaffirm their occupational identity, especially when starting out. This is due to the “informal nature of artistic occupational definitional parameters” (which makes distinguishing between a “professional” and an “amateur” artist difficult and highly subjective), and to the “the lack of recognition attributed to artistic labour as ‘real’ work” (Bain, 2005, p. 25; see also Chap. 10 of this book). There are numerous moments during Live Creatives Show when cast members, whether consciously or unconsciously, seemingly drew on this “repertoire of shared myths and stereotypes” in their presentation of Self. That included behaving in non-conforming, rebellious ways, and discussing how they do not (want to) abide by certain social rules and norms. Sher in particular seemed to play into the clichéd tropes of the artist persona described above when she pointed out how shopping for smart casual clothing fills her with “quiet anger”, expressed her glee at seeing the broken toilet because it represented “chaos” and affirmed her opposition to being gainfully employed (LCS, n.d.). In selecting the mystery guests, Zhiyi and Chong made a calculated presupposition that the business coaches would be at ideological odds with the cast, an assumption which also took for granted some of the traits of the artist persona. On matters of internalization, research on self-narrativity is insightful. Bruner (1987) contends that humans are perpetually “self-making” through the stories we tell, whereby “in the end we become the autobiographical narratives by which we tell about our lives” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15). Through repetition, constructed stories about ourselves eventually constitute our cognitive grasp of reality, and the autobiographical narrator becomes the type of Self she is enacting (Wortham, 2000, p. 158). The implication is that, over time, what may have started as a more consciously strategic performed identity (in a Goffmanian or cynical sense) would be internalized and assimilated into one’s autobiographical understanding. In other words, the intent may shift over time, from strategic to earnest belief one is truthfully presenting

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one’s inner self.20 This ambiguous entanglement of rational autonomy and subconscious internalization is characteristic of the internal–external dialectic as it plays out between Self and society. LCS as an artwork reflects this intermeshing. At first glance, it seems to document the cast members’ self-performances and interpersonal tribulations. But the constraining structure—the reality TV apparatus, is gradually revealed to the viewers. The major unveiling happens in the last episode which gives viewers a behind-thescenes understanding of the show. The cast members are shown criticizing the show and the co-creators. Sher revealed how she was sick of participating. Viewers become privy to a text message by ZZ saying she no longer feels the set is a “safe space.” The cast member also expressed how let down she felt by Zhiyi and Chong’s “cold questions” and their lack of understanding of her artistic practice. Then we see the crew and commentators in a meeting discussing how ZZ had vanished from the set. Moments later, we learn that ZZ has quit the show. As a viewer, one is left wondering if this is all for show or the documenting of actual unscripted drama. Of course, no answers are given. Like her own fluid identity, Zhiyi prefers her work to dwell in ambivalence and ambiguity. One could say that LCS is about human complicity in accepting and upholding dominant structures that constrain our agency. At the most basic level, the cast members willingly consented to the whole process of objectification in the first place. More specifically, LCS brings to light the complicity of individuals in systems of surveillance/control, exemplified here by reality TV, but also present in wider society. One scene shows an exchange between ZZ and an invited guest, Dika, who says “I can’t live like this” [under the scrutiny of cameras], to which ZZ retorts, “Why? I mean we’re being watched anyway, I feel like this is more real” (LCS, n.d.). ZZ’s claim to the real-ness of her performance/the situation is her tacit acceptance of, even complicity in, the inescapable panopticism. How people become complicit in systems of power has become more complexly entwined in processes of identity construction since the late twentieth century.21 The advent of the internet and neoliberalisation’s global restructuring towards the informational economy has led to dramatic changes in practices of subjectivity on the Web. The development of the internet “required the forging of various articulations between specific conceptions of self, publicness, and technology” (Siles, 2017). According to Roesler (2010, p. 53), our current postmodern cultural conditions are characterized by an erosion of belief in master narratives and shared symbols and meanings, as well as a simultaneous “overload of possible orientations, ideologies, 20

Goffman’s (1959) description of the “front stage” and “back stage” processes conceptualizes humans as having a public facing self (performed) and an “inner self” (that is cynically or manipulatively curating the performance of self to audiences). 21 Hardt and Negri (2000) describe the radical shift towards the informational economy in which cultural crossings are ordinary, and ideas of bounded autonomy are no longer viable. Castells (1996, 1997, 1998) develops the concept of the network society, in which control and influence over communication is a source of power (and lack thereof, a source of disempowerment), and Information and Communication Technologies create networked economic, social and political relationships which are less bounded to spatial location.

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belief systems, fashions etc. for individuals to choose from” via public culture. As a result, “Individuals today are confronted with the liberty—but also the necessity—to create their own identities. (…) The resulting personal self-constructions seem to be not only flexible and multifaceted, but also short-lived and fragmented” (Roesler, 2010, p. 53; see also Harper, 1994). Technology like social networking sites provide numerous stages on which people can perform these “personal self-constructions” for multiple distinct audiences. In the process, people become willing participants in their own (self)exhibitionism, (self)surveillance and (self)commodification. One needs to look no further than how one’s data is gathered, repurposed and traded back to us for the profit of others. The historical development of neoliberalism has produced more ego-centered “liquid” identities (Bauman, 2000, 2005), together with the rise of the “attention economy” (Bueno, 2017) and the “digital reputation economy” (Hearn, 2010) with their own kind of “herding behavior” and peer pressures (Gross & Acquisti, 2005). Participants in these regimes turn to “self-branding” as “a form of affective, immaterial labor that is purposefully undertaken by individuals to garner attention, reputation, and potentially, profit” (Hearn, 2010, p. 427). Despite the strong emphasis on the ego-centered individual and his/her/their agency to selfdefine, there is an underlying (individualized and consenting) submission to increasingly complex technologically mediated systems of surveillance and commodification of human capital. Even as it relies on the individual’s agentive power of performativity, LCS is imbued with dark ambivalence about the relationship between individual freedom and submission to social pressures and regimes of control, which end up informing, to greater or lesser degrees, individuals’ perceptions, identifications and performances of Self. The potency of the work lies in this tension between fluid self-performance and complicity in regimes of control—a tension which increasingly underlies contemporary processes of identity negotiation.

3.3 Farizi ↔ Dominant Notions of Malayness As previously discussed, Farizi’s practice grapples with what Malay identity means to him in relation to dominant notions of Malayness in Singapore (cf. his question “Am I still Malay?”). His art making is a means to cope with and explore his sense of discomfort vis-à-vis dominant social constructions of Malayness. In order to better understand how these affect his art and life, we shall explore prevailing discourses on Malay identity in Singapore. “Malay” as a socially constructed racial category (as it exists in Singapore today) is the legacy of the British colonial system of racial classification. The British created a system to distinguish between the different communities—namely Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasians, in order of their relative size within the general population (Hirschman, 1986). This racial classification—now commonly known as “CMIO” (Eurasians being categorized under “O” for “Others”), has been maintained largely unchanged over the years by the state in postcolonial Singapore. The CMIO classification has always been an integral part of the country’s nation-building imperatives and governing policies because it is

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used to carefully manage and control race relations (Chua, 2005; Clammer, 1988). Singapore’s racial governmentality directly and profoundly impacts everyday life in areas such as national education, public housing, urban planning, language policies, public administration and the creation of ethnic-based self-help groups (Chua, 2018; Chua & Kwok, 2001; Goh & Holden, 2009). Mutalib (2012) and Tham (1992) described how policy makers tried to define who belonged to which ‘racial’ group in the wake of the newly instated 1988 Group Representation Constituency policy22 aimed at ensuring proper representation of minority races in Parliament. As per the Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Elections (Amendment) Bill (1988), the government’s definition of ‘a Malay person’ favored a culturalist approach based on an individual’s self-identification as Malay, adherence to customs, language use, and involvement in, and recognition by, the broader Malay community.23 Though the vast majority of Singaporean Malays are Muslims—98.8% as reported in 2020, a percentage noted to be “relatively unchanged from a decade ago” (Department of Statistics, 2020, p. 33), the official definition of who is considered “Malay” in Singapore does not mention being Muslim as one of the criteria (unlike the constitutional definition in neighbouring Malaysia) (see Tham, 1992, p. 13). However, Malay Studies scholars have noted a common conflation in public discourse of “Malay” with “Muslim.” Former Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Zainul Abidin Bin Rasheed once wrote that “Malay and Muslim are practically synonymous terms in Singapore” (1992, p. 5). Aljunied (2009) noted that “to be Malay is still equated as being Muslim” (p. 379; see also Aljunied & Khan, 2022, p. 211), and Suzaina Kadir (2010) affirmed that “the amalgamation of Islam with ‘Malayness’—emerged, and over time Islam came to be identified with being a ‘Malay’” (p. 159). According to Kadir, the Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA) which established Muis24 in 1968 “would come to represent a culmination of the fusion of Malay and Muslim identities in Singapore” (2010, p. 158). Today, it

22

The policy mandated that each team of candidates competing to be elected Members of Parliament should be composed of at least one Malay person, Indian person or person from another minority racial group in Singapore (Mutalib, 2012; Tham, 1992). 23 The following definition was proposed: “A person belonging to the ‘Malay community’ means any person, whether of the Malay race or otherwise, who considers himself to be a member of the Malay community and who is generally accepted as a member of the Malay community by that community” (as cited in Mutalib, 2012, p. 22; and whereby “accepted” is interpreted as actively participating in Malay-based community organizations (Tham, 1992, p. 12.)). In attempting to avoid the risks of biological determinism linked to ‘race’, the government’s 1988 definition is firmly culturalist and does not exclude people on the basis of race, allowing different races to be categorized as Malay, as long as the individual considers herself Malay and is regarded as such by the community (Mutalib, 2012, p. 22; Tham, 1992, p. 11 and 16). However, in practice, “some biological inheritance or Malay connection through marriage would probably be important in deciding acceptance” (Tham, 1992; p. 12; see also Mutalib, 2012, p. 22). 24 Muis (the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore) is the government institution tasked with handling issues relating to Singapore’s Muslim community.

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is common for government institutions like MENDAKI25 and M326 to simply refer to the “Malay/Muslim Community” in their communications, a form of writing that seems to imply an intrinsic interchangeability. Farizi also alluded to the role of institutionalization in synthesizing these two identities into a single rather monolithic category: It is a more recent development that Malay and Muslim have become almost interchangeable identities. And I think there isn’t enough knowledge for people in general to sort of rectify that statement… especially because the Malay-Muslim identity is already really institutionalised in Singapore… It’s the very institutional definition that has really mobilised this idea that if you are Malay, you are Muslim, especially here (F. Noorfauzi, personal communication, June 13, 2022).

How might this normalised conflation of these two identities, highly complex in their own right, affect people’s understandings of Malayness? How might it deemphasize other cultural traditions or practices, whether shared or not? How might this shorthand “Malay/Muslim” contribute to the process of subsumption of the many ethnic subgroups into the ethnic/racial designation ‘Malay’? How might this synonymisation affect people who may claim one but not the other identity? For instance, how might it impact people who, like Farizi, self-identify as Malay (in racial and/or cultural terms) but not Muslim, and those who self-identify as Muslim but not Malay (a common occurrence within the highly diverse Muslim population in Singapore (see Tham, 1992, p. 14)? For Farizi, this predominant conflation of Malay and Muslim identities in society has made him question his very Malayness and whether or not he belongs to this social category as a non/ex-Muslim. He described how the naturalized fusion of the two identities in people’s minds can narrow their horizons, by diminishing the recognition and legitimacy of those whose identities may not fit this mold. He shared: What it [the conflation of Malay and Muslim identities] primarily effects is the baggage that comes with it, at least for me… People don’t really realise how much this Malay-Muslim identity really defines themselves. For people who grew out of the religion or don’t practice it, I think those people will experience the baggage of it even more. I’ve had so many conversations especially when I was a bit younger and really trying to understand all of this for myself, and I would talk to people about like how—because I would eat pork and stuff like that and they were like ‘oh, are you allowed to?’, and it’s hard to explain like, ‘I have defined myself not to be a Muslim’ and they’re like ‘but you’re Malay’ and I’m like ‘yes’, then they’re like ‘so you’re a Muslim’ then I’m like ‘not necessarily’… and it’s even harder to have a conversation with people who are of Malay ethnicity because they might have already so stringently accommodated to this identity marker of Malay-Muslim. It’s almost seen as taboo I suppose if someone were to hear that I’m not a practicing Muslim. There will be judgement, even if it’s small, that will be passed. And it’s not anyone’s fault I guess, it’s just how Malayness has been defined for a very long time here, and reinforced over and over again (F. Noorfauzi, personal communication, June 13, 2022). 25

Yayasan MENDAKI is the Council for the Development of Singapore Malay/Muslim Community. M3 is a Singapore government agency that acts as a collaborative platform between three agencies—Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis), MENDAKI and People’s Association Malay Activity Executive Committees Council (MESRA); M3 helps with community building and social services to families in need.

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What is curious in Farizi’s work is that he is not explicitly making this information available to viewers. To audience members unaware of his personal identification as agnostic, his performances might reinforce the very Malay/Muslim conflation which Farizi wishes to destabilize. Prostration within a mediated assembly and Self-Haircut would thus risk being interpreted as acts of self-exotification (being that he may be viewed as a minority body both racial and religious in the context of a secular contemporary art exhibition). Drawing on the culturally and religiously loaded signs that he does, Farizi’s work is inexorably linked to the burden of representation felt by minority bodies. In the absence of further explanation, some viewers risk relying on stereotypes and assumptions about the artist’s minority identity/ies, thus accessing only the surface of his highly personal and subversive explorations. This is not lost on Farizi. His video performances implicate viewers in his exhibitionism of religious gestures, suggesting the audience’s complicity in the voyeuristic consumption of minority bodies and of private rituals. By offering himself up as a spectacle, Farizi prods viewers to reflect upon their own projections and complicity in labeling people based on decontextualized physical and material identity markers. Part of what intrigues and drives him to create such work is the fact that he has not been able to resolve his mixed feelings and moral questioning: I guess, it also looks at, to some extent, the morality of what I’m doing. So, the first question that I have been asking myself is, you know, is this going to be… Is it right to consider… Is it right to bring something that’s so private, such as the act of religious prayer, into a very public setting?

For Farizi, Structure (materialized through dominant social constructs of Malayness and his own family background) is undoubtedly a strong constraint on his individual agency. But through his artistic practice, he is able to portray his own inquiring ambivalence towards his “inherited” and ascribed religious background as a Singaporean Malay who no longer identifies as a Muslim. In doing so, he destabilizes oft-naturalized categories. His use of obfuscation by performing an image of himself which is not quite what it seems, creates a kind of hall-of-mirrors, where fact and fiction are confused, and ultimately, the mirror is held up not only to himself, but to dominant discourses on Singaporean Malay identity and audiences/society/the art world’s consumption and objectification of minority bodies.

4 Conclusion Social identity and social agency exist within the internal–external dialectic. The (re)negotiation of identity is constituted at the intersection between the individual and the collective and I have attempted to analyse the artists’ works and their multiple, overlapping personal identifications through this analytic framework. As such, this chapter explored the relational and contextual nature of artists nor, Zhiyi Cao and Farizi Noorfauzi’s processes of identity negotiation.

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To sum up, framing the chapter around Jenkins’ internal–external dialectic of identification, we began by describing the relationship between one’s internal processes and external context as these two levels interact and articulate during identity negotiation. This dialectic is observable (as a phenomenon) at the discursive level (artists’ self-narratives; societal discourses) and at the material level (artworks; elements of the social systems of which artists are a part). Much of this dialectic cannot be directly empirically observed (noumenon) as it relates to internal processes linked to the mind. As such, the closest we were able to get to understanding the complex internal processes of this dialectic was by paying attention to how artists conceptualize their self-identifications and the choices they make in expressing these; then, framing these in terms of the wider social context. Thus, the chapter was divided into two parts. Part I focused on the artists’ agency to generate and deploy strategies to address, construct, and explore facets of their identity. We explored the varied ways in which nor, Zhiyi and Farizi negotiate their identifications in their artistic practices, examining the strategic nature of identity-related negotiations, and the influence of performativity and relationality on the ways in which identities are externalized and adapted. Part II brought in the external sociocultural and political contexts that impact the artists and directly intersect with their work. It explored the negotiating process which artists carry out within the broader structure in which they exist. The focus here was not so much the what and how of identity expression, but the why (reasons for, or significance) of identity negotiation within the societal context. Identifications are always situated and embedded in power dynamics with which any attempt at identity negotiation articulates. The analysis shed light on the complexities of the internal–external dialectic which cannot be reduced to the binary struggle between an individual’s agency (in the sense of absolute or radical freedom) and a constraining external structure. Individuals may simultaneously resist some dominant ideas and passively internalize others, just as they may be cognizant of certain externallyimposed social constructs while being unaware of others. By exploring the artists’ identifications and their agentive strategies of identity negotiation, we’ve seen how nor, Zhiyi and Farizi’s art-making is intimately tied to their lived experiences. In many ways, their works are an expression of their personal identities in more or less direct ways. For nor, reinterpretation and re-storying of the past has enabled them to construct, negotiate and assert their identification as a Malay transgender Nusantara woman, and has helped deepen their sense of belonging to their chosen communities. Certain concepts and thematic threads have acted as bridges between past and present, and sources of inspiration in their personal life and artistic practice. These include inheriting herstorical trauma, reclaiming the divine feminine, embracing syncretic hybridity and drawing on tersirat as a strategic mode of empowerment. Zhiyi’s fluid and context-adaptive identity suggests the importance of strategic self-performance—something all humans engage in during social encounters. Her relational, ever-shifting identity informs her fascination with how people present themselves and interact with one another in the age of the networked self. In line with her preference for open-endedness, her work ambivalently celebrates

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(and satirizes) people’s complicity in the growing informatization and exhibitionistic commodification of postmodern life. Farizi’s personal journey of self-discovery has led him to question externally assigned social categories and renegotiate the expression of his personal identifications in context of his family, wider Singapore society and the art world. In navigating the internal–external dialectic, Farizi draws on strategies such as compartmentalizing, decontextualization and the deceptiveness of appearances. In so doing, he destabilizes dominant social constructs of Malayness, and points to the fact that when it comes to identity, there is always more than meets the eye. By highlighting the situatedness of these artists’ internal processes and outward strategies of identity negotiation deployed in their work, we have seen how nor, Zhiyi and Farizi’s works query the relationship between Self and society. Both personally and artistically, the artists seek to reveal, transcend or contest constraints exerted on them via external structures, be it social expectations, dominant discourses, state policies or neoliberal pressures. For nor and Farizi in particular, the external structures may be relatively more constraining to their agency to self-define/express. As they contend with frameworks of power, hierarchies and politics that may not make affordances for their identities, they are pushing back against the grain. I hope the examination of the structure-agency dialectic sheds light on the challenges faced by those who may not conform to mainstream/dominant ascriptions, yet are subjected to these on a daily basis. In the face of constraints—social pressures to conform, rigid and ascribed classifications and oppressive hegemonies, there are always ways in which one can attempt to ‘break the rules,’ push the boundaries and move the conversations along, to probe and question who one is, in relation to society and vice versa. These artists, like all human agents, act upon the world, and their social action may produce effects which could be one source of social transformation. Recall what Hannah Arendt wrote in The Human Condition: “the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation” (1998, p. 190). Thus, within every given social experience, there is the ever-present possibility of societal change, whether intended or unintended, directed or unexpected. Having delved into the performative, situated, reflexive and processual nature of identity, we have seen how identities are never quite transparent, and identity construction is always an unfinished and ongoing process of transformation and reimagining. In late modern times, especially so; processes of identifications are increasingly fluid and multiplied across overlapping or mutually exclusive technologically mediated spaces/audiences. The notion of an integral and originary identity is perilously outdated. nor, Zhiyi Cao and Farizi Noorfauzi, through their acts of self-representation, express their unique voices and stories, thus opening spaces for people to better understand themselves and conceive of new possibilities of being and becoming. They exemplify how humans do not inhabit and operate in normative absolutes, and that is what makes us complex, vast and beautiful.

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Afterwords by nor and Farizi Noorfauzi nor I. Everywhere, all at once I’m calling your bluff There’s no way that you really leave One word, and you’re on the defense I’m calling because You already taken a beating And all that you need is Just a bit of this love I loved you. In Positano. In Rio. Hongdae. And Tokyo. The expressways of Toa Payoh. Puerto Rico and Bali Lane. Loved you most when I was down to my last cent in Brisbane, stole groceries by not scanning them at the check out and sliced off meat in a deli like it’s the only thing I could do. Loved you even in Toronto. Te amo en Madrid en verano. All the men in the world I’ve been with but only you that I know, feel like coming home to. Why couldn’t we try? And if they told me they’d let me fly to space, see everything else that the galaxy has to offer me, and when all the oxygen in my spacecraft has been drained, I hope that this flame I have for you will never die. II. STMF Day after I landed back in Singapore, I found myself in a bathhouse again. That day I met Joe. He was 50. Really average man but the chemistry was unmistakable. We napped for a good 15 min before I got bored. I asked, why won’t you make love to me, Joe? Joe did not want to be just another person I met in a bathhouse. He wanted me to remember him. I playfully accused him of not liking me. To that, he claimed that sleepiness around another person meant safety. I questioned what he liked about me. He shared his surprise that I would go in a room with him. He thought I would prefer a white man instead, the European kind, not the American kind. According to him, I was charming with my glasses on. Without them, I am cute. Not conventionally “Oh wow” cute but the kind of face one takes a look at and keeps thinking about for days. Would it have hurt him to tell me I was beautiful? I said Joe, you are a sweet talking mother f*****. III. Feedback You liked to tell me to dream bigger. Want better. To love myself. But you wouldn’t get it. I love me through you. I love us, through feedback. Not criticism, but to feed back, to nourish whoever who wishes to nourish me. When we feed someone else, we often ask if what we have prepared is nice enough. If not, we ask questions to know why it’s important you’ve invited me today. Why you have set me a plate, took time and effort to think about me, feel comfortable enough to have me sit at your table. When we sit across from each other, I hope to

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catch glimpses of my reflection in your eyes, as I hope you catch glimpses of yourself in my eyes too, see how really gorgeous you are when reflected through another’s eyes. Then to hear my thoughts echoed, questioned, supplemented, or sweetened by your voice, that my voice may never disappear into the cracks of walls. Cause sometimes it’s heartwarming to hear your intonation and your own melody through another’s voice. I certainly hope you will ask “Did you intend to…?” “Will we want to do this again?” or “Would you do this any different?” You want better for me and that’s good enough, or maybe right now is good enough too and all you have to do is look at me and say “Not bad.” so at least I can say “Not bad?” back to you.

To be quite honest with you, there’s never been a moment in my life that I do not think about love. Love allowed me to find myself. Love allowed me to identify other people whom I see myself in. Love allowed me to identify myself. Then, love desires that I am to be liberated of identity someday. But I cannot just think of love, without also thinking of fantasy and desire. After years of trying to figure out what my artistic and writing practice can mean to me, I realize that both are means of navigating my own desire and fantasy, erotic or not, romantic or not. I declared 2022 as the year I fully explore fantasy and desire. Are the two any different? I realised. You cannot form fantasies without being informed of what is already possible. Fantasy works as informed possible destinations and pathways. I fantasise about weddings because I’ve been told that there is no greater bliss than union of two souls in love. But you also cannot be drawn to a fantasy without your own desire. I see desire as innate. The body’s inner compass. You will never truly know how it works, but desire is also deep uncharted waters. Until you are able to find a route, a path, a destination, a fantasy that works to your heart’s desire. And while desire is innate, most of us will never truly realise its full potential because of circumstance, environment and the people we are surrounded by. How differently can one desire when all our basic needs are fulfilled? What can we fantasise about if desire was allowed to thrive?

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Farizi Noorfauzi Syurga di bawah telapak kaki [“Heaven is under the soles of a mother’s feet”] (Lyrics)

Afterwords by nor and Farizi Noorfauzi

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References Interviews Cited Zhiyi Cao, 17th December 2020. Farizi Noorfauzi, 7th December 2020. nor, 1st October 2020.

Other References Adamson, F. B. (2008). Constructing the diaspora: Diaspora identity politics and transnational social movements. In Paper presented at the 49th Meeting of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, CA, 26–29 March. Aljunied, K., & Khan, A. (2022). Psycho-Pious motivations and Muslim migration to the West: The case of Singaporean Malay-Muslims in Melbourne, Australia. Akademika, 92(1), 209–220. Aljunied, S. M. K. (2009). British discourses and Malay identity in Colonial Singapore. Indonesia and the Malay World, 37(107), 163–183. Andrade, G. (2017). Is past life regression therapy ethical? Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 10, 11. Arendt, H. (1998). The human condition. University of Chicago Press. AWKNDAFFR. (2022). Meet N, the transgender artist who just wants to be ‘Normal’: An interview by Chanel Ong. Bain, A. (2005). Constructing an artistic identity. Work, Employment and Society, 19(1), 25–46. Barley, R. (2013). An anthropological exploration of identity and social interaction in a multi-ethnic classroom. PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University. Barth, F. (Ed.). (1998[1969]). Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference. Waveland Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity. Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid life. Polity. Boden, M. A. (2004). The creative mind: Myths and mechanisms. Bourdieu. (1997[2000]). Pascalian meditations. Stanford University Press. Braginsky, V. I. (2004). The Heritage of Traditional Malay Literature: A Historical Survey of Genres, Writing and Literary Views. Leiden: KITLV Press. Bruner, J. (1987). Life as narrative. Social Research, 54, 11–32. Bueno, C. C. (2017). The attention economy: Labour, time and power in cognitive capitalism. Rowman and Littlefield International. Cao, Z. (n.d.). Zhiyi Cao (accessed 25 January 2022). https://zhiyicao.co/About. Castells, M. (1996, second edition, 2009). The rise of the network society. In The information age: Economy, society and culture (Vol. I). Blackwell. Castells, M. (1997, second edition, 2009). The power of identity. In The information age: Economy, society and culture (Vol. II). Blackwell. Castells, M. (1998, second edition, 2010). End of millennium. In The information age: Economy, society and culture (Vol. III). Blackwell. Chiang, C-Y. (2010). Diasporic theorizing paradigm on cultural identity. Intercultural Communication Studies XIX: 1. Chua, B. H., & Kwok, K.-W. (2001). Social pluralism in Singapore. In Hefner, R. W. (Ed.), The politics of multiculturalism: Pluralism in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. University of Hawai’i Press. Chua, B. H. (2005). Taking Group rights seriously: multiracialism in Singapore (Working Paper No. 124). Asia Research Centre.

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Chua, B. (2018). Singapore from social democracy to communitarianism. In Reese-Schäfer, W. (Eds.), Handbuch Kommunitarismus. Clammer, J. (1988). Minorities and minority policy in Singapore. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 16(2), 96–110. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine. Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, 1989(1), Article 8. Csikszentimihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. Harper Collins. Dacey, J. S., & Lennon, K. M. (1998). Understanding creativity: The interplay of biological psychological, and social factors. Jossey-Bass. de Josselin de Jong, P. E. (1961). Who’s who in the Malay annals. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 34(2 (194)), 1–89. Department of Statistics. (2020). Census of population 2020: Statistical release 1: Demographic characteristics, education, language and religion. Singapore Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Republic of Singapore. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/-/media/files/public ations/cop2020/sr1/cop2020sr1.pdf. Evers, H. (2016). Nusantara: History of a concept. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 89(1), 3–14. Feist, G. J. (1999). The influence of personality on artistic and scientific creativity. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 273–296). Finke, P., & Sokefeld, M. (2018). Identity in anthropology. In Callan, H. (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of anthropology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Fürst, G., Ghisletta, P., & Lubart, T. (2016). Toward an integrative model of creativity and personality: Theoretical suggestions and preliminary empirical testing. Journal of Creative Behavior, 50(2), 87–108. Gater, B., & McDonald, J. B. (2015). Are actors really real in Reality TV? The changing face of performativity in reality television. Fusion Journal Issue, 7, 1–13. Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, identity and the media. Diasporic transnationalism and mediated spatialities. Hampton Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Gillborn, D. (2008). Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy? (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203928424. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Double Day. Gross , R. , & Acquisti , A. (2005). Information revelation and privacy in online social networks. In: Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (WPES ’05). Goh, D. P. S., & Holden, P. (2009). Introduction: postcoloniality, race and multiculturalism. In Goh, D. P. S., Gabrielpillai, M., Holden, P. & Khoo, G. C. (Eds.), Race and multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore (1st ed., p. 16). Routledge. Hall, S. (1996). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp. 222–237). Lawrence & Wishart. Hall, S. (2000). Who needs ‘identity’? In P. Du Gay, J. Evans, & P. Redman (Eds.), Identity: A reader (pp. 15–30). Sage. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press. Harper, P. B. (1994). Framing the margins: The social logic of postmodern culture. Oxford University Press. Hearn, A. (2010). Structuring feeling: Web 2.0, online ranking and rating, and the digital reputational economy. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organisation (Special Issue: Digital Labour Workers, Authors, Citizens), 10(3/4), 421–438. Hirschman, C. (1986). The making of race in colonial Malaya: Political economy and racial ideology. Sociological Forum, 1, 330–361. Jenkins, R. (1996). Social identity (1st ed.). Routledge. Jenkins, R. (2008). Social identity (2nd ed.). Routledge.

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Johns, A. H. (1995). Sufism in Southeast Asia: Reflections and reconsiderations. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26(1), 169–183. Kadir, S. (2010). Singapore: Management of Islam in a small island republic. Islam and Civilizational Renewal, ICR2.1 Pluto Journals. Liaw, Y. F. (2013). A History of Classical Malay Literature. (3rd ed.). (R. Bahari & H. Aveling, Trans.). Singapore: ISEAS Publishing and Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia. (1st ed., 1975). LCS, n.d. https://creativeshow.live/ Loftus, E. F. (1997). Creating false memories. Scientific American. 277(3), 70–75. M3. (n.d.) About M3. https://www.m3.gov.sg/who-we-are/about-m3/. Accessed 10 February 2022. Mahmud, A. H. (2022, August 21). NDR 2022: Singapore to repeal Section 377A, amend constitution to protect definition of marriage. Channel News Asia. https://www.channelnewsasia. com/singapore/section-377a-repeal-law-sex-gay-men-marriage-constitution-pm-lee-ndr20222891381. Marranci, G. (2008). The anthropology of Islam (1st ed.). Routledge. McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771–1800. MENDAKI. (n.d.). About MENDAKI. https://www.mendaki.org.sg/about/ Mohammad, N. (2013, October 24). A Conversation with Ex-Muslims. https://rima.sg/a-conversat ion-with-ex-muslims/ MPEG.DIGITAL. (n.d.). Farizi Noorfauzi. https://mpeg.digital/Farizi-Noorfauzi. Accessed 10 January 2022. Mutalib, H. (2012). Singapore Malays: Being ethnic minority and Muslim in a global city-state (1st ed.). Routledge. Nash, M. (1987). What, if anything, is regressed about hypnotic age regression? A review of the empirical literature. Psychological Bulletin, 102(1), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909. 102.1.42. nor. (2021). Semangat in practice. In Vincent, E. & Poon, A. (Eds.), Making Kin: Ecofeminist essays from Singapore. Ethos Books. Accessed as an EPUB. nor. (n.d.). About the artist (Accessed 25 January 2022). https://www.neithernor.work/. OWITY. Is Art a Commodity? Art as a Commodity. (n.d.). https://owity.com/blogs/owity-blog/artas-a-commodity. Accessed 25 February 2022. Past & present lives of____. (n.d.). https://www.neithernor.work/past-present-lives-of. Accessed 28 January 2022. Piirto, J. (1998). Understanding those who create (2nd ed.). Ohio Psychology Press. Prostration within a Mediated Assembly. (n.d.). Farizi Noorfauzi’s website (Accessed during January 2021). https://cargocollective.com/farizi Rahim, L. Z. (1998). The Singapore dilemma: The political and educational marginality of the Malay community (pp. 15–16). Oxford University Press. Rao, A. (2009). The caste question: Dalits and politics of modern India. University of California Press. Rasheed, Z. A. B. (1992). MUIS and MENDAKI: Current and future challenges. Seminar Papers (National University of Singapore, Department of Malay Studies) No. 5. Rasheed, Z. A., Zoohri, W. H., & Saat, N. (Eds.). (2010). Beyond bicentennial: Perspectives on Malays. World Scientific Publishing (2020). Roesler, C. (2010). Archetypal patterns in postmodern identity construction: A cultural approach. In Stein, M. & Jones, R. A. (Eds.), Cultures and identities in transition: Jungian perspectives (1st ed.). Routledge. Self-Haircut. (n.d.). Farizi Noorfauzi’s website (Accessed during January 2021). https://cargocoll ective.com/farizi/Self-Haircut-1 Shaffer, L. (1996). Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500. M. E. Sharpe. Siles, I. (2017). Networked selves. Peter Lang Verlag.

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Singapore Census of Population. (2020). Statistical release 1: Demographic characteristics, education, language and religion. (June 2021). https://www.singstat.gov.sg/-/media/files/publications/ cop2020/sr1/cop2020sr1.pdf Taylor, C. (1995). The politics of recognition. In Taylor, C. (Ed.), Multiculturalism. Princeton University Press. Taylor, G., & Spencer, S. (Eds.). (2004). Social identities: Multidisciplinary approaches. Routledge. Tham, S. C. (1992). Defining “Malay.” National University of Singapore, Seminar and Occasional Paper Series. Van Gorp, J., & Smets, K. (2015). Diaspora organizations, imagined communities and the versatility of diaspora : The case of former Yugoslav organizations in the Netherlands. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(1), 70–85. Wortham, S. (2000). Interactional positioning and narrative self-construction. https://repository. upenn.edu/gse_pubs/92

Chapter 3

Voicing the Nation Through Visual Arts Education: Pedagogical Cues from Singapore Contemporary Artists Chee-Hoo Lum

1 Introduction 1.1 Vignette 1 A visual arts teacher in a general primary or lower secondary classroom had tasked students to create a piece of artwork that depicts the nation during the period leading up to Singapore’s National Day celebrations. Enthusiastic students start to draw images of the Singapore River, the Merlion, the Esplanade, the Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands, HDB1 flats, the National Day Parade, the Singapore flag, Changi Airport, and all kinds of local foods (Chilli Crabs, Chicken Rice, Satay, etc.) in their colorful creations. The artworks tend to be aesthetically pleasing and if human figures are portrayed within the artworks, they tend to be in harmony with smiley faces, and more often than not, of Chinese, Indian and Malay ethnicities, and perhaps in traditional costumes. These harmonious stereotypical images pick up on iconic buildings or infrastructure of cultural or historical significance in Singapore, or foods and customs that are unique to the representative cultures of the nation. In contrast, back in 1972, Cheo Chai-Hiang,2 one of Singapore’s pioneering contemporary artist, mailed a submission for presentation in the annual exhibition of the Modern Art Society Singapore. The submission asked the exhibitors “to draw a square, five feet in dimension; it was to be sited partially on a wall and partially on the floor. The drawn square was to bear the title Singapore River” (Sabapathy, 2000, p. 11). Sabapathy (2000) contends that “Cheo intended to provoke the audience to examine assumptions underlying the practice of painting in Singapore, consider their 1

The Housing Development Board (HDB) is a statutory board under Ministry of National Development responsible for Singapore’s public housing. 2 Cheo Chai-Hiang (born Singapore, 1946) taught and lived in Western Sydney, Australia for 20 years before relocating to Singapore and Melaka in 2003. After sojourning in Southeast Asia for 20 years, he returned to his Sydney studio in 2022 to continue making-do, getting-by and celebrating his little thoughts. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_3

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validity and press onto different, wider terrain” (p. 11). The submission was rejected by Ho Ho Ying (Singapore abstract artist who is one of the founders of the Modern Art Society) who considered it ‘hollow’, ‘empty’ and ‘monotonous’ (Sabapathy, 2000).

1.2 Vignette 2 In the August 2021 National Day Rally speech, Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s Prime Minister, spoke to the topic of race relations due to the emergence of a number of racist incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The prime minister reminded Singaporeans that multi-racial equality and harmony is a fundamental principle of Singapore’s nation building but admittedly, “Our racial harmony is still work in progress, and will be so for a long time”. The prime minister also acknowledged that “The minorities experience it more acutely, because they are the ones most affected by such racial discrimination. They feel angry, hurt, disappointed that the words in our National Pledge are still an aspiration, but still not fully achieved… We must keep on working at it, to become one people, regardless of race, language or religion” (Prime Minister’s Office Singapore, 2021). Still Building (2020) by the interdisciplinary art duo Perception 3, is a text projection (19.5 × 25 m) of a line from Singapore’s National Pledge, “To build a democratic society based on justice and equality”, onto the façade of the National Gallery Singapore (Figure 1). As the artists explained: ‘Still Building’ speaks to the ideas of the National Pledge, to the site (of the Padang, and of the former Supreme Court and City Hall which now houses the National Gallery) and to National Day itself. Its ‘prismatic’ form reminds us that the ongoing work towards justice and equality needs to include diverse voices and perspectives. The work responds to ‘Bumi Hangus’ (1987), a painting in the National Collection by artist Wong Hoy Cheong who in turn was inspired by W.S. Rendra’s poem of the same title. We see the painting and the poem it references as a meditation on loss and sacrifice amidst the search for justice and belonging. Our work adapts Wong’s prismatic palette to reflect the facets and complexities of building a democratic society (https://perceptionthree.net/works. html).

1.3 Key Values in Visual Arts Education in Singapore In the current Ministry of Education (Singapore) Lower Secondary and Primary Art Syllabi (MOE, 2018), art as core curriculum in schools takes on three key value propositions: “(i) Art fosters students’ sense of identity, culture and place in society; (ii) Art builds students’ capacity to critically discern and process visual information, and communicate effectively in the twenty-first century; and (iii) Art expands imagination and creativity” (MOE, 2018, p. 3). These propositions ask of visual arts teachers to provide:

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Fig. 1 Still Building (2020). (Image courtesy of Perception 3)

an avenue for our students to develop self and social awareness and appreciate our unique Singaporean forms of expression that are anchored on national values… enables our students to develop respect for themselves and others, value harmony and thereby cultivating their global awareness and cross-cultural skills for the 21st century (MOE, 2018, p. 3)

The syllabi also call for teachers to develop in students: thinking dispositions such as tolerance for ambiguity, ability to see things from multiple perspectives… Through art, students develop the capacity to observe closely, explore, engage and persist, evaluate, reflect, take risks to stretch and go beyond what they currently know and are able to do (MOE, 2018, p. 3).

What define ‘national values’ are not specifically laid out in the syllabi beyond an encouragement to learn about local artworks and artists to strengthen “the understanding of the individual’s national identity by fostering the appreciation of one’s cultural heritage” (MOE, 2018, p. 5). Might there be more critical and creative approaches to the understanding and expression of national values and identity beyond an appreciation of one’s cultural heritage?

1.4 National Values On 15 January 1991, the Singapore government formalized five national values, “to forge a national identity in the face of a changing society with evolving values” (Tan, 2015). These five shared values include: (i) Nation before community and society above self; (ii) Family as the basic unit of society; (iii) Community support

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and respect for the individual; (iv) Consensus not conflict; and (v) Racial and religious harmony. The shared values are essentially promoted through school education, “primarily via civics and moral education (CME) lessons—and with the help of parents” (Tan, 2015). In the most updated 2021 Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) syllabus (MOE, 2021a), which references the Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes (MOE, 2021b), the key aims include developing in students: (i) Good character; (ii) Resilience and social-emotional wellbeing; (iii) Future readiness; and (iv) Active citizenship. Active citizenship equates the development of: A strong national identity based on a sense of belonging to the nation, a sense of hope in themselves and the future, an awareness of the reality of Singapore’s vulnerabilities and constraints, and the will to act on improving the lives of others, and building a future for our nation (MOE, 2021a, p. 8).

Arts subjects such as Music and Visual Arts, have been called upon within the CCE 2021 syllabus to include “content knowledge that provide opportunities for exploration into national identity, contemporary issues, as well as Singapore’s constraints and vulnerabilities” (MOE, 2021a, p. 15). In the opening address of the Singapore Teachers Academy for the Arts’ (STAR) inaugural virtual conference (e-AEC) held in November 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Minister of Education, Mr. Lawrence Wong reminded teachers that: The arts speak to our intrinsic human need for self expression, which can also be harnessed to transform and impact our personal lives and the community. Apart from acquiring the skills and perseverance required to perform various artistic processes, students also learn to adopt multiple perspectives on various social issues, challenge misconceptions and stereotypes, and discover more about the world we live in through arts education (STAR, 2021).

The emphasis on utilizing the arts as a safe space to explore multiple perspectives on social issues and to challenge misconceptions and stereotypes certainly encourage and broaden possibilities for students to engage more reflectively and critically in their art making processes. Given the emphasis on developing civic consciousness in students towards becoming more active and concerned citizens and valuing a more critical inquiry stance in art-making, how might visual arts teachers rethink their content and facilitation in the earlier task of asking students to portray visual images of the nation towards the art syllabi key values? Visual arts teachers may consider the practice of some Singapore contemporary artists for pedagogical cues and suggestions. After all, the learning of local artworks and artists is very much encouraged within the MOE primary and lower secondary syllabi (MOE, 2018).

2 Singapore Contemporary Artists on Matters of the Nation

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2 Singapore Contemporary Artists on Matters of the Nation Contemporary artists in Singapore from this research study have articulated their opinions and concerns on matters of the nation in their creative works through reflective and critical inquiry processes utilizing a range of varied mediums. This chapter will flesh out some of these creative processes and works to highlight a range of current issues in the minds of Singapore contemporary artists so as to pave pedagogical ways forward to what visual arts teachers may consider in their visual arts classrooms.

2.1 Allowing the Land to Speak Trained as a ceramist with creative works inclined towards interactive, installation, land art and sculpture, Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, has a proclivity towards raw materials of the land. As she articulates: The clay in Singapore is a really beautiful colour… bright red, bright orange… ochres and just really, really intense colours… So I thought that was a really beautiful material to work with. And also to think about where I’m from… So what do we see as something that’s made in Singapore… it doesn’t get more real than the materials from the land that you’re from… ‘Made in Singapore’.

For Twardzik Ching, the material of the land for making creative work beyond clay and other natural materials, extends to the sheer compactness of human bodies that reside within the island-nation, Singapore: There’s not a lot of land that I can actually play with… where I don’t have to ask people for permission to make things… because there’s so many… bodies… the whole thing about land art is how nature intervenes, ultimately, with the artwork, and it disintegrates, and nature kind of takes over, takes back the piece… But instead of nature, we have an abundance of bodies and human beings in this space, so I thought it would be interesting if I just really allow the viewer to interact with the work. And in that sense, it’s kind of the environment taking over again to see how that piece would evolve, you know?… there was an instance where… people were vandalising the tunnel, I think in the Esplanade where they were showing artworks?… that kind of really… struck me as something that I could work with. Instead of… vandalism being a destructive force, I could use it as a constructive force so that I can… get the viewers to ‘vandalise’ and interact with a piece and create a new piece altogether. So, I guess in a sense, I’m still allowing the work to have a life of its own without [me] being there.

The Singapore River has been the subject of muse for Twardzik Ching in some of her creative works. In her unabashed words: I have a thing with watercolour painters and paintings [of idealised portrayals of the Singapore River or landscapes]. I think that’s one of the reasons why I work with alternative materials… the… whole anti-authoritarian movement… that land art brings.

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Fig. 2 Lifeblood (Images courtesy of Twardzik Ching Chor Leng)

In Lifeblood, the raw material of the land that Twardzik Ching utilizes is the water from the Singapore River, “because… I understand the history behind the importance of the Singapore River and what it has brought… the people of this land” (Fig. 2). The tanks and symbolic umbilical cord in the work situated on site at the Singapore Art Museum: refers to a sort of… motherhood or symbiotic relationship between the Singapore River as well as… I guess… it could be anything. It could be the people of Singapore, it could be the Singapore Art Museum itself as a site… I like that… metaphorical relationship, even though they were just objects… And then getting the viewer to move from one site to another from the veranda… that atrium on the ground floor to the fourth floor, and then having that flow and… that interaction from the viewer who can actually ascend the lab or the steps to… control or to change the flow of the water.

Twardzik Ching wanted viewers of the work to appreciate the Singapore River for what it is, thus transporting the actual water from the Singapore River into the artwork at the museum: The Singapore River water was the main… kind of material of the piece, right? And it kind of breeds this fungal growth and it’s all green algae inside. And I love it! That colour green, I think it’s beautiful. And it’s the colour of nature… kind of connects to the whole idea of the umbilical cord and birthing life.

In an artist talk given by Twardzik Ching about Lifeblood, one of the docents of the Singapore Art Museum commented upon how dirty the water was in the tanks and asked, “Can’t you like clean the water?” to which Twardzik Ching replied: You want to see pretty paintings of Singapore River, which I don’t know what that reminds you of, it makes you feel like you’re part of this country? I have no idea. But when you see the water and the Singapore River in its reality, you are disgusted by it. Well, then don’t throw trash in it! …What is your idea of what is real? I think that’s part of what art should be, is to show people what reality is.

Twardzik Ching is also of the view that in Singapore, official permissions need to be cleared if one needs to utilize the material of the land to make a piece of land art:

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Who does that belong to? Does that belong to SAM [Singapore Art Museum]? Does that belong to LTA [Land Transport Authority]? Does that belong to URA [Urban Redevelopment Agency]? Do you need to tell the police about it? So every step of the way, actually, for Lifeblood, I had to ask so many people for permission just to get the water from the Singapore River. I wanted to push that as far as I could, asking for all these people’s permission… at one point, I thought, “okay, maybe I will never get permission” and the only way I’m going to show this piece is by printing out all these emails and that would be the piece… that will be the artwork… “There’s this document, read through it” and figure it out!… I guess, was… me trying to really push the boundaries. How much can I do? Because I was not going to just take that water. Because I’m not a thief. (Laughs) I wanted you [the state] to say, “Yes, you can take that water” and I wanted you to write me these emails in black and white to say who else do I need to get permission from in order to access that water from the Singapore River—that is actually our water.

Using the episode through Lifeblood of seeking official permissions as example, the strength of Singapore contemporary art, according to Twardzik Ching, is thus in its subtlety of approach, a form of subversiveness, “That it’s not in your face… because there is red tape. That makes the art interesting”. Martin (2013) in reviewing Lifeblood seemed to agree with Twardzik Ching’s interpretation about the subversiveness of Singapore contemporary art, but instead terms it as an artist’s relentless ambition: Lifeblood is a beautiful work… because, well, it’s a failure… the idea was scrapped due to budget constraints and the logistical nightmare of such an undertaking. So here, instead, is a “compromise”. It’s a compromise that’s more manageable and acceptable to all parties involved (although not without its bureaucratic headaches, as seen in the document compiling the back and forth email correspondence between the various statutory boards and the curator on how to transport water from the river via trucks…) absence is the work’s very presence… Instead of a pulsing artwork that traverses the streets from river to museum gallery, this particular Lifeblood’s journey—both via water and our imagination—is truncated. Instead of coming to life, ambition becomes stillborn… But it’s ambition nonetheless. And hey, isn’t this the kind of thing we should be cultivating?

Another work of Twardzik Ching that utilizes the water of the Singapore River as material, is OWN, a glass bottle etched with the words of The Singapore Pledge bottled with water from the Singapore River. The creative work was a response to the plight of migrant workers in Singapore living in underwhelming dormitory conditions, exacerbated by the lockdown of these workers during the Covid period, and how some Singaporeans treat these migrant workers with “so much disdain and disrespect”: I was really angry with that, because that’s not fair… all human beings should be treated equally, because we’re all equal. Doesn’t matter how much money you make. And it doesn’t matter where you’re from, whether you’re from Singapore or not. And… clearly the pledge says that… right? That we need to treat each other with respect. That’s what a democracy is! When you’ve invited these people to work—help you build your country… You shouldn’t treat them with such disrespect… Yeah… So I think that’s—that’s where the piece came from… what would speak to people in Singapore, because we’re living here, is the national pledge that you’re made to say every day when you’re in school, you jolly well remember it and mean it.

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3 Voicing the Nation Through Visual Arts Education … I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, but I do agree with the pledge. I do agree with… many things that I think the Singapore government wants to see in Singapore… as in equality and respect for different races and uh… multiculturalism. I believe in that… it can be perceived that I make art for the state… which… I don’t think it’s really true. It just happens that my belief system… coincides with the state’s belief system in many ways. But how they [the state] act on it, then that’s where I see the tension happening.

Twardzik Ching’s creative works in response to matters of the nation came from a space of sounding out historical, cultural and social injustices. The use of raw materials from the land within the creative works paves a way for viewers to contemplate these critical issues as responsive citizens of the nation.

2.2 Respeaking History Official history is… not just a set of past ‘truths’, but a biased selection of State-endorsed events and timelines repeated over and over again to control behaviour and define national values… Green Zeng is an interrogator of official history, and a story-teller of Singapore’s forgotten past who offers alternative interpretations of State narratives (McGovern-Basa, 2021, p. 4).

Green Zeng always explains that his body of work is about historiography and identity, “but in truth it is not just that”. Zeng through his creative works urge viewers, “to imagine an alternative interpretation of the present… is about the future, how we move forward”. Zeng sees the role of an artist as someone who: speaks the truth, to be the truth teller. And sometimes… regarded as a gatecrasher… not to cancel the dominant truth…[but to provide] counterbalance, alternative reading[s]… because the gatecrasher does not belong to any party or archive or has allegiance to any… free to speak the truth… whether it’s about politics or about the archive, about history.

Zeng sets out an intention for the participants of his artworks and the viewers to look at history differently and to see alternative possibilities and perspectives. He believes that “Everything should be questioned and challenged… every event or history”, thus providing a multifaceted reading of an event is important against a single hegemonic account. Zeng is not keen in telling and drawing out individual stories but rather, looking at “a more holistic view of how history is being addressed… multifaceted nature of understanding history… how this information have been shared or discussed or interpreted”. Zeng’s earlier creative works centers around Singapore history of the left and communism, and the history of political detainees and exiles. More recently, his focus has shifted towards examining the connection between the state, the archive and the individual, and the role artists play in truth telling. Zeng’s creative process begins with an in-depth inquiry on the topic of interest through building an archive of material artefacts (documents, images, etc.). There is a constant questioning that underlies the inquiry asking why particular artefacts exist and why other artefacts are absent or embargoed:

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Maybe this cup here is history and I dropped it on the floor, and I try to pick up the pieces. Those little pieces are, say a moment… or event… I am going to question who picked it up and why only certain pieces are highlighted… the Malayan Exchange Series is the start of that kind of questioning for me.

Workshopping would be a crucial second step in Zeng’s creative process where images and information gathered would be re-constructed or re-enacted by diverse groups of people from actors, non-actors (students, youths) to the man-on-the-street. Zeng utilizes the workshopping process to explore more effective and powerful ways of putting the work across to viewers. He wants participants to share knowledge with him during workshopping, “a test bed for me and the students… who are inside the project together to talk about things… I find that in the context of Singapore, it’s quite a crucial element because we hardly gather around and talk about very sensitive things”. The workshopping process allows and encourages conversations through the work “in a calm, rational manner without… panicking and trying to close it down”. In targeting students and youths for some of his creative works, Zeng opens up an avenue for them to think critically and explore gaps in historical information, to make them “understand your past, your history… it’s an important element in the work… the absence… they are not aware of it, or if they are aware, they are being directed in different areas”. Zeng’s significant video series work, TV Confessions,3 thus takes on Foucault’s arguments on truth, power, agency and fiction (Foucault, 2007) and influences from artists like Sharon Hayes and Bouchra Khalili, in articulating “how truths are produced and constructed and how it is sustained by power relations… how …truth can be modified by power.” Zeng thus utilizes fiction in his creative work as experiments of truth, allowing alternative interpretations to any hegemonic historical accounts. In Zeng’s terms, “To counter any discourse is not to provide a counter narrative… an entity like the state can always provide a much more effective rebuttal”. Instead one can “provide an image of respeaking… an image of repeating what has been said… that will be a good… way of counter-react[ing]”. He (Zeng) cites fiction, not truth as a useful way to create alternative interpretations of time… Foucault’s writings on parrhesia (truth-telling) & parrhesiastes (truth-teller) also inform the artist’s current interests about who gets to speak the truth and the role of the State plays in defining the truth (McGovern-Basa, 2021, p. 5).

In Students’ Confession (part of video series TV Confessions), students were asked to: participate in the project. They come into the room, I say, can you read the transcript for me… without telling them too much… without the context… they read the transcript from a teleprompter. And what I capture is the first time they read the text …the reaction is very 3

“TV Confessions is an ongoing research series of video works that examine the public confessions made by political detainees in Singapore from 1960s to 1980s. They were arrested for suspected communist activities and most of them were freed after publicly denouncing their communist links on national television. As the televised confessions were broadcasted only once and were not seen again, the re-enactment in these videos were based on transcripts found in newspaper archives” (https://greenzeng.wordpress.com/student-reconstruction/).

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3 Voicing the Nation Through Visual Arts Education … subtle… deep inside their eyes they begin to question when they read it. Is this [transcript] real or did this guy made it up?

Through Students’ Confession, Zeng spoke to the potential of respeaking: repeating something we’ve already said or written and understand this potential, this power to redirect any discourse… It has this quiet force in it even though I have not done anything much to it and just take that… any article from the… archive… the important part of the work is the repeated questioning about what’s been written now or said.

Through respeaking, Zeng’s intention is to change people’s mind about particular events or historical accounts, to create a “hairline crack… a step forward… shift, change.” The participants of the work and the viewers might then imagine an alternative interpretation of the present to speculate about the future. Respeaking, according to Zeng, thus involves discussion, rethinking, reinterpreting, rediscussing, and reassessing as one critically cycles through the process repeatedly. In Student Reconstruction, students attempt “to re-enact and reconstruct a televised confession” after Zeng’s workshopping process (Fig. 3). Zeng’s intention was “to explore concepts of theatricality and truth-telling and to reactivate history through the students’ interpretation of the TV confessions” (https://greenzeng.wordpress.com/ student-reconstruction/). Re-enactment thus serves as a tool for critical thinking in participants at the workshopping stage. The viewers of the work are left to interpret a different reading to “this idea of a monolithic hegemonic interpretation of an event or history”. The artist unlike the historiographer has the freedom to blur the boundaries and gets more leeway to open up critical dialogues through his creative works. Zeng thus speaks as an artist about injustice from a humanistic point of view, “I find it’s a duty… to talk about it”. Ho (2021) reminds us that, The most dangerous threat to the state’s discourse is not the provision of a counter-discourse to which the state can easily issue its own potentially more compelling rebuttal, but an image of speech that invites the spectator to look, listen and look again (p. 116).

This is a timely evocation of Kiossev’s summary of Gayathri Chakravorty Spivak’s monumental speech on Nationalism and the Imagination: Dear nation, please, you were invented as imaginary narratives. After that, you were institutionalized and you forgot your origin, you forgot that you are imaginary. Be kind enough, go back to the imaginary. You are fictive narratives… (Kiossev in Spivak, 2010, p. 84).

2.3 The Body Versus The State Kray Chen is a conceptual artist that uses video and performance as his primary medium to craft his creative ideas, images and narratives. His practice revolves largely around his lived experience in Singapore, examining issues of body politics. Thinking about the marginalization of “my own big body” and remarks he had

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Fig. 3 Student Reconstruction (2018), High-Definition Digital Video, 16:9 Converted to 4:3 Aspect Ratio, Colour, Sound, 15.30 min. (Image courtesy of Green Zeng)

to face from a young age, Chen journeys through his creative practice to “unpack these internalizations and… assumptions that I have about myself, about the body.” Chen thus examines body politics manifested through Singapore’s governmental policies and uses “incongruent, poignant and dark humour” in his creative works to comment upon these injustices. As an example, Chen researched “various sorts of policies post-independence that directly impacts the way one perceives the body”, like the TAF (Trim-and-Fit) club and NAPFA (National Physical Fitness Award/Assessment) that were instituted in all government schools in Singapore. The TAF club introduced by the Ministry of Education between 1992 till 2007, targeted child obesity, where overweight pupils were encouraged to lose weight, “often by singling them out and putting them through repetitive exercises, such as jogging and jumping jacks, before school and during recess” (Toh, 2017).

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Fig. 4 Exercise Now and Fit a Standard Size Coffin Later (2016). (Image courtesy of Kray Chen)

Having lived through these experiences, Chen reflected and saw his large body: as almost like a kind of cancer to the Singapore’s efficiency brand… They start militarizing the body from primary school… the moment you do the NAPFA test, you are already sort of conditioning… the standards of the body to a kind of military standard, although scaled down to the age group.

In Exercise Now and Fit a Standard Size Coffin Later (2016), Chen positioned five isolated screens distanced apart with each screen repeatedly projecting physical exercises that the artist recalled during his military service (Fig. 4). The screens “embody the regimented military bodies, each facing the glass wall in contemplation” (http://www.kraychen.com/exercise-now-and-fit-a-standard-size-coffin-later.html). Chen’s creative works, like Exercise Now and Fit a Standard Size Coffin Later (2016) and I’m a SteamRoller Baby (2017) (detailed in Chap. 5), thus takes on this inquiry on body politics in view of the “meaning of meritocracy, of progress, of efficiency, of capitalism through the body” within the nation state of Singapore.

3 Discussion Artist play a critical role in engaging with things social, political and historical and their works reveal the high and the low points of the human condition in a given society. Furthermore, their works play an important role in revealing to the people and the world the “inner vision” that guides the society as a nation (Purusthothaman, 2002, p. 239)

Revisiting a key emphasis in visual arts education in Singapore articulated earlier on developing students’ civic consciousness as an active and concerned citizen, it is clear through the inquiry-based art-making processes and creative works of the Singapore contemporary artists discussed, that these artists already feel it is very much part of the role and responsibility of an artist to give voice and open up critical dialogue to issues pertinent to current matters of the nation. Much akin to an earlier survey by Wee (2012) on the views of some ‘younger’ artists practicing contemporary art in Singapore, he identified that their creative works deal primarily with “issues of history and cultural identity, the mundane and the understanding of home, the problem of singular cultural identity and the need for artistic process and interdisciplinary arts practices…” (Wee, 2012, pp. 143–144). Sabapathy (1993) also pointed out that:

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In Singapore, young artists… are earnestly re-examining prevailing norms, and re-evaluating the role of the institutions that support the production and consumption of art… these artists prefer to employ strategies based on conceptual, installation and performance art. …such methods allow a confrontation of issues in ways that are direct and on a scale that would not be possible through conventional means. These strategies also allow the construction of critiques of a wide range of topics, without the need for those employing them to overtly declare an affiliation or position—political or otherwise (p. 83).

As further examples, Song-Ming Ang, another artist interviewed for this study, whose works reflect on Singaporean culture, identity and politics, articulated that, “many of my works revolved around self-imposed restrictions, mundanity and amateurism, which can respectively be connected to the tendency to follow rules, the communal struggle against urban tedium, and the desire for constant upgrading.” Priyageetha Dia, whose art practice centers around “identity politics and… inbetween spaces”, more specifically examining power dynamics and her identity as a Singaporean Indian woman, believes it is the responsibility of the artist to articulate issues and stories that matter to the nation, particularly “inequalities that are happening in Singapore” and being consistent in highlighting and actively engaging and discussing about these issues, “whether it’s with the minimum wage… housing… job opportunities… racism, sexism and all of that”. Farizi Noorfauzi, a multi-disciplinary artist who works primarily with media and performance art, examines the relevance of his Malay-Islamic cultural experiences within the context of Singapore’s diaspora. As an example, Farizi has found it difficult to talk about religious issues between different people in Singapore, “because it’s so socio-politically sensitive that it ends up just being repressed in the back of our minds”. So through his work, Let’s Swim, Farizi utilizes water as the key motif in looking at commonalities found in different religions in Singapore, an “attempt to investigate the possibility of unifying such fundamentally different religions, and overcoming the polarized nature of religion.” Art works such as Farizi’s Let’s Swim, can provide a safe space for viewers to discuss about religious issues in Singapore, and perhaps even advocate for racial and religious harmony through such critical dialogues. Thus, the emphasis on utilizing the arts as a safe space to explore multiple perspectives on social issues and injustices, and to challenge misconceptions and stereotypes certainly encourage and broaden possibilities for students to engage more reflectively and critically in their art making processes. Ultimately, as Lee (1996) stresses: On its own an object, an artist, an interpretation or a process cannot guarantee meaning. What is needed is a concerted effort on all fronts—from artists, critics, institutions, educationists, audiences—to struggle for an organization of the pleasures of art that are not those of the spectacular society. To think in terms of these multiple arenas or fronts is to think the full complexity required for strategies of engagement and resistance (p. 204).

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4 Implications for the Visual Arts Classroom The visual arts teacher in the general visual arts classroom might choose to begin by having a discussion with students about their impressions of the nation and of their lived and living experiences in Singapore. The visual arts teacher might continue by asking students if there are current challenges they or others are facing and how these challenges might be linked to the nation in political, social, historical and/or cultural ways. By culling out more critical and reflective thoughts from students, an inquiry process can then begin, allowing students to venture and explore on their own or in scaffolded ways before immersing themselves in the creative process. To further the depth of engagement, the visual arts teacher can also take on Koh and Chu’s (2002) suggestion: arguing for dialogue to become an integral part of the aesthetic strategies of an artist… It is important that dialogue precedes work, or is initiated at the early stages of work… these can open avenues for mediation or (re)presentation of a wider range of reactions, and for networks of support, contributions and involvement from… multiple ‘stakeholders’ in society (p. 208).

The creative processes and works of contemporary artists like those mentioned above can serve as further triggers of ideas and inspiration. For instance, the visual arts teacher might mention how the artist, Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, purports that art should “show people what reality is”, to highlight injustices of current situations and issues of the nation through art so that critical dialogues can happen. The visual arts teacher might also point out to students that Twardzik Ching utilizes raw materials from the land within her creative works to pave a way for viewers to contemplate these critical issues as responsive citizens of the nation. For artist, Green Zeng, the visual arts teacher might turn students towards a historiographical approach in art making, where Zeng’s intention is for the participants of his artworks and the viewers to look at history differently, to respeak, so as to allow multiple possibilities and perspectives to come forth, and think about alternative futures. Or the visual arts teacher might turn students towards looking at policies of the nation that affect their lives, much like in Kray Chen’s creative works, examining body politics manifested through Singapore’s governmental policies and how he uses “incongruent, poignant and dark humour” to comment upon these injustices. On the professional development front for in-service teachers, the Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the Arts has actively created resources (STAR, 2016a, 2016b, 2018) and conducted numerous workshops for teachers on inquiry-based learning (IBL) in art which fits well with the thinking and artistic processes of contemporary artists, learning to “connect to and wonder about, investigate, make, express, and reflect… ordered in any sequence to represent the diverse ways artists engage with their practice” (STAR, 2018, pp. 16 & 18). Inquiry-based learning also encourages a wide spectrum of art tools and materials to be used by students to express their intentions which definitely opens up innovative ways with which art-making can be thought about. Inquiry-based learning is thus well-suited as a pedagogical

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way forward within the general arts classroom for visual arts teachers to facilitate students’ creative processes and art making in student-centered ways that guide them to critically engage with matters of the nation that are pertinent to their lived and living experiences. And what better way to start then to bring students to the National Gallery Singapore and contemplate on the proposed presentation of Singapore River (1972) by Cheo Chai-Hiang (described in Vignette 1 of this chapter) which Cheo recreated in 2015 titled 5'' × 5'' (Inched Deep) now situated within a space in the National Gallery that yearns for more critical discussion and dialogue. Conceptually, the work is still relevant in questioning our educators’ assumptions of what should constitute the practice of painting in Singapore. And perhaps students can be asked to reflect on the 2021 National Rally Speech (described in Vignette 2) or the use of the National Pledge of Singapore by contemporary artists (e.g. Chor Leng Twardzik Ching and Perception 3) to express particular critical viewpoints, further inspiring creative ideas from students in making work that matters and dialoguing these works within the safe space of the visual arts classroom.

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Afterword by Cecily Cheo Nationalism negotiates with the most private in the interest of controlling the public sphere. Spivak (2010, p. 90).

In Vignette 1, Lum depicts a primary or lower secondary class art in which students respond to the teacher’s task to create images they associate with Singapore National Day. Their artworks display the type of images that the Singapore Tourism Board could well use to showcase the country’s tourist attractions: a variety of local colourful food items, iconic public buildings; modern, clean Housing Development Board blocks of flats; smiling citizens dressed in Chinese, Malay and Indian traditional dress. These images, he comments, are colourful, happy, aesthetically pleasing, the type of images that would be familiar to many teachers, school students and parents both past and present. Do these images really represent the school students’ thinking about their nation? Lum would like to see school students encouraged to produce art works that provide a response to the subjects of Nation and National Identity that connect with the reality of school students’ everyday lives. He poses the question “How might visual arts teachers rethink their content and facilitation in the task of asking their students to portray visual images of the nation so that they align with Ministry of Education (Singapore) Lower School and Primary Art Syllabi’s key values.” He suggests that contemporary art works by Singaporean artists who use their artwork to speak about nation and nationhood could be employed to encourage school students to think about these subjects in greater depth. The scenario depicted in Vignette 1 didn’t just fall out of the sky. A school art class is in large part a teacher’s planned response to a wide range of factors that may serve to either expand or constrain possible pedagogical possibilities. These factors include the class profile; the art teacher’s professional profile and expertise in the subject area; the school administrators’ and the school principal’s understanding and appreciation of what art education has to offer school students. These factors will be reflected in terms of class size, timetabling, provision of specialist facilities deployed to the subject area, selection of qualified teaching staff to teach the subject area, opportunities for teachers to upgrade their professional practice and teaching expertise. Singapore government schools’ administrators respond to the requirements set out by Ministry of Education, and these reflect and respond to the Singapore Government’s political, social and cultural policies and agendas. Vignette 1 provides an opportunity to consider the types of decisions that a primary school teacher may make in response to these factors. In my mind’s eye, I picture Vignette 1 taking place in a neighbourhood primary five school class in which thirtyeight school students are taught art once a week for the mandated one hour by their class teacher. The school does not have a classroom specifically equipped for art lessons. There are no sinks to wash brushes or palettes and tools or in which students can wash their hands; no moveable trestle tables to enable flexible spatial

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arrangements; no art storeroom containing a variety of art materials and tools. As the classroom is used for the teaching of other subjects, it must remain clean and tidy for the class that follows the art session. The teacher does not have an arteducation qualification; her own professional background is in engineering. She plans activities that address topics in the art syllabus employing activities that her students can complete within the hour timeslot. Today her topic addresses National Identity, which she has titled My Singapore. After the coloured pencils and sheets of paper have been distributed among the 38 students, the teacher starts the session by asking her students to suggest images that relate to the topic My Singapore. Students respond by putting up their hands and offer short, object and image-oriented answers. The Q&A session lasts for approximately 5 min and the teacher then instructs the students to make a drawing that shows what Singapore means to them. As the students start their task the teacher sits at her desk at the front of the class taking this opportunity to mark some student homework for her next class. The school students know what is expected of them and they happily comply. Before asking the class to clean up the teacher will call on three students to stand up from their desks and show their drawings to the class. All in all, the learning and teaching about National Identity will have been done and dusted within approximately 35 min. The point I want to emphasize is that the teacher designed this session in response to what she feels she can achieve in that one-hour session within the resources available to her. Teacher and students play the hand they are dealt. In 2022 perhaps the above scenario may no longer be as typical of an art class in the Singapore primary school system as in years past. The benefits of teaching the visual arts are nowadays better researched, recognized, and resourced in the Singapore government school system. However, visual arts classes like the one described above are not uncommon in schools in which the administration prioritizes subjects that they consider to be of greater educational value to both students and the society they live in. Time brings change, and with change new emphases and ideas continue to percolate through the Ministry of Education’s planning of the primary and lower secondary visual arts curriculum. In the past two decades this is particularly evident in both content and pedagogies in the primary and lower secondary school visual arts education. The alternative teaching scenario that Lum presents in this chapter is truly aspirational. The present structure of primary and lower secondary school education makes such a session a near impossibility. It could well work in certain well-resourced Junior College art classes or in the International Baccalaureate art programmes. However, it would be most appropriate and productive if it were to take place in a post-secondary or tertiary art school degree programme. In tertiary visual arts and design programmes, course structures and pedagogies are designed to stimulate open-ended discussions and an organic integration of theory and practice. In a tertiary visual arts programme students would already be familiar with and most likely engaged in working with contemporary art practices. Art students would by their disposition be able and willing to respond to questions about the challenges they face in their day to day lives and how these challenges could connect to the nation. Such sessions would offer invaluable opportunities for art students to think

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about questions of nation and national identity through the lens of their specific art practices. This is not to suggest that contemporary art practices have no place in the primary or lower secondary school art classroom or that school students are not ready to engage with contemporary art by local artists. Nor is it to suggest that the subjects of national identity and nation are not suitable subjects for primary and lower secondary students to think about. The most important priority however is for school art classes to offer young children the opportunity to express their own ways of thinking and feeling, to provide space to exercise their prodigious imaginations and to experience the productive pleasure of using their heads, hearts and hands to explore, to experiment and to make. Aspects of contemporary art practices that can support and extend these priorities and stimulate what is currently possible in the school art classroom should be identified and warmly welcomed. And now, I propose to do just that! Contemporary modes of art practice could employ non-traditional materials in their works to address current local issues that are germane to the context of Singapore. Examples of non-traditional materials that local artists have used include: Ye Shu Fang’s use of 6,245 honey sticks in her 2016 work Honey Sticks. Ye has also worked extensively with Agar–agar as sculptural medium to form works like Mouldy Cake in her 2013 exhibition The Loss of Index: Perishables and other miscellanea (2013). In her installation His Mother Is a Theatre (1994) Suzanne Viktor included human hair to ‘script’ words that referred to intimate regions within the female body (uterus, fallopian tube, mammary glands) and words referring to female bodily functions (menstruation, orgasm, umbilical cord). Cheo Chai-Hiang’s wall installation 50 Good Morning Wishes (2015) conceived on the Singapore’s 50th Anniversary Celebration (SG50), comprised 50 pieces of the ubiquitous Good Morning towel, each hung from one of the 50 clothes hooks. Honey, agar–agar, human hair, hand towels are just the beginning of everyday materials that primary and lower secondary school children could explore in their art classes. Cheo’s 50 Good Morning Wishes alludes to the subject of the Singapore nation. Local artists working with contemporary modes of art practice draw on a wide range of skills that are not traditionally associated with artmaking. Charles Lim Yi Yong is a former national sailor who represented Singapore at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games. Lim brings a wealth of deep knowledge and expertise from his professional sailing experience to his art practice. In 2005 he began his ongoing project Sea State, which was selected to represent Singapore in the 2015 Venice Biennale. The title Sea State derives from a meteorological method of measuring the effect of the wind on the sea, from an improbable placid zero to hurricane level of 9. Lim’s Venice exhibition “examines the biophysical, political and psychic contours of Singapore” (Brittney, 2015), through a series of investigations which include how over time, Lim has used his expertise as a sailor to document how Singapore’s aggressive land reclamation process has expanded the island’s contours. I strongly recommend to the reader the interview Sand and Sea: Charles Lim and Shabbir Hussain for a fascinating insight into Lim’s working concerns. Here, school art teachers can ask their students what are the non-art skills that they already have. Can they fry an egg, can they ride a bike, can they make a bed, can they read a book?

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An art teacher should bring these knowledges into the school art class. Lim’s Sea State is an important example of an extended investigation into what constitutes the Singapore island state. Contemporary Art Practices can also include participatory practices where artists work together to bring attention to a current divisive social issue. In 2007 Cheo ChaiHiang invited Amanda Heng, Joshua Yang and Justin Loke, and four young visual arts teachers Shenu Hamidun, Siti Salihah bte Mohd Omar, Sriridya Nair and Nurul Huda Farid to organize Raised, a mini carnival held in Little India4 over a period of seven weekends (Heng et al., 2007). Raised sought to counter the negativity that was being expressed by Singaporean citizens directed at the presence of foreign workers who undertake vitally important work that is crucial to the Singapore nation at very low wages. Each participant designed a stall that offered a range of festive activities and homemade delicacies to the workers. Throughout the mini-carnival’s duration other artists joined to contribute. Raised required vision, determination and sustained commitment from artists and teachers alike. Raised created a joyful social space that enabled communication between all who participated. Raised drew on each of the participants’ special energies, talents and art practices to raise public awareness of an issue that they felt strongly needed to be redressed. Here is a suggestion for a similar event for primary and lower secondary school students. Let’s title it Real Time Rubbish Action. Suppose the art teacher joins up with the Social Studies teacher, or the Character and Citizenship Education teacher. The event would have to be planned. One group of students would work together with a teacher to brainstorm what such an event would require. (e.g., big rubbish bags, gloves, tongs, clothing, refreshments). A second group of students could identify possible sites for rubbish collection, then present a documented case for why they think each site would be suitable for this project. (e.g. In their daily lives where they have observed rubbish left at a particular stretch of beach front, local park or park connector.) It could then be put to a vote. A third group of students could prepare to document the activity from start to finish. (e.g., using handphones, sketches to produce persuasive images and texts). A fourth group of students could generate ideas about how the rubbish could be presented to the public (e.g., A large outdoor installation piece, an arrangement of the full rubbish bags along with tools.) A fifth group could plan how their event can be circulated to the public, (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, local press). Yes, it would require something different than the usual one hour allotted class time. It would however activate in school students and teachers a tangible awareness of their country and how each individual has agency to contribute to their country in positive, productive ways. Through this commentary, I have wanted to highlight the fact that the primary and secondary school art class has the potential to contribute to rich, varied, and grounded opportunities for school students to look anew at their country. In order to do so, school art classes would need to be unshackled from the conventional classroom structures and expectations that constrain that potential. The MOE art curricula require visual arts classes to instil in school students a strong sense of 4

https://www.visitsingapore.com/see-do-singapore/places-to-see/little-india/.

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national identity and purpose anchored in Singaporean national values. This concept of national identity is government conceived and government driven. It is a one-size fits all concept which has as its objective the smooth governance of the nation’s citizens. There is another quite different process whereby a citizen gains their own individual connection with what the government refers to as ‘nation’, but what a person may instead come to refer to as their ‘hometown’—even if, and especially if, a person no longer lives there. The seeds of this other identity emerge at birth among the myriad of complex experiences that form through one’s life, accruing and fermenting within the realm of individual memory. This is what evolves over time to become the artists’ trove.

References Interviews Cited Kray Chen, 24th Nov 2020. Priyageetha Dia, 11th Nov 2020. Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, 10th Sept 2020. Farizi Noorfauzi, 7th Dec 2020. Green Zeng, 23rd Sept 2020.

Other References Foucault, M. (2007). Subjectivity and truth. In S. Lotringer (Ed.), The politics of truth (pp. 147–168). Semiotext(e). Ho, R. A. (2021). Televisual discretions. In J. Chua (Ed.), Notes for the future, Green Zeng: A review 2010–2020 (pp. 111–116). Green Zeng. Koh, J., & Chu, C. Y. (2002). Encounters in engagement: Investigating public engaged art in Singapore. In J. Say & Y.J. Seng (2016) (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 206–213). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Lee, W. C. (1996). Alternative spaces and radical pleasures. In J. Say & Y.J. Seng (2016) (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 197–205). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Martin, M. (2013, January 18). Here’s to ambition. Todayonline. https://www.todayonline.com/ blogs/forartssake/heres-ambition McGovern-Basa, E. (2021). Truth, fiction and power. In J. Chua (Ed.), Notes for the future, Green Zeng: A review 2010–2020 (pp. 3–8). Green Zeng. Ministry of Education (2018). Art syllabus: Primary one to six. https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/ files/primary/2018_primary_art_syllabus.ashx Ministry of Education (2021a). Character and citizenship education (CCE) syllabus: Secondary. https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/secondary/syllabuses/cce/2021-character-and-citize nship-education-syllabus-secondary.pdf Ministry of Education (2021b). 21st Century Competencies. https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-insg/21st-century-competencies

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Prime Minister’s Office Singapore (2021). National Day Rally 2021. https://www.pmo.gov.sg/New sroom/National-Day-Rally-2021-English Purusthothaman, V. (2002). Locating culture: Art, policy and the production of culture in Singapore. In J. Say & Y.J. Seng (2016) (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 239–247). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Sabapathy, T. K. (1993). Trimurti: Contemporary art in Singapore. In A. Mashadi, A., S. Lingham, P. Schoppert, & J. Toh (2018) (Eds.), Writing the modern: Selected tests on Art and Art history in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia (1973–2015). Singapore Art Museum. Sabapathy, T. K. (2000). Introduction. In T.K. Sabapathy & C. Briggs (2000) (Eds.), Cheo ChaiHiang thoughts and processes (Rethinking The Singapore River) (pp. 11–14). Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Singapore Art Museum. Spivak, G. C. (2010). Nationalism and the imagination. Seagull Books. STAR (2016a). Inquiry in and through art: A lesson design toolkit. Singapore Teachers Academy for the Arts. STAR (2016b). Generating inquiry-based art lesson ideas: A primer with 50 examples. Singapore Teachers Academy for the Arts. STAR (2018). Short guide to pedagogical practices in the Singapore art classroom. Singapore Teachers Academy for the Arts. STAR (2021). Arts for the future: Imagining possibilities. STAR-Post (Art), January 2021. Singapore Teachers Academy for the Arts. Tan, E. (2015). Shared values. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_542_2004-1218.html Toh, W. L. (2017, March 27). A more holistic approach to a child’s health and fitness. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/a-more-holistic-approach-to-a-chi lds-health-and-fitness. Wee, C. J. W.-L. (2012). Practising contemporary art in the global city for the arts, Singapore. In J. Say & Y.J. Seng (2016) (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 129–150). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.

Afterword References Brittney (2015, May 29). Sand and sea: Charles Lim and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa on the Singapore Pavilion in Venice interview. ArtRadarJournal. https://artradarjournal.com/singapore-pavilioninterview-venice-biennale/ Heng, A., Hamidun, S., Mohd Omar, S.S., Nair, S., Nurul Huda Farid, Yang, J., Loke, J., Cheo, C. H. (2007, July 22). “Raised”—Singapore Art Show 2007. http://raisedproject.blogspot.com/ 2007/07/raised-mini-art-carnival-at-little.html Spivak, G. C. (2010). Nationalism and the Imagination. Seagull Books.

Chapter 4

Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

Discourses in contemporary art in Southeast Asia are complicating as it takes on issues that reflect the multiple cultures and histories within the region that affects its art production. The overwhelming diversity of religions practiced in Southeast Asia alone, “including, but not limited to, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism– undermines any efforts to produce a comprehensive survey” (Kee, 2011, p. 374) on contemporary art practices in the region. However, this challenge presents opportunities for the examination or revealing of layering, hybridizations, and a multiplicity of representations. This chapter will look at artworks by Singapore contemporary artists Zarina Muhammad, Choy Ka Fai and ila, who delve into the mystical realms of magic, spirit mediums, and ritual performance practices1 . By exploring and learning from traditional practices of magical rites, shamanistic dances, and ritual performances, contemporary Southeast Asian artists’ reinterpretation of traditional ceremonies serves in part to preserve these practices but more so to challenge assigned identities. This chapter proposes a turn in the discourse of contemporary performance art practices inwards by grounding it in the local and rooting it in the land/body of the ritual’s origins. Performance art is an artwork created through actions performed by the artist. According to Langenbach (1996/2016), “Performance art defies easy definition. As an aesthetic form it synergistically brings together theatre, dance, music, rhetoric, visual and electronic art” (p. 182). The artist’s body is the primary medium and the relationship between the audience and the artist/artwork is the key consideration in performance art (Coogan, 2011). From a Western art historical perspective, performance art arose from Futurist experiments in avant-garde theatre and choreography in the early 1900s and has been used as a weapon against art conventions ever since its inception (Goldberg, 1988). Hailed as “avant-garde’s avant-garde”, performance art has been the choice “expression of dissidents who have attempted to find other means 1

This research project interviewed ila and Zarina Muhammad. Research on Choi Ka Fai’s artworks were done through publicly available websites.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_4

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to evaluate art experience in everyday life” (Goldberg, 1988, p. 8). Its continuous denial of traditional disciplinary boundaries coupled with spontaneity and audience interaction made performance art a favourite strategy used to challenge orthodox art forms and cultural norms throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The 1980s saw an intensification of the commercialization of art and a counterattack in the form of a postmodern turn in the artworld. Gablik (1991) thus calls for a return to our ritualistic origins through performance art, “The remythologizing of consciousness through art and ritual is one way that our culture can regain a sense of enchantment” (p. 48). To Gablik (1991), performance art has the ability to reconnect humanity to our spiritual selves and find solutions to our self-destructive ways: We live in a culture that has little capacity or appreciation for meaningful ritual. Not only does the particular way of life for which we have been programmed lack any cosmic, or transpersonal dimension, but its underlying principles of manic production and consumption, maximum energy flow, mindless waste and greed, are now threatening the entire ecosystem in which we live. (p. 2)

From Goldberg’s (1988) and Gablik’s (1991) perspectives, performance art seems to have originated from visual arts’ incessant boundary pushing tendencies from a western art historical context. Dissanayake (1995) on the other hand, sees art production from a wider human evolutionary viewpoint. The use of the body as the primary medium to create works of art or as Dissanayake (1995) explains, ‘make special’ is as primal an instinct as breathing or eating, and is innate and fundamental to all humans. Dissanayake (1995) argued that ritual and associated art is a way for human beings to mark important events and was crucial in keeping the group/tribe/community strong, adding that this mode of art production has preceded modernism by tens of thousands of years. Insisting that art be seen beyond what she considers confining modernist European ideas from the past two centuries, Dissanayake (1995) argued that the radical position she offers is a species-centred view of art that has been evolutionarily and culturally important. Contemporary religious practices in Southeast Asia are layered because for many centuries, as a major trade route linking East Asia and the Mediterranean, merchants travelled through the Straits of Malacca, bringing not only precious commodities, but also religious texts, ritual practice and religious systems. The result of this strategic location is that virtually all the major religions of the world can be found in Southeast Asia. At the same time, one can also find indigenous religions in traditionally isolated portions of the region far from the trade routes (Southeast Asian Religions: History of Study | Encyclopedia.com, n.d.). One of the interesting results of this religious and cultural melting pot is that indigenous rituals, instead of being completely eradicated, would be subsumed under new religious practices2 and “become the source of new commemorative rituals having the power to bring people together in one place” (Telle, 2009b, p. 304). 2

For example, Islam was introduced to the island of Java in the sixteenth century, but before this the island had experienced a long period of Hindu-Buddhist influence. The new religion was easily accommodated to local practices centred on the veneration of ancestral spirits, and was thus highly syncretic, mixing animist and Hindu-Buddhist elements with Islam (Telle, 2009b).

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In this light, the performance practices of Zarina Muhammad, Choy Ka Fai and ila can be read as both a continuation of the postmodern trajectory of challenging traditional boundaries of art as well as a reconnection to past ritual and a revival of our ancient spiritual practices.

1 ila: Layering ila’s performances merges speculative fiction with factual histories, beguiling the viewer into realms of varying realities and truths. In her performance installation bekas, ila’s inscribed body was exposed to the tropical elements of sun, sand and sea (Figs. 1 and 2). The inscription contained conversations she had with Malay Singaporeans on what it means to be Boyanese, Buginese, Minangkabau, or Javanese. These inscriptions branded her momentarily, until the black ink slowly bled into the sea, stirring a longing for its return to uncover the lost narrative. It speaks of labelling a person without thought on its many iterations, it also speaks of loss as individual stories get washed away in the grand narratives that facilitate easy categorization. In bekas, ila discussed the idea of the Nusantara3 lineage: when we think about displacement or when we think about like… this idea of completion of identities, it’s not just the Malay, it’s also like people who… like migrants who came here from elsewhere like they have lost like huge chunks of their identities… when we did this work, bekas, we also did a workshop where we invited people to talk about the Nusantara. And so it’s not just Malays that came, like we had different people from different ethnic groups that came and… I was asking them how do you relate to the Nusantara?

The work asks pertinent questions regarding ones’ heritage thereby challenging hegemonic narratives of CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other), the racial categorizations used to effectively govern our multicultural population (Chua, 2016). All Singapore citizens have been categorized into Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other (CMIO) since birth. Citing the race riot in 1964, the government of Singapore has strict rules and regulations to protect its citizens against any breeches or violations that might disturb the racial harmony of the country, and has instituted Racial Harmony Day as an annual celebration (Chua, 2016). However, Chua (2016) claims this is a form of social control as any real conversations are closely monitored, preventing real exchanges and understanding in the citizens between and within various racial categories. This rigid blanket categorization has raised many questions on the topic of race and identity in Singapore, one of which is ila’s interest in the topic of the identity of illegitimate children4 :

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Nusantara is the Indonesian name of Maritime Southeast Asia. It is an Old Javanese term for “outer islands” and in Indonesia, is generally taken to mean the Indonesian Archipelago. In the Malay world, the term has been adopted to mean the Malay archipelago. 4 Illegitimate children in ila’s description also refer to orphaned or adopted children who have no knowledge of their ethnic background or ancestry.

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Fig. 1 bekas (2019), film still. (Image courtesy of ila)

Fig. 2 bekas (2019), film still. (Image courtesy of ila)

it all started out from my own personal experience, my own personal lineage because my mum is adopted, so she doesn’t know her real father and she’s born illegitimately and then she was adopted, so until now she doesn’t know her full lineage. And because she doesn’t know her full lineage, I also don’t know my full lineage. So I essentially look Indian but I do not have any kind of Indian ancestry… ancestral histories…that’s how I started to think about lineage…things like, ‘where are you from?’ ‘Singapore.’ ‘What are you? Malay?’ ‘Yeah, Malay.’ ‘But Malay where? From where?’ Then I’m like, ‘oh, my dad’s Malacca but the… my paternal grandma is from Java.’ ‘Which part of Java?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘How can you not know?’ And then suddenly you have all these like, hey, why don’t I know my own lineage?…why are we so disconnected from our lineage?

The idea of using her body to experience and challenge her own limitations and to push culturally enforced categories and boundaries is perhaps her way of getting

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comfortable with her own body. During the making of bekas, these boundaries also extend to the fact that she inhabits a female body in a culturally conservative society: the woman’s body especially here right, for example, you cannot go jogging topless. It’s as simple as that. We cannot go jogging topless. A man can go jogging topless. That’s the burden of the breasts. Like a man can be half nude in public and it’s okay, but we can’t, you know… I had to deal with this when I made bekas. Because bekas I was topless and there were some parts where I had to like pull down my underwear and went forward…I had to go through my own insecurities which was horrendous like, oh my god…I was so selfconscious…I was just like, ah, ila, you got to deal with this now if not the work is not gonna be made…So…then I was like okay, I’m just gonna…push my whole body in…I’m just a shape, I’m not a human body, I’m not a woman…So that’s how I mediated…my insecurity

There is also the danger of getting caught by the authorities. Under the Public Order and Nuisance Act 1906, any person who appears nude, in a public place; or in a private place and is exposed to public view, is guilty of an offence and can be fined up to $2,000 or imprisoned for up to 3 months or both (Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act 1906 - Singapore Statutes Online, 2022): …also because of safety. If I get caught, you know, I can be fined right…So that’s how I navigated this… this like… I wouldn’t call it shame. It’s just like condition, like you’re not supposed to show your body right?...so that’s where the genderless notion came about…

Race and colour, gender and body; through these performance works, ila’s body has become a contested site, a place of questioning and political potency. Forte (1990) argued that “women performance artists expose their bodies to reclaim them, to assert their own pleasure and sexuality, thus denying the fetishistic pursuit to the point of creating a genuine threat to male hegemonic structures of women” (p. 263). ila insists on putting her own body through extreme discomfort, risking public shaming to the point of challenging the boundaries of legality of indecent public exposure, all so that she can reclaim her body. Not an illegitimate body, not a Malay body, not an Indian body, not a gendered body. Her body. Period. The real power behind ila’s work does not lie solely in her pushing the boundaries of legality or reclaiming it to assert her own identity or even to challenge the conservative categorization that her environment has imposed on her. Rather, it is her ethic of care for her community that sets her apart. To ila, “essentially care is really taking time to think about how you can at least be there, be there in a way where… be present in a way to see what are the kind of things that you can do within your capacity and not try to let me save you”. ila explains that in the pragmatic Singapore mindset, caring usually equates to problem solving, “it’s always this solution-based kind of approach. But actually we don’t have to do that. We can just sit with it…what does it mean to take time”. Her approach to art making starts with taking time to listen to stories, to collect narratives: when I make anything or when I research one thing I’ve always work… by… so it’s like qualitative kind of interviews as well right, so I’ve always believed in that method in my practice. And so when I say I give the agency back to the audience or the public, for example, the public themselves have always been informing the work even when I’m making it, and giving it back to them in terms of either performance or the visual work itself is to continuously ask these questions that makes the work.

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When she saw injustices in the arts community, ila formed her own support system and created a loose network of care. From helping fellow artists to set up shows, to sharing resources in terms of arts funding and exhibition opportunities, ila was more interested in how one may move towards helping one another than her own artworks: Some of us were double minorities, all of us were minorities in our own ways and wanted to kind of like gather together to…kind of think about how we create resources, how we create support…how do we occupy space, you know. So one of the things that we practice is if someone has a show we would help out with the show, like setting up the show, coming to the show, documenting, if someone needs something we will…so there is this very fluid support system that we go to. In Singapore is like the more visible you are the more projects you get and then it takes away from people who are less visible…Like a curator wants to curate a show and someone would say, hey, this person haven’t had a opportunity at all, please consider curating this person. So we kind of try to shift…their focus to someone who is super deserving to have an opportunity or like a steppingstone…I always think of people that…never had an opportunity to show.

According to Gablik (1991), “Transformation cannot come from ever more manic production and consumption in the marketplace; it is more likely to come from some new sense of service to the whole–from a new intensity in personal commitment” (p. 26). ila’s contribution to the arts community in Singapore goes beyond bestowing her artworks on her viewers, winning a commission or selling her art: there’s a magic to things happening when you just allow it to happen. And that’s why resisting the capitalistic style of making…allows for all these things to happen. When I take time with it, when I let it sit, it can come in all forms. It can come from like a conversation with someone. It can come from something I see, it can come from an experience. Yeah. And then it just happens. Yeah… I don’t make sense of things only when I have to produce something. I try to make sense of it every time as I go on. And that I feel resist this notion of capitalistic production.

To ila, making art is synonymous with living, caring, building a violence free community, creating opportunities for the overlooked, speaking out in the face of injustice and taking time to listen intently to the voices of the unheard. Her performance ritual formalizes these intentions and makes public these pleas, beckoning answers from onlookers both seen and unseen.

2 Choy Ka Fai: Hybridization Choy Ka Fai, a Berlin-based Singaporean artist, describes himself as a supernatural dance explorer (Choy, 2021a). His research and practice led him to artistic intersections between dance, theatre, performance, sound art and mixed-media experimentations. Through his works, Choy proposes artistic entry points into shamanism and experiments with repetitive dance movements and sound vibrations to induce heightened states of consciousness or a state of trance. In his seminal work Inside the White Cube, O’Doherty (1999) described the ideal gallery as such, “The ideal gallery subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere

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with the fact that it is “art”” (p. 14), and added, “A gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church” (p. 15). In other words, the gallery has the power to confer any object the status of “art”, bestowing it freedom “to take on its own life”. The power of the white cube according to O’Doherty (1999) can be compared to religious spaces such as medieval churches and Egyptian tomb chambers. These spaces were designed to eliminate awareness of the outside world to create an illusion of eternity where space and time stood still, where nothing mattered but the art before you. The white cube renders the art within as timeless, magical, and sacred. However, as much as O’Doherty (1999) was able to accurately compare the white cube to sacred spaces, he was limited to a Western understanding of religious practices and spaces as quiet and contemplative. How would the white cube fare when it takes on religious practices from the East? Choy’s CosmicWander (2021b) is at first an antithesis of the white cube, with blasting techno music and polychromatic gyrating deities. However, upon closer examination, one realises that Choy has cleverly made use of the ‘white cube/sacred space’ to project his version of cosmic wonder upon unsuspecting viewers. Upon entering CosmicWander, exhibited at the Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark5 , one is hit by the sheer scale of the space. It is far from the pristine manicured white cube museum spaces that O’Doherty (1999) described. In fact, the Tanjong Pagar Distripark used to be an industrial warehouse space that boasts rough concrete walls and industrial scale vents along with high ceilings and large wide spaces, interrupted only by concrete support beams made more for pragmatic reasons rather than aesthetic ones. The artwork instead of being lost in the space, makes full use of the scale with large screens placed far enough apart to fulfil pandemic safe distancing criteria. Five television screens placed in portrait orientation spaced equidistance apart are filled with virtual avatars of Asian deities writhing to the beat of techno-pop. This is the exact opposite of what O’Doherty (1999) might expect from a spiritual experience. In the middle of the echoey space is a nest of 4 large projections facing inward, bombarding viewers with asynchronous video footages of ritual performances from all parts of Asia. Here, viewers get a glimpse of the polytheistic world of trance dance accompanied by loud drums and rhythmic chanting. Choy explores shamanic rituals across Asia in order to tap into the power of folk traditions to discover new possibilities of being. Having met over 50 shamans, Choy filmed dance rituals from the Buryats and Mongol Shamans of Siberia to Dutch Javanese Hybrid Spirit Mediums of Indonesia, connecting Gender Fluid Spirit Mediums in Vietnam to trance experiences in Chinese Indian Hybrid Spirit Mediums in the Singapore heartlands. Each footage has been ascribed a different element by the artist, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth. Metal or “The Third Prince” is a 3D game prototype where the viewer follows the Third Prince through a journey of Formosa in the year 2096. The Third Prince or 5

Tanjong Pagar Distripark is an industrial warehouse building on the edge of the shipping yard in Tanjong Pagar. It currently serves as the holding location for the Singapore Art Museum and several other private art galleries.

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Nezha is a protection deity in Chinese folk religion, usually depicted with a spear in hand. Choy’s Nezha wears a skintight latex suit, and the viewer’s only view of the deity is from the back so the focus is on his latex strapped rear-end. This depiction of Nezha would be considered by many to be highly irreverent. This is perhaps what Choy imagined would be the future of deities in Formosa, deduced from his observations of contemporary religious performance celebrations in Taiwan. Wood or ”Songs from the Dark Forest” looks at gender-fluid Vietnamese shamans performing dance rituals to Vietnamese folk tunes in the Dao Mau folk religion. Dao Mau (the way of the mother) worships mother goddesses through elaborate rituals that spellbind believers with candle dances and showers of cash. A stark contrast to communist Vietnam, Dao Mau rituals have been recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Water or “In Search of the Tragic Spirits” is a travelogue of the artist’s experiences with Buryat shamanic practices. Footages show the Buryats drumming and dancing in a ritual that enacts the return of their ancestral spirits (Ongon) as tragic vengeful spirits following decades of Soviet suppression. For the Buryats, these spirits are supernatural links to their forgotten past. Seen through the eyes of Buryat shamans, Choy sought to understand how economics and politics in modern Siberia influence their spirit world. Fire or “Deep Blue Night” follows Choy into Singapore’s heartland, Yishun. “The Deep Blue Night” is a documentary filmed during full moon in suburban Singapore of a ritual celebration and possession of Kuan Yin Kali, a Chinese Indian hybrid spirit medium or “dang-ki”. Choy describes them as, “a uniquely Singaporean phenomenon: feisty spirit mediums who worship both Chinese and Indian goddesses in their fight against evil” (Choy, 2021b). Indian goddess Kali (an icon of destruction, violence and sexuality) and Chinese goddess Kuan Yin (an embodiment of compassion) as well as a pantheon of deities from both Taoist and Hindu beliefs are summoned through the frantic beat of Indian chanting and high speed drumming inducing an infectious celebratory trance. Earth or “Postcolonial Spirits” is a documentary film footage of a trance-dance ritual from the Indonesian folk tradition Dolalak that originated from Purworejo Regency in central Java. The ritual draws on the layered history of Indonesia; A female Dutch Javanese hybrid spirit medium is seen dressed in colonial Dutch solider uniform, half imitating Dutch soldiers partying in army camps and half dancing in traditional Javanese dance movement, accompanied by live music with songs of their ancestral spirit and Islamic poems. These footages of possessed mediums and digital avatars, gender fluid and culturally hybrid, shamans and spirits, drumming and chanting, dancing and vibrating, surrounds and overlaps, circling and enveloping unsuspecting viewers into a hypnotic trance. Gablik (1991) discussed the power of ritual performances to help access otherwise inaccessible spiritual states: It is not a matter of trying to imitate an archaic cultural style so much as fostering psychic mobility–opening oneself up to a range of visionary experience in a culture whose mind-set has made the very idea of other worlds unthinkable. Ritual, drumming, monotonous chanting,

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repetitive movements, are no longer an integral part of modern life, but they are a sure way to make a direct hit on this “dreaming” aspect of the psyche. (p. 47)

Through this piece, Choy presents a rich layering of spiritual, religious and cultural practices that defies categorization. Choy (2021a) believes that by accessing these altered states one can achieve radical alterity which to him is a form of resistance to colonization and sameness: I believe in the concept of radical alterity in our contemporary world. Alterity is precious and transcendental. Without alterity, our human culture would be increasingly insular and impoverished with sameness. In any marginalized community like the shamanic culture in Asia today, there will always be a form of resistance, a resistance to colonization, resistant to mainstream culture, a resistance to sameness. (16:43)

Choy’s use of the notion of alterity is not new. Sabapathy (1995/2016) explained, “by its very definition alterity exemplifies the rejection of the establishment”, however, “the notion of alterity is governed by cultural, social and political circumstances particular to Singapore” and Sabapathy emphasised that it would be inappropriate to draw parallels with Euro-American situations. He continued, “Activism as such is constrained and circumscribed in Singapore by norms and stringent rules which are clearly delineated and unflinchingly applied…The situation in Singapore is not as stark or exclusive: it is intricate and entangled” (pp. 65-66). Indeed there has been run ins between institutions and individuals when these practices of alterity did not sit well with the authorities6 . In Choy’s case, his artistic pursuit of alterity although infused with what he describes as a sense of irreverence, and sometimes verging on the bizarre, it also sits in the grey area of religious practice, which in Singapore, is protected by the constitution. Lest one forgets, the Singapore Pledge states, “We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation”. This is what makes Choy’s practice so fascinating because it is at once a profession of alterity, the strange and exotic, and as such, a rejection of the establishment, but at the same time it is the everyday, a practice to be safeguarded and preserved, a cultural heritage.

3 Zarina Muhammad: Multiplicity “In Southeast Asia, performance art has offered artists a means to tap pre-colonial ritual traditions which were suppressed or denigrated during the colonial and early postcolonial period” (Langenbach, 1996/2016, p. 182). Zarina Muhammad is a Singaporean artist who examines ritual magic and myth-making in Southeast Asian traditions in her performance/installations, opening up discourses in the appropriateness 6

Sabapathy (1995/2016) recounted the collaboration between the National Arts Council and The Artists Village for the fringe programe of the 1992 arts festival. There is also the infamous 10-year sanction of performance art in Singapore from 1994–2004.

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of appropriation of these belief systems and issues of self-exoticizing. Her performance rituals create an open space for individuals to connect with these traditions in polysensorial ways: my practice is informed very much by research. I mean, I’ve been—as you know—working within this field of looking at magical, religious belief systems in Singapore, in Malaya, in the region…What does ‘magic’—I’m putting it in inverted commas—what does that mean in this- in this region? When, you know, one talks about black magic, for instance? It’s... It’s a lot more than just being an antithesis to white magic. It’s not so binary…I do feel like it exists as a spectrum. There are many overlaps and many intersections. And I suppose, also, the dichotomy of like, chaos, order, good and evil, perhaps, right, it’s-it’s also not so clearly delineated…

Zarina explained that she fell into magic and ritual practices quite randomly as people from different religious and cultural backgrounds, from Asia and Europe, started inviting her for cleansing ceremonies, purification ceremonies, and sharing stories that have passed through their families, very similar stories of ‘other worlds’. Zarina insists: my work is not to prove that it exists or not. I mean, I’m really interested in just- just the ways in which these stories, this knowledge, these beliefs are sort of like passed on, they get adapted, how they get, you know, unceremoniously removed from our consciousness…

In the performance lecture titled Lessons on Magic, Metamorphosis, Murder, Medicine and the Monstrous Vermin, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Zarina’s aim was to “destabilise the voice of the single researchers, single storytellers, single artists” by presenting this performance lecture as a devised collaborative work. Zarina began the performance like a conventional lecture, but she invited individuals to disrupt her and intervene during her lecture until it all fell apart. Zarina explained: I don’t also see my work as desiring to be too prescriptive or too didactic about what the audience or the viewer is supposed to experience. Where possible, if possible, it should be a space that’s open enough with-I suppose, enough sort of polysensorial ways for an individual person, regardless of whatever background, to sort of enter and then connect it to their own lived experience.

Zarina chose to present her research in the form of performance art because of its versatility in terms of meaning and expression: I feel that lots of things cannot be translated. A lot of words, I feel like, in-in many languages in Southeast Asia cannot be translated adequately in English, for instance. And maybe it’s best experienced through performance, or through sound, or through some sort of, you know, other form of expression or gesture. So, I think these are things which I’m very interested in exploring in the work that I do.

When researching spiritual practices in the region, one would often refer to Skeat’s (1900) seminal work Malay Magic: Being an Introduction to the Folklore and Popular Religion of the Malay Peninsula. However, Muhammad warned that one needs to be very critical of this book explaining that “this is an object from the colonial archive”. Rightly so, in fact, the book can be considered a perfect specimen of

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colonial oppression. The preface by Blagden (1900) referred to locals as “an alien people in a relatively low stage of civilization” (p. ix). Blagden (1900) proclaimed that the book, or “folklore of uncivilised races” (p. xi) is not worthless as it would help Englishmen in governing these “primitive” people, adding that “The Malay race, while far removed from the savage condition, has not as yet reached a very high stage of civilization, and still retains relatively large remnants of this primitive order of ideas” (p. xii). Zarina’s insistence on researching this topic through collecting narratives through, “hand-me-down, inherited wisdom, or objects, or like, pusaka, or lullabies, stories, that were passed down through generations of women...” can be seen as a form of rebellion to Eurocentric colonialist anthropological methods and to acknowledging a more regional native practice of oral history telling in establishing local spiritual identity. Zarina explains: I feel that very often we do need to be very critical when we’re reading this, you know, this-this object from the colonial archive, because it... The work itself, if you’ve read it, it’s-it’s also composed of fragments. It’s not very detailed, I feel, in terms of really going in depth, in detail with-you know, each sort of incantation or belief. It also... It... It reads likelike someone’s journal. And I suppose, you know, the- the documented, sort of like, spells or incantations—to me, I just-I read them as, as- as poems. I also read them as-as sort of entry points to thinking about questions of.... You know, do ghosts and Gods-can they-can they die? I do think they can. Like, once we stop speaking of them, once we stop making images of them, they also disappear from the consciousness. And... I mean, the book is filled with references to- to deities or figures that people today have no memory of. And I feel that partly has to do with our changing environment, our changing landscape with the- you know, very extractive, capitalist urbanisation that has occurred—especially in Singapore, where land is-where our hills are being levelled, land is being reclaimed. So I do feel that also, in a way, mirrors the unseen. So I guess... I mean, yeah, I’ve always been interested in-in just this interplay between like the seen and the unseen. In Bali, it’s... You know, they have a term for it—sekala and niskala... So the unseen is given- as equal importance to the seen.

Minh-Ha’s (1989) writing on postcoloniality and feminism emphasised the importance of oral traditions of women of colour, asserting that the people’s theory is more inclusive as opposed to the Western and male constructions of knowledge through anthropology. Similarly, Zarina draws from oral traditions or shared narratives and beliefs from South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia of deities or otherworldly figures, healing remedies, antidotes, poison or black magic and found parallels of what she sees as “divergent variants of the same metastory”. In her research, Zarina was disturbed by the inherent gender discrimination in these folktales. In re-telling these narratives, Zarina tries to uncover underlying discriminations so that they do not get unconsciously perpetuated. When referring to stories told to her by her Javanese grandmother about Nyai Roro Kidul, the Queen of the South Sea, Zarina said: she was often spoken about quite negatively, and I think that’s something which I’m quite interested in. Looking into......yeah, how a lot of these female figures-a lot of these female, otherworldly figures are often spoken about. Yeah. They’re slut-shamed, they are... Right? You know, all these kind of contemporary... The-the shadow side of-of gender politics is just imposed onto them. So, I guess it was... And I think this is a strategy which is quite common, I feel. Where you know, there’s a lot of like feminist reclamation of... Let’s say,

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4 Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms the Pontianak, for instance. I think she’s one of like, the most popular figures that artists, writers in the region have... You know, she’s captured the imagination... I would say like, Pontianak is like, the rockstar of Southeast Asian horror, right? And so I feel like... I think she’s a bit tired la, of... constantly making images of her, writing about her, making art about her... But also understanding her at—I feel—kind of, quite a cursory, superficial level.

In a podcast titled No Magic Here: Singapore Spirits hosted by Mrigaa Sethi, Zarina Muhammad and Vithya Subramaniam discussed how certain mythological figures inspire a lot of art but are also deeply problematic. Artists would have to take on the responsibility to ensure that enough care is given to translating these narratives: these figures are just seen at very surface value, that’s very... You know, like-like Kali, for instance. I feel like, you know, when she’s just simply understood as, okay, a figure of female rage and just that... And that... It becomes deeply unsettling. Yeah. Because she’s more than just this archetype…How do we ensure that there is care, there is a certain degree of responsibility as an artist to, again, think about the ways in which you’re translating this visually?

Zarina has been consciously trying to seek more feminine perspectives through female healers. She found that spiritual healers carry the same cultural baggage as anyone else. She actively sought out feminist, female and queer practitioners as they offered her more agency, whereas male healers were more prescriptive and fear-based, and some verging on violence: there was a point where I was quite consciously seeking female healers, because there was a point where I just kept interviewing or meeting with like, very male... As human beings, we all come with our flaws, we all come with our blind spots, we all come with our baggage. So, I feel like sometimes-very often, that was also very much embedded in some of their outlook of how-of what healing means… I was looking for a more feminist approach to it, because there was a point where it was very patriarchal. Some of the things that were shared with me was, you know, like, clearly very patriarchal perceptions of... Oh, “the reason why, you know, she’s so afflicted with... She can’t get wealth because she’s not married. She’s already above 25.” I’m just like... Uh, really? So...this was like... 3 years into the work where I was like, okay, I’m going to consciously like, seek out feminist, female, queer practitioners, individuals who could offer different perspectives or we could about, also, blind spots... We could talk about positionality…

Zarina described some male healers that she has encountered as: Very prescriptive, very fear-based… Also a degree of like-yeah, machismo being performed. Because I remember there was one guy who was bragging about how he had encountered these errant female spirits along his way and he just... The language he used was just very violent... Like, whack... “I whack them, beat them, I tied them...” Like... I was just like, okay, why are you saying this? …I’ve been approached by-by men asking me why I’m looking into the subject matter, because I’m a woman. Apparently my spiritual constitution—my semangat—is weaker, because I bleed and that makes me- that makes me more vulnerable.

However, the more female-centric specialists offered more: agency, you always have agency. That someone can say, “oh, this is the forecast. This is your...” You know, “this is...” If anyone does, you know, reads your fortune or what... But I remember one of them said, “you can always turn the ship around”. Yeah. These is just

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signposts, these are just like guidelines, but you don’t have to adhere to them—you have agency. So, that has stayed with me.

In Pragmatic Prayers for the Kala at the Threshold (2018-2019), in order to destabilise the single voice, Zarina hosted effigy making sessions as a way for others to contribute to the artwork (Fig. 3). This idea of being sensitive to her audience and their needs parallels ila’s concerns of care and community making: I had just gone through a major surgery in June, and the show opened in October, and so June to September was really like the crunch time…to work on this…A lot of my friendspeople were coming to visit me in my home at that point, in my studio…they would just sit with me while I was making these effigies. So...people started to say, “Can I join in? Can I make something as well?”…So, that then sort of evolved to become something which was embedded in the work as well. Where I was like, okay. You know, why don’t we work with this prompt of creating an effigy of a figure or any shape, form, guise of a protective figure for you...It can be zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, humanoid... It can be completely abstract…a figure that guards your threshold—what would they look like? So...I saw it as a shapeshifting space…I felt like it was a living, breathing, sort of animated space that needed, you know, like, people to come in and- and have this continual conversation and dialogue with.

Zarina’s respect and care extend beyond the human world as she recognises that there are multiple worlds that we occupy simultaneously. She believes that we are sharing space with non-human worlds, the bug on the wall, the plant in the room, the microorganisms in the air that is circulating and other-worldly beings. She not only respects their existence, she welcomes it. To her, some of these beings have been there even before she occupied the space. In fact, the gallery had to seek permission from these beings for her to occupy that space for the duration of the exhibition. That was one of the reasons they conducted ritual ceremonies for the exhibition:

Fig. 3 Pragmatic prayers for the kala at the threshold (2018–2019). (Image courtesy of Zarina Muhammad)

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4 Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms I also worked with a-with a medium. The curators suggested... this. (Laughs) Yes. That I work with a medium of their choice to- to harmonise the space... So he was in our budget as ‘cleaning services’…we had three ceremonies and he said, “okay, like, let’s you know, be clear” I said, okay, don’t worry, that this was also my intention that it’s not about chasing people out, it’s about harmonising...“It’s about informing” he said, “the residents that you’re coming in”…So I guess, the other sort of layer of that work is the various talismans that he had also placed in the space…There’s a false wall where my work was placed and there’s a storeroom behind. So he just said, “just try not to go in there”...“don’t leave things in there”. Because he said, he’s negotiated for them to take that space and not disturb the work. And...whether you want to believe this-this story...But, yes. The objects…in that space kept moving…I just said, “okay! You know, if you want to take up the space, this is yours”...

Zarina also held several performance rituals in that space as part of the artwork. The closing performance titled Ku tahu asal usul mu. Yang laut balik ke laut. Yang darat balik ke darat (2019), when translated to English means “I know your origins. Let those from the sea return to the sea. Let those from the land return to the land” (Fig. 4). It is the final verse from Ulek Mayang, a song from a ritualistic Malay dance performed to appease the spirits of the sea and was “a tribute to the points of forgetting between the pre-colonial and the post-colonial and an expression of gratitude to the cosmological worlds of our making–spaces and places which we respectively belong and ultimately return to” (A Closing Performance by Zarina Muhammad | Singapore Art Museum, n.d.). This ritual can be interpreted as Zarina’s way of praying for the spirits that allowed her to coexist in that space for the duration of the exhibition.

Fig. 4 Ku tahu asal usul mu. Yang laut balik ke laut. Yang darat balik ke darat (2019). (Image courtesy of Zarina Muhammad)

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Zarina’s interest in exploring more culturally conceived ideas of the senses or of sentience, and polysensorial ways of understanding our environment and ourselves within spaces demands a lot of care and deep respect for the subject matter. Through her research and practice, she often questions the limits of appropriation or adaptation as she is acutely aware that the subject matter is not a prop for art. A lot of her works are ephemeral as they are made with organic materials that can be returned to the earth so they are not commodified. She is constantly unlearning and relearning from her collaborators, the ritual specialists, the plants, the insects, the supernatural beings and the spaces they occupy. Perhaps we too can learn like Zarina, to always be open to knowledge from within and without our world.

4 Dream On Contemporary art in Southeast Asia reflects the diversity of cultures, histories, religions and rituals practiced within the region. This complex layering of seemingly contrasting belief systems presents opportunities for a multiplicity of representations. Perhaps it is the power of the ritual that draws the power of unseen forces, forces beyond the individual, that can be unleashed upon the gathering of a community to resolve conflict (Telle, 2009a), heal and bring people together (Telle, 2009b). Instead of sectoring and othering the unfamiliar, the performance rituals by Zarina Muhammad, Choy Ka Fai and ila, presents the rich plurality of faiths and multidimensional practices that co-exists within Southeast Asia. Their artistic practices draw from and reinterprets traditional practices of magical rites, shamanistic dances, and ritual performances that serves to not only preserve these practices but also to challenge assigned identities of race and gender, and present alternatives of symbiosis and genuine care for each other despite our differences. According to Langenbach (1996/2016), “All societies engage in some form of ritual performative behaviour… The purpose of ritual is to assure communication in moments of social crisis, when communication is most difficult to maintain. Rituals help societies to adjust to internal changes” (pp. 180-181). When Langenbach (1996/2016) wrote this, the art community in Singapore was going through some turbulent times, Josef Ng was being prosecuted for his ‘lewd’ performance Brother Cane, followed by a 10 year cessation of funding on performance art7

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Josef Ng’s performance art piece Brother Cane staged at an event on New Year’s Day of 1994, in which he bared his buttocks and trimmed his pubic hair to protest media coverage of an anti-gay operation in 1992. The report of his performance by The New Paper sparked a furore, and he was charged with performing an indecent act under the Penal Code by the police. The incident was condemned by the National Arts Council, which withdrew funding support for the scriptless art forms of performance art as well as forum theatre. The no-funding rule was lifted in 2004. (https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/curator-josef-ng-whose-1994-perfor mance-led-to-proscription-of-performance-art-joins).

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One would imagine that the 10 year sanction by the authorities on performance art would deter artists from ever setting foot in front of an audience. However, the power of performance art cannot be underestimated, “It is from this fluid and ambiguous relationship to the “real” that performance art obtains its unique power (when it is effectively presented) to move the audience and to solicit questions about the very nature of reality, human existence, consciousness and culture” (Langenbach, 1996/2016, p. 193). Today, performance art as a practice is thriving in the Singapore art scene.8 It is precisely this seduction of the body, the lost narrative, the mystical, the exotic, the magical, the supernatural, and the forbidden that keeps us wanting more: We are losing our sense of the divine side of life, of the power of imagination, myth, dream and vision. The particular structure of modern consciousness, centred in a rationalising, abstracting and controlling ego, determines the world we live in and how we perceive and understand it; without the magical sense of perception, we do not live in a magical world. We no longer have the ability to shift mindsets and thus to perceive other realities–to move between the worlds, as ancient shamans did. Ritual signifies that something more is going on than meets the eye–something sacred…The important thing is whether a shift in awareness occurs, creating a point of departure, an opening for numinous or magical experience that can never be obtained by cultivating intellectual skills; the world of magical perception has to be explored experientially, with wholehearted participation of the entire being. (Gablik, 1991, pp. 42-43)

This chapter explored the artistic practices of ila, Choy Ka Fai and Zarina Muhammad, and found that their practices blurred the boundaries of contemporary and ancient, performance and ritual, truth and fiction, the exotic and ancestral, the seen and unseen. Their works challenged hegemonic histories, belief systems and practices, and offered ancient rituals and oral history as more inclusive forms of spiritual practice and knowledge acquisition. Instead of looking westward for affirmation, their contribution in the discourse on contemporary art practices has grounded performance art in the local, rooting it firmly in the land/body of the ritual’s origins.

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ila’s bekas was one of the artworks showcased at Arus Balik – From below the wind to above the wind and back again, an exhibition at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore along with several prominent artists in the region. Choy’s CosmicWander is developed with the support of tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Singapore Art Museum and has been exhibited in Taipei, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Bangkok and Singapore. Zarina’s Pragmatic Prayers for the Kala at the Threshold was shown at the Singapore Art Museum’s President Young Talents 2018 exhibition and she has exhibited and performed in multiple independent as well as state funded exhibitions and events.

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Afterwords by Amanda Heng and Seng Yu Jin Conversation with Amanda Heng Chor Leng Twardzik Ching (CLTC) Amanda, thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with me. I remember when I first came back to Singapore after my studies 20 years ago, you were one of the first artists I met. I didn’t know anything about performance art because that’s not my practice. I made ceramics, I did installation art, but performance art was completely new to me. Coming from Canada, I think of performance art as being from the West and whatever Singaporean artists were making were carried on from there, we learnt it from there. But we had this conversation and I distinctly remember that I asked you about the performance art scene in Singapore and through that conversation, you said that performance art is not from the West. We’ve seen performance art happening in our daily lives since we were children. You talked about the street performers, the ritual performances that we were exposed to as children. That really sparked an interest in me in how local performance art and local art forms developed that was separate from the West. That’s why I thought it was important to capture your thoughts on this topic when I wrote this chapter. So, my first question is, Amanda, do you think that performance art existed locally or in the region before performance art became an art form in the West? Amanda Heng (AH) Yeah, well, I’m so glad although I can’t remember that conversation from 20 years ago, but when I got the question from you, I was thinking about that, too. Performance existed in all civilizations, every culture, primitive or tribal, performance existed. In that sense, it’s not only from the West. Performance art, the term itself is derived from the visual art practice that developed from Western art history, and its heyday was in the 60 and 70s. Likewise, rituals existed, like performance art. In fact, ritual itself is a form of performance, they are in our everyday life, whether in tribal cultures, or Indian, Hindu, Chinese or American culture. I feel that art is never created in a void. Although they’re created by individual artists but individual artists each have an accumulated memory bank. Art often addresses profound and universal emotions, weaknesses or strengths, sadness, sorrows, it’s all from the human being. So, in that sense, they are universal, but at the same time, they are also specific because it comes from an individual. Human beings are different from animals because we are able to think, to differentiate, to make judgments, hence, these ideas about specificity and universality and our belief that art created by an artist is a unique piece of work, even though we draw from the same heritage. I am arguing for an approach that does not turn them into binary, oppositional positions, that it has got to be traditional or contemporary. In fact, everything can be traced and we artists are just part of a whole. To say that what I created is original would be to me arrogant.

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I think the role of the artist is to draw from whatever we already have from our heritage and find new meanings so as to cater to the needs of the contemporary world. CLTC That’s quite interesting, because when I was young, I would visit the dang-ki (Hokkien term for Chinese spirit medium) with my grandmother, but I don’t do that anymore and there are not many dang-kis left. So as that tradition dies, there’s this rise of performance art. Do you think that is a reaction to what is happening in our society today as we move away from tradition, we’re always seeking something new, but there is still this connection to tradition? AH The practice of dang-ki is still very much alive in Chinese temples today. I don’t think this heritage will be diminished because human beings need that continuity, no matter how technologies develop. For example, you can have the most efficient robot, but they can’t make judgment, at least today. That’s the difference between a robot and a human being. So, I think, as long as human beings exist, we need that continuity, that connection. It’s only having these connections that makes you realise the depth of civilization, the depth of human existence. That became part of our confidence. CLTC If these rituals and performance art came from our lived experiences from the past, what do you think is the trajectory for contemporary performance art? And how do you think we can recognize it as a local or regional form of performance art that is different from the Western tradition? AH Performance art is an experimental art form that works with the real body in real time and real space. It introduces the time space and offers the experience to the audience in real time instead of the finished art object for appreciation. Performance art often engages the audience in active participation and creating a space for developing inter-cultural exchanges and establishing communities. Artworks that address the local or regional realities and using materials produced locally often show the difference from performance works made in the western tradition. Here are some cases for reference: Zhang Huan’s 12 Square Meters9 (1994). Wong Hoy Cheong’s Lalang10 (1994). 9

In 12 Square Meters (1994), Zhang Huan coated his naked body in fish oil and honey and sat in a dirty and smelly public toilet in Dashancun Village for an hour. The performance was a social commentary on the squalid living conditions in this poor suburb of eastern Beijing. http://www.zha nghuan.com/wzMF/info_74.aspx?itemid=1138 10 In Lalang (1994), Wong Hoy Cheong spent two months growing and nurturing lalang plants outside Pusat Kreatif of Balai Seni Lukis Negara (National Art Gallery), Kuala Lumpur, and then sprayed them with weedkiller, slashed and burnt them as part of a performance piece. https://aaa. org.hk/en/collections/search/library/wong-hoy-cheong-lalang

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Fig. 5 Home service (2003). (Image courtesy of Chor Leng Twardzik Ching)

Amanda Heng, Chor Leng Twardzik Ching and Vincent Twardzik Ching’s Home Service11 (2003) (Fig. 5). Amanda Heng’s Let’s Chat 12 (first performed in 1996). Here are some street art/performance references: Traditional Chinese xiangsheng (cross talk), shuoshu (storytelling) and tanchang (to sing and play). The sound of mobile street food sellers calling out melodically the name of the food they are selling. The old man playing harmonica and dancing with wooden clogs in Orchard Road (featured in Tan Pin Pin’s film Singapore Gaga) (Fig. 6). I think the reason we have this differentiation between the West and our part of the world is because whatever was recorded was by a dominant language, or culture. So we say art history started from the West, but that’s not true because art history also started in China a long time ago, in India a long time ago, in Egypt a long time ago. The fact that we are influenced by the West is because we receive our art education from the West. So, whatever we learn from the texts were written in that language, by that culture. Once you take something out from somewhere, out of context in a way, then you need to come back to your own context, address your own local original sphere. For example, when we talk about feminism and there’s always a belief that it is the influence of the West, but if you look at traditional opera, you will see that although the term feminism was never used, there were artistic expressions of women, women’s narratives 11

Home Service (2003) is a collaborative performance where Amanda Heng, Chor Leng Twardzik Ching and Vincent Twardzik Ching offered domestic services such as washing, cleaning, carpentry, plumbing, gardening, meal preparation, child and pet care, in exchange for dialogues on perceptions of housework. 12 In Let’s Chat, Heng uses a mundane everyday activity, the plucking of beansprouts, often a gendered household activity, to illicit casual conversations with viewers.

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Fig. 6 Film still from Singapore Gaga (2005). (Image courtesy of Tan Pin Pin)

about their hardships, about equality, isn’t that already an awareness? Feminist awareness? It’s just that it hasn’t been recorded in the same language. That does not mean that it didn’t happen. When I was researching into feminism, using my own context, my own life and my mom’s life, I began to realize that we have a very different culture, background and historical context. How do I address that? Even though I have a Chinese heritage, but I’m not from China mainland so I have to address being a migrant in Singapore. We’re not only talking about nationality, but also ethnicity and space. We have to be more aware of these differences. Our discussion is not arguing for who came first, but it is important to be aware of this power relation and how the dominating power of their language can mislead our understanding and perceptions. I think this is an important issue to note when thinking about establishing our own confidence. CLTC What is your take on rituals in your own work? AH Rituals are important references in my life and art practice. I have great interest in the many rituals in festivals, funeral wakes, prayers, parades, ceremonies, processions, commemorations and celebrations… I am impressed by the meanings and interesting content and processes, and how it is carried out with consciousness, sincerity, respect and commitment. I see the strong belief and the commitment in the practitioners and participants. In how they solemnly prepare, observe, practice repeatedly with the same sincerity.

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Ritual is a form of performance and often presented as a total artwork that involves the collaboration of all kinds of artistic art forms. It is a platform for meeting with people, making connections and having a sense of belonging, a space for togetherness, where the collective effort and energy are channelled to create memorable experiences and fond memories. I am drawn to rituals that require deep concentration and long durations with simple repetitive acts. They challenge my strength, patience, perseverance and ability to focus. But when the right pace and rhythm is found, the process becomes meditative and poetic, and this brings peacefulness, calmness, tranquillity and fulfilment. I see everyday activities as rituals/performances/artworks in my art practice. The activities are being carried out by the body and changes with the growth of the body (the internal world) over time and space (different reality) and the encounters with other people and the external world. When my art and life are merged, the practice becomes an on-going and open-ended life-long performance art project. Here are some examples of my on-going projects: Another Woman (1996), Dear Mother (2008) and Twenty Years Later (2014), are collaborations with my mother since 1995. They are about the relations between two women and the experiences and processes in their lives in real time. Let’s Walk projects since 1996 including Let’s Walk (1997), Walk the Stool (1999), Let’s Walk Some More (2010), Let’s Walk Revisited (2018), and Every Step Counts (2019). The everyday walk is concerned with reaching the destination. The walking performance is about the experience of the walk itself. You are in a different state of being during the walking performance with consciousness and deep concentration. The route and site for the walk creates the context and adds meaning to the walk/act. It creates a space for inner dialogues and evokes awareness of hidden intangible strengths, values and emotions, such as, vulnerability, fear, joy, spontaneity, deep focus, perseverance, courage…when the walk is presented in real-life (public spaces), it engages with the everyday/general public who chance upon the performance. These encounters and the audience’s response become part of the performance. Singirl projects since 2000. Singirl is a persona I created as part of a performance to look into issues of identity politics, colonisation, hierarchical structures and power relations in society. Singirl exists in prints, online projects, photographs, videos, animation, installations and live performances. CLTC How then do you think we can move forward with educating local historians, artists, the public, about developing a local vocabulary for contemporary art?

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AH I think it’s a very big question because it takes years, hundreds of years, for people involved, for it to show a unique Singaporean approach to art or culture. Obviously, it cannot come about from all those very touristic kinds of made-up phenomena, like, oh this fruit is from here so it’s Asian or it’s Singaporean, that kind of thing. CLTC So in other words, it will take time. AH It will take time and effort. I feel that if you are looking for some breakthrough, for something new, it requires you to address and understand the old or the traditional, something that has been done before. That’s how you know you’ve made something new, isn’t it? Then whatever you make, you can claim that it is something different from the old. So, for me it’s a required process of a creative person whether it is in terms of material approach, thinking, attitudes or whatever. CLTC It requires a study of history, whether it is your own cultural history, if that’s what you’re interested in, or a deeper understanding of art or maybe even a wider understanding of what art is. AH Exactly. Yeah, that goes without saying that if you’re an artist, a creative person, you must have this knowledge. One would expect you to understand what it means, otherwise you will be just making art as a hobby perhaps. The contemporary and the traditional is always an interesting issue. I remember, when the Asian Art Museum was doing research for the Fukuoka Triennial about 20 years ago, their focus was on Asia. When they went to Tibet, they found that the Tibetans don’t have contemporary art, at least not contemporary art from a Western perspective. They ended up acknowledging religious performances, religious ornaments, and the architectural forms of altars as their art. So, who are we to use criterion from another context to measure Tibetan culture? That had a great impact on me when I began to understand the different contexts and the power relations between civilizations. And it was important for them to acknowledge different iterations of ‘contemporary’. Another thing about the contemporary is that, if you are genuinely interested and look more intensively, you would see history is everywhere in our everyday life (like the dang-ki you mentioned earlier). They are the indicators of time, and they give us a deeper sense of the present/now. The question for us is, how do we establish our own confidence, our own self confidence in our own history and cultural heritage? The history of this island itself…existed a long time ago, and it has been an open port even before

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the British took over. So it has that importance. In other words, these dynamic cultural exchanges happened way before the British. CLTC The melting pot started long ago. AH My suggestions of education would then be apart from studying the grand narrative, go out to individual artists and…research…their work. I think one important thing is of course, being recorded…anything that’s being recorded has a chance of being carried on…That’s why the idea of archive is very important. WITA13 started as that idea to archive women’s work…It’s a process. You have to give it time…and of course with critical analysis and research and discussion. A more useful way is to do close readings of individual cases, to provoke debate, raise critical questions and challenge assumptions through discussion. And for that to happen, you need to create spaces for independent thinking and critical practices. We need to look beyond the mindset that history is a baggage and blockage to development. A more important question to ask is how can we turn our history and heritage into rich resources for establishing our own values and developing a psyche that is uniquely Singapore.

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Heng played a significant role in establishing WITA (Women in the Arts), an artist-run collective that manages an archive of women artists in Singapore.

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Seng Yu Jin The Mystical Turn: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia In The Return of the Real, Hal Foster (1996) investigates what he terms as the “ethnographic turn” in art emerging from the 1960s. He observed how anthropologists and artists have misunderstood the methodologies and approaches from their respective fields of knowledge production. In particular, the assumption that the “other” and the site of artistic and political transformation is always somewhere else, repressed and reduced to binaries such as the postmodern artist in the postcolonial. The subaltern and subcultural are rigidly framed as “alterities” that primarily seek to subvert the dominant culture, falling into the trap of “ethnographic self-othering” that leads to a slippery slope of self-absorption, essentialised labelling, stereotyping, and selfexoticism. The allure of primitivism that essentialises an imagined and projected purity, unchanging and timelessness of an “othered” culture brings to the fore many challenges that artists adopting research methodologies drawn from ethnography need to be aware of and in a self-reflexive manner. The participant-observer as an ethnographic principle used by artists as a research methodology risks the artist being an invasive agent to communities if they are not invited and welcomed. “Ethnographic ventriloquism” is another ethnographic approach that attracts criticism, based on the assumption of being able to speak not only about a culture but from within it (Rutten et al., 2013). How are these critiques by Foster of ethnographical approaches adopted by contemporary artists in the ethnographic turn relevant to the artistic practices of the three artists-artists Zarina Muhammad (henceforth referred to as Zarina), Choy Ka Fai (henceforth referred to as Choy) and ila-discussed in the chapter, ‘Ritual Forage: Finding the Self in Mystical Realms’? In ‘Ritual and Forage’, all three artists were described as delving “into the mystical realms of magic, spirit mediums, and ritual performance practices. By exploring and learning from traditional practices of magical rites, shamanistic dances, and ritual performances, contemporary Southeast Asian artists’ reinterpretation of traditional ceremonies serves in part to preserve these practices but more so to challenge assigned identities. This chapter proposes a turn in the discourse of contemporary performance art practices inwards by grounding it in the local and rooting it in the land/body of the ritual’s origins”. Through their performance practices grounded in spiritual practices and rituals, ila, Choy, and Zarina offer reflexive approaches to complicate Foster’s critique of the ethnographic turn utilising their artistic strategies based on the layering of factual and fictional narratives, irreverent hybridisation and the multiplicity of worlds that we live in and with. My response to ‘Ritual Forage’ brings into conversation Mohammad Din Mohammad (b.1955–2007) (henceforth referred to as Mhd Din), a Singaporean Malay artist whose artmaking while rooted in Sufi metaphysics, was also simultaneously a traditional healer, a silat guru, and an artist whose practices intersected with theatre and music. Mhd Din was an artist who defied easy categorisation, and bears this affinity with Zarina, Choy and ila who similarly bring elements of the

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spiritual into their performative practices in different ways. Voyage (Fig. 7) by Mhd Din is an assemblage of a wayang kulit puppet on a boat is a visible manifestation of our journey between the realms of the physical and metaphysical worlds that makes visible the seen and unseen, as well as the known and unknown, serving as a critical guide to navigate Foster’s critique of the ethnographic turn focusing on self-absorption in relation to the performative practices of Zarina, Choy and ila. Self-Othering: Becoming a Visible ‘Other’ The pernicious impact of ‘Othering’ in humanity’s histories can be seen in the construction of reductive racial stereotypes, and exoticising in particular, nonWestern cultures. The marginalisation of ‘othered’ have led to the discrimination of the LGBTQ community, Islamophobia as a label associated irrationally with terrorism, and at its worst, the dehumanisation of entire ethnic groups leading to genocides as seen in the holocaust committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. It is, however, possible for artists to truly embrace these self-assigned labels Fig. 7 Mohammad Din Mohammad, Voyage, mixed media, 110.7 × 82 × 20 cm, 1994, Collection of SAM. (Image courtesy of SAM)

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to produce artworks to parody and subvert them by becoming a visible ‘other’. These forms of artistic activism by feminist collectives such as the Guerrilla Girls have shown how effective their artistic strategies have been in revealing corruption and structural discrimination in societies. The practice of ‘self-othering’ derived from ethnography is another valuable way for artists to mitigate the dehumanising effect of ‘othering’ by being closer to the ‘other’ and personalising their struggles and identifying with their marginalised status. Transforming into a highly visible ‘other’ through ‘self-othering’ is a powerful artistic strategy but also one that could fall into the trap of self-absorption, self-fashioning and narcissism as cautioned by Foster. Choy’s extensive research for CosmicWander involved interviews of over 50 shamans across Asia from gender-shifting shamans in Vietnam to the Kuan Yin Kali, a hybrid spirit medium or tang ki supposedly found only in Singapore, worshipping both the Indian and Chinese deities, Kali and Kuan Yin respectively. His interdisciplinary practice grounded in shamanism, and rituals intersect with theatre, dance, and even virtual avatars of Asian deities dancing to techno-music. Choy’s video installation comprising of 5 television screens and 4 large projections that surround the audience with techno-sounds and rhythmic chanting, as well as video documentation footages of ritual performances from different parts of Asia provides an ethnological perspective into these ritualistic practices through interviews with the shamans. The audience is both simultaneously aware of how these shamanistic practices are being ‘othered’ and ‘self-othered’ at the same time. Immersing the audience in the video installation in a mystical, almost trance-like experience enables a moment of ‘selfothering’ that closes the distance between the realms of the physical and spiritual worlds. Unlike Choy who adopts ‘self-othering’ as a way to overcome prejudices and even ignorance with the aim of bringing the audience closer to the ‘other’, Mhd Din has always been the ‘other’, making it highly visible by literally living and breathing Sufism in his everyday life. For Mhd Din, Sufism is a mystical stream of Islam that seeks to understand the inter-relatedness of all things to create a unifying system in search of the divine. Sufism forms the theoretical foundation that informs his practice not only as an artist but also his way of life. As a self-identified practitioner of Sufism, Mhd Din used this label in a self-aware, critical, consistent and authentic manner that enabled him to defy assimilation into easily definable categories, while Choy embraced alterity that is also at times exotic and strange, maintaining an uneasy balance in tension between ‘self-othering’ and self-absorption. From Within and at a Distance: A Mystical Approach The assumed entitlement of ethnographers to speak for and within the communities and cultures that they are researching on is a form of ‘ethnographic ventriloquism’ raised by Clifford Geertz (1988). The privileging of ethnographers as unquestioned and singular authors of their texts derived from their research through methods such as participant-observation and oral interviews contributes to unequal power relations between the artist as ethnographer and their subjects. Zarina’s research into ritual practices in Southeast Asia realised as a collaborative performance lecture in Lessons on Magic, Metamorphosis, Murder, Medicine

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and the Monstrous Vermin, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis decenters her own authorial voice by inviting participants to intervene and disrupt her narrative. From her observations of how myth-making is itself dominated by male perspectives, she destabalises it by including queer and female healers whose emphasis on agency and empowerment to the individual is a marked difference in attitude from some of the male healers she encountered. The reflexivity of Zarina acknowleges the multiplicity of worlds that we co-inhabit and share with, whether spiritual, natural or human whereby one need not only speak from within, but also beside at a distance through collaborations with others that complicates the singular authorial voice and moderates the possibilities of ethnographic ventriloquism. Slippages between speaking from within (through her conduct of rituals) and about (effected by her research that involved the collecting of oral histories circulated and passed in the form of myths and stories over generations) inform Zarina’s artistic practice that is grounded in a deep respect for the coexistence of all things. The ephemerality of her performances that rarely leave traces challenges the need for a physical manifestation of her work that risks being commodified. This approach towards ephemerality differs from Mhd Din whose artistic practice involves the use of spiritually-charged artefacts made into assemblages, as seen in his work titled, Singakuda (a hybrid of Malay words: singa-lion and kuda-horse) (Fig. 8) comprised of a skull, a horse’s tail, a repurposed computer stand for the body, four coconuts, a Balinese lion and a wayang golek at its legs with an old chopping board as its base with horse shoes. According to Mohammad Din (1999), this work was: Based on the concept of the manifestation of the Almighty, the creation continues in art even after the death has occurred many times. All the artifacts, antiques, found items, and collectibles get a second chance to live and breathe. The new life awaiting them comes in many forms. They can live within one, two or three lives, or even more, as the creation takes place. The horse can now enjoy audiences instead of grass. The wayang kulit can entertain with or without its regular dalang.

The possible absence of the dalang or the master puppeteer who manipulates the shadow puppet and is also the narrator in Singakuda decenters the dalang as the

Fig. 8 Exhibition views of Mohammad Din Mohammad: The Mistaken Ancestor, National Gallery Singapore, 2021, featuring objects, assemblages, artworks, healing materials and medicinal manuscripts collected by Mhd Din and Hamidah Jalil. (Images courtesy of the National Gallery Singapore)

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singular author and allows for the wayang kulit to gain its own agency to create its own meaning. The artifacts gain multiple lives of their own imagined in different forms, aligning with Mdh Din’s mystical approach based on Sufism. As observed by curator, Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Mhd Din’s mystical approach “sought to highlight how the repurposed objects in his assemblages, despite their diverse and contrary forms, could be adapted in service of the One unique reality from which all other reality derives. In other words, it did not matter what material was scrutinised, as all paths lead to the same place: the Divine creator” (Shabbir Hussain and Teo, 2021). Sufism’s philosophy of the interconnectedness of everything that eventually leads to the divine creator mystically binds the artist to the artwork and subsequently, the audience. For Mhd Din, he speaks from within the metaphysical world of Sufism without ever stepping outside it because his artistic practice, worldview and life are one and the same. The diversity of artefacts that he uses to make his assemblages are theoretically grounded in Sufism that eventually leads to the achievement of Oneness with God. Layering Narratives: The Galeri Mystique In a multicultural society like Singapore, the country’s citizens have been categorised into one of these 4 races (CMIO, Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other) since birth as a way for the state to govern and manage the country’s multiracial society. ila’s undermining of CMIO as a hegemonic national narrative that has constructed and reinforced racial categories in Singapore through her performance installation, titled bekas is exemplary of how the category of ‘Malay’ as an ethnic category does not necessarily include the diverse cultural identities such as the Bugis, Sudanese, Javanese, Minangkabau, and Boyanese who are not only ‘Malay’ but also part of the broader Austronesian-speaking peoples that stretch from Madagascar in the West to the Easter Island, in the East focusing on three regions: East Asia including Taiwan (Formosa) and Japan (Ryukyu islands), the Maritime Southeast Asia, and the Oceania (Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Pacific Islands). ila explores the concept of the ‘Nusantara’ and not just the Malays, but how other ethnic communities relate to this idea of regionalism associated with the Majapahit Empire (13−16th century) that is regarded geopolitically and culturally as the Malay Archipelago. Undermining rigid racial categories that reduces culturally complex individuals to a singular and essentialised identifier through her body. Politicising her body as a contested site by uncovering layers of interconnecting and hybridised identities releases the artist from cultural essentialism when engaging with the shifting identities of marginalised communities. Galerie Mystique (1975–1990) (Fig. 9) was a museum to trace the histories of Islamic aesthetics in the Malay world. Conceived by Mhd Din together with his wife and artist, Hamidah Jalil in their three-room public housing that also served as their family home, it came to house hundreds of artefacts collected over the years such as keris (daggers), textiles, tourist souvenirs, medicinal manuscripts, and other precious objects from his many travels to the Malay Archipelago. For the Galeri Mystique, he compiled 118 Southeast Asian artefacts with traces of Islamic motifs, at times

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Fig. 9 Mohammed Din Mohammad, Singa Kuda, 1996–1999. Skull and tail of a horse, coconut, old carvings and computer stand, 90 × 160 × 30 cm. National University of Singapore Museum collection. (Image courtesy of the National University of Singapore Museum)

hybridised with the Hindu-Buddhist cultures of the region manifested in a wide range of material culture including wood carving, ceramics, textiles and leathercraft. He proposed and lobbied hard to the Mayor of Malacca to establish a museum for his collection to no avail. While the Galeri Mystique contained a density of Southeast Asian artefacts embodying the region’s multi-layered and hybridised cultures for exhibition and study, ila’s body performed as a contested site unravels these layers of cultural boundaries to make visible the problematic categories of race, gender and ethnicity. Both artists seek to question rigidly constructed categories and labels that limit our understanding of how hybridised, entangled and interconnected our identities and cultures are in Southeast Asia. Voyaging into the Mystical Circling back to Voyage as a guide in the critique of the ethnographic turn, it is worthwhile to return to Mhd Din’s writings on this work: ‘Voyage is a visible manifestation of the human journey into the metaphysical world […] The path we choose to take on our spiritual journey. It may be likened to a spirit guide, the magical, the mysterious from within that transports us to other realms. The journey to the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown, and the darkness in which we must exist until we embark upon the journey that will illuminate it all’. Foster’s concerns about having too much distance vis-à-vis too little reminds us that ethnographic approaches in artmaking can be vital for questioning the ‘self’ in relation to the ‘other’ to question assumptions through from which categories of race, ethnicity, gender and ‘art’ are constructed. These artists challenged these assumptions including categories like ‘pre-modern’,

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‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ art through the mystical that embraces belief systems, knowledges, rituals and spiritual practices. It is a journey that Mhd Din, Choy, ila and Zarina have taken to explore the unseen worlds of the metaphysical, magical and spiritual as forms of knowledges and spiritual practices rooted in this region, and often marginalised in the world currently dominated by science, rationality and capital.

References Interviews Cited ila, 19th September 2020. Zarina Muhammad, 21st December 2020.

Other References A Closing Performance by Zarina Muhammad | Singapore Art Museum. (n.d.). https://www.singap oreartmuseum.sg/art-events/events/a-closing-performance-by-zarina-muhammad Blagden, C. O. (1900). Preface. In W. W. Skeat, Malay magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay peninsula. Macmillan. Choy, K. F. [CosmicWander神樂乩]. (2021a, January 30). SUPERNATURAL DANCE EXPLORER | A LECTURE BY CHOY KA FAI [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T 5MYLhjME Choy, K. F. (2021b). CosmicWander: Destinations. https://cosmicwander.info/Singapore. Chua, B. H. (2016). Multiculturalism in Singapore: An instrument of social control. Race & Class, 44(3), 58–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396803044003025 Coogan, A. (2011). What is Performance Art?. Irish Museum of Modern Art. https://imma.ie/mag azine/what-is-performance-art/ Dissanayake, E. (1995). Homo Aestheticus: Where Art comes from and why. University of Washington Press. Forte, J. (1990). Women’s Performance Art: Feminism and postmodernism. Performing feminisms: Feminist critical theory and theatre, 251–269. Gablik, S. (1991). The reenchantment of Art. Thames & Hudson. Goldberg, R. (1988). Performance Art: From Futurism to the present. Abrams. Kee, J. (2011). Introduction contemporary Southeast Asian Art: The right kind of trouble. Third Text, 25(4), 371–381. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2011.587681 Langenbach, R. (1996/2016). Looking back at Brother Cane: Performance Art and state performance. In J. Say & Y. J. Seng (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 178–95). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Minh-ha, T. T. (1989). Woman, native, other: Writing postcoloniality and feminism. Indiana University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16xwccc Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act 1906 - Singapore Statutes Online. (2022, October 28). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/MOPONA1906?ProvIds=P1IIIO’Doherty, B. (1999). Inside the White Cube: The ideology of the gallery space (expanded). University of California Press.

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Sabapathy, T. K. (1995/2016). Contemporary Art in Singapore: An introduction. In J. Say, & Y. J. Seng (Eds.), Histories, practices, interventions: A reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (pp. 62–71). Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Skeat, W. W. (1900). Malay magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay peninsula. Macmillan. Southeast Asian Religions: History of Study | Encyclopedia.com. (n.d.). https://www.encyclope dia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/southeast-asian-religionshistory-study Telle, K. (2009a). Swearing innocence: performing justice and ‘reconciliation’ in post-New Order Lombok. In B. Bräuchler (Ed.), Reconciling Indonesia Grassroots agency for peace (pp. 57–76). Routledge. Telle, K. (2009b). Spirited places and ritual dynamics among Sasak Muslims on Lombok. Anthropological Forum, 19(3), 289–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664670903278411

Afterword References Foster, H. (1996). The return of the real: Art and theory at the end of the century. MIT Press. Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives: The anthropologist as author. Stanford University Press. Mohammad Din, M. (1999). The mystical approach towards the creation of the hidden self and singakuda. ms, Singapore. Rutten and van. Dienderen, A., & Soetaert, R. 2013 van Rutten, K., Dienderen, A., & Soetaert, R. (2013). Revisiting the ethnographic turn in contemporary art. Critical Arts, 27(5), 459−473. Shabbir Hussain, M., Teo, H. M. (2021). Something new must turn up. National Gallery Singapore.

Chapter 5

Soundscapes of Our Lives: Lessons from Singapore Contemporary Artists Chee-Hoo Lum

1 Situating Soundscapes If we devote time and space to listen deeply to the sounds around us, our lived and living cultures will unravel before us in their multitude of possibilities and perspectives. The genesis of soundscape can be attributed to the pioneering work of composer and naturalist, Schafer (1977), whom Sterne (2013) argues: implies a way of listening to compositions—a rapt, total attention—and a sense of the world that is much like a compositional work. A soundscape is a totality, whether we consider that totality something small, like a recording, or something huge, like the entire sonic airspace of a town, country or culture (p. 191).

In Schafer’s (1973) words: My approach has been to treat the world soundscape as a huge macrocosmic composition which deserves to be listened to as attentively as a Mozart symphony. Only when we truly learn how to listen, can we make effective judgements about the world soundscape (p. 32).

According to Schafer (1977), the key components of soundscape consist of keynote sounds, signal sounds, and soundmarks (pp. 9–10). As a music educator, Schafer saw the urgent need to develop a “sonological competence” in children as he believed that children were losing their listening abilities due to the dominance of visual modalities in society (Boucher & Moisey, 2019). Schafer developed and promoted the use of graphic notation, soundscapes and ‘ear cleaning’ through a number of multimedia projects and writings (The Composer in the Classroom (1965), Ear Cleaning (1967), The New Soundscape (1969), and The Rhinoceros in the Classroom (1975)), calling for arts educators to focus on discovering the creative potential of children to make their own music, to attune students to the sounds of the environment and making critical judgments leading to improvements to the soundscapes of the world, and to allow the arts to meet and develop harmoniously together (Boucher & Moisey, 2019). Environmental researchers taking on the cue from pioneers like Schafer, posit that soundscape can also be viewed as the “acoustic equivalent of the landscape…human’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_5

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perception of the acoustic environment, in context” and consists of “wide spectrum of sounds, encompassing music, natural sounds and urban sounds” (Erfanian, Mitchell, Kang, & Aletta, 2019, p. 2). Research in urban studies and acoustic ecology have indicated links between soundscapes and the development of well-being (Payne, 2011; Raimbault & Dubois, 2005), suggesting also for a need to deepen the understanding of soundscapes through an examination of socio-cultural contexts (Fong, 2016; Raimbault & Dubois, 2005). This chapter takes on the psychophysiological foundations of soundscape as a key theoretical thread to examine the works of four Singapore contemporary artists captured in the research study utilizing sound as a significant medium in their creative works. These Singapore contemporary artists include: anGie seah, Song-Ming Ang, Ong Kian Peng and Kray Chen. Two key research questions were raised: (i) How are soundscapes conceptualized and utilized in the works of these Singapore contemporary artists? (ii) Are there possible pedagogical implications for the general arts classroom? The impetus behind the creative processes of each of these artists will be examined alongside some of their works before delving into a discussion about what these ideas gathered can mean for the general arts classroom.

2 Creative Processes and Works of Four Singapore Contemporary Artists anGie seah The driving force behind anGie seah’s creative works is “to bring contemporary art closer to people” and allow “people from all walks of life to have an experience”. seah views art as a social and communicative tool that has the power to “uplift the human spirit”. Art thus serves for seah as a bridge to connect the self to others through the act of art-making. Art-making begins with an attention and understanding of the self before extending that understanding to “how others are feeling” (empathy). Through a process of collaboration and engagement to create performance art, seah shares her practice intentionally with people from all walks of life. As she proudly proclaims, “I believe in the people…our people make everything…I’m proud of our culture, our races, our diversity…It’s nice to bring all of them together (through the arts experience)”. seah is of the view that within the Singapore art scene there is very little experimentation and collaboration between artists. She would like to encourage more intuitive and spontaneous ways of art-making, creating a DIY culture, forming “a collective together, do crazy things.” This is pretty much an ethos that carries over to many of seah’s performance art collaborations when she works with different communities. And because the key medium of engagement in her performance art is the use of voice, she feels it is natural to extend her practice into using voice and sound with others. seah explains:

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I love to sing but…singing has limitations because it’s always using words…I felt expressing emotion through words is quite literal…begin to think of voice as sound work…human element and I like it being raw…it’s very primal…literally coming from the inside…I feel that is so powerful.

The use of the voice as a primal and powerful mode of human expression to create performance sound works is thus at the heart of seah’s art practice, inspired from the Fluxus movement from the 1960s, and also seah’s reaction to overly critical, analyzed, and contextualized processes of the current art-making trend in Singapore. seah’s response is thus in making “fun works, create absurdity, mixing things up…You don’t need a lot of reason to do something.” Works Adapting from a collaborative sound painting work anGie seah did with Walter Thompson, seah developed The Everyday Life Orchestra (2014), working with a community of Singapore seniors, “to promote their alertness…give them opportunity to make things without any reason”. In twelve sessions set up as a participatory workshop at a community club, seah collaborated with a group of seniors to create a sound performance using their voices and daily/found objects. seah facilitated the process of first allowing the seniors to listen and pay close attention to the everyday sounds around them, in this instance, signal sounds that they hear at home or more specifically in their kitchens. A safe environment was created allowing the seniors to explore and experiment to create sounds that relate to their everyday life. seah facilitated and scaffolded the creative process in a step-by-step manner, exploring alongside the seniors, ultimately creating a sound performance with seah as the conductor, piecing together the sound ideas created by the seniors. From the pictures and video link to the performance (https://angieseah.com/art-with-communities/), the seniors seemed socially engaged throughout the process and had fun creating and performing the sound work. In the socially engaged community art project, Sounding Motion (2018), artists anGie seah and Zai Tang led a group of seniors to explore the Singapore environment through sound. The seniors were taken on an ‘acoustic adventure’ where they brought audio recorders to record sound at home and on field trips that brought them to familiar old haunts. The project envisaged the seniors as “acoustic geographers, investigating the environment through sound”. The seniors were then given opportunities to design covers for their individualized recorded soundtracks and also responded to the sounds through a drawing activity. Utilizing the recorded sounds from the seniors, the artist Zai Tang abstracted these sounds and processed them through a sensory device, allowing the seniors to then come up with improvised movement performances in response to these abstracted sounds. The final activity in the project allowed the seniors to use their bodies as “an intuitive instrument for painting with sounds of daily life…elevating the everyday, celebrating how elders understand the world.” (https://angieseah.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Sounding-Motion. pdf). The participatory sound project, Empathic Voices (2020) was germinated at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in Singapore. The project was part of the Free

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Fig. 1 Empathic Voices (2020) (Images courtesy of anGie seah)

Jazz program at the NTU CCA, focusing on “improvisation, the ability to listen, to respond and engage into a less prescribed and controlled environment” (Fig. 1). seah’s current art studio is located in front of Singapore’s oldest surviving Dragon Kiln and she has always wanted to “activate this site as a sound recording space”. During the pandemic lockdown, the kiln was not activated and there was hardly anyone around the space so seah thought it might be a good opportunity to record within the space as she felt that the kiln was like “a vessel, it is as if you are in the body of a creature…very quiet, very calming…during the COVID period when you have a space like this you felt a bit safer…gives me a lot of tranquillity”. Local social media during this same period was ablast with news of migrant workers in Singapore being targeted for lockdown, “being trapped in the dormitories” due to emerging cases of COVID within migrant dormitories. seah’s caretaker for her studio was a Bangladeshi migrant worker with whom she had established good rapport and relationship, “so I told him I would like to outreach to a few workers…I knew their situation is very bad so I kind of impart part of my artist fee to give it to them, to work with them in this participatory sound project.” A “relaxed and friendly” workshop cum recording session at the kiln was thus planned with six migrant workers as a single day event that lasted approximately nine hours. The migrant workers were invited to the space and first began by exploring different sound possibilities outside the space. seah workshopped with the participants to facilitate further sound making possibilities: I showed them ways of using their voice and also worked with some clay objects that I created to create sounds with it. There were lots of body exercises…I also told them that their mother-tongue is very important for them…you can speak in your mother-tongue.

Casual conversations about the participants’ current work life situation and feelings as migrant workers in Singapore were exchanged in between the sound explorations. Improvisatory recordings were then made within the kiln where the participants were invited to freely utilize their voice and the clay objects, sometimes in ritualistic circles as they experimented. seah then gathered all the sound recording bytes for the day and created three soundscape pieces. The three pieces were titled: (i) Calling; (ii) Hard Life; and (iii) Composition. The migrant workers were happy and “felt so tired” at the end of the day as they were “releasing a lot of energy…emotion” in expressing themselves through the

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workshop and recording sessions. They spoke fondly of the day’s event as “a huge relief that they can go out” like an excursion or tour to the Dragon Kiln. In receiving the three soundscape pieces, they: could hear and identify themselves and they were thinking it’s so beautiful, and how did you [seah] do that [create the soundscape compositions] to summarize the experience…they said when they listened to the pieces they remembered that day…the sound becomes the site of remembrance.

seah subsequently titled the project Empathic Voices after its completion. She wanted to remind herself and the audience about being empathic to the plight of migrant workers particularly in the time of the COVID pandemic. She wanted to make a connection with the migrant workers and also to sound out their difficulties through the soundscape pieces: It came from the angle of empathy…they [the migrant workers] were so often focused in the news, everybody trying to stay away from them because they became the ‘super-spreader’ of COVID during that time, they were locked up, they were like the outcast…That was my motivation to reach out, therefore it is called Empathic Voices.

The 2' 30'' s soundscape composition, Hard Life began with the voices of the migrant workers in a determined hum and repeated hand claps reminiscent of a work song before seah’s voice was heard asking, “Is your life very hard?” This is followed by numerous responses from the workers in their mother tongue with a sprinkle of English amidst the continued soundscape that said: You come Singapore, you hardworking… Everyday I call my wife, my brother… Thinking about family, this suffering is ok…Take care of my family.

seah had deliberately titled the soundscape composition Hard Life because “When you give a title, you remind people that there is this element in the piece rather than just listening to this as an abstract composition…you are giving direction to how to listen…I think that is very important.” For seah, she felt that the migrant workers through the participatory sound project was “trying to convey something through me” and she also wanted to give voice to them. Song-Ming Ang Sound and music are always in the foreground of Song-Ming Ang’s creative endeavours: As a music lover, I’m just constantly thinking about music and sound, and how we relate to them as individuals and as a society. The artworks are a product of these thoughts and connections.

Ang often credits his entry into contemporary art through his explorations as an amateur musician keen in dabbling with experimental music: When I was in university, I started playing in an experimental rock band and then made some ambient/noise/glitch music on the computer. Eventually I found myself making things like listening parties (Guilty Pleasures) and interactive installations (Piece for 350 Onomatopeic Molecules), which were made simply with the intention of making experimental music in a different way. Some curators started taking note of what I did so my entry into art was quite organic.

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Like anGie seah, Ang is drawn to the avant garde, particularly of ideas that came from the Fluxus movement and conceptual art: I’m interested in discovering new things and I try to go beyond my comfort zone…For me, the key is to take experimentalism as a spirit and a way of doing things, not as a style or genre. I’m happy when my artworks have the ability to surprise me.

It is important to point out that Ang’s creative works are not so much about instrumentalizing music but more of “an open-minded, almost anthropological approach to music material in itself” (Neset in Ang, 2019b, p. 23), to find out “various contexts in which music is produced, disseminated and consumed…about what music means to us and the different ways we relate to it” (Neset in Ang, 2019b, p. 25). Many of Ang’s works thus reflect upon “Singaporean culture, identity and politics” through the sound world, revolving around “self-imposed restrictions, mundanity and amateurism, which can respectively be connected to the tendency to follow rules, the communal struggle against urban tedium, and the desire for constant upgrading”. Works In the sound installation, No Man’s Band (2007–2010), Ang was keen in examining the spontaneous processes of Singapore secondary school band students just before they begin their school band practices and rehearsals (Fig. 2). He audio recorded around 4 hours of these pre-rehearsal/practice moments from 15 different school bands. The recordings revealed “the warm-ups and improvisations of young musicians-in-training…many young people often use such time to express themselves freely” (Pocock in Ang, 2019b, p. 12). In stark contrast to the formalized routines and structures during band rehearsals, this sound installation highlighted instead “moments of levity we all longed for as teenagers. It recognises our own individuality and musical tastes which veer far from the usual repertoire of a school band and its endless repeat practice” (Ang, 2019b, p. 39) to gain “rehearsed perfection” of a staged performance that becomes “a less innocent contrivance” (Ho in Ang, 2019a, p. 7). Oftentimes, Ang sets up participatory elements and environments within his creative works for the audience to actively engage in, allowing for “a study of democracy at work, and also of taste…I wanted to make something informed by experimental music, but was fun and lowbrow”. The works provide agency particularly for non-art practitioners to have fun and just be creative. In the clever manipulation and strategizing of the criteria of art and music, Ang’s intention is to liberate art “from institutionalized directives that seek to influence the appreciation and creation of art via cultural education” (Ho in Ang, 2019a, p. 8). Ang thus seeks to elevate amateurism “as a strategy of resistance to established aesthetics, as well as instrumentalizations by the state” (Ho in Ang, 2019a, p. 15). Speaking from his experiences as an amateur musician: an amateur is someone who does something out of passion, and I relate to that a lot. If I remember correctly, the etymology of ‘amateur’ is ‘lover of (something)’. The dedication and resourcefulness that amateurs or hobbyists display often fascinate me, and I think there’s a lot to uncover there. A lot of my work is about this undefined area of non-professional expertise (Tan in Ang, 2019a, p. 23).

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Fig. 2 No Man’s Band (2007–2010). (Image courtesy of Song-Ming Ang)

In Silent Walk (2014), a set of instructions were given to a group of participants to listen intently to their immediate environment, “each participant leads the group for five minutes, walking in any direction and pausing as they wish (Fig. 3). The rest of the group follows the leader, and the exercise ends when all members have taken turns to lead the group. All mobile devices are switched off and all participants remain silent during the walk.” (Ang, 2019b, p. 87). In the interactive installation, Piece for 350 Onomatopoeic Molecules (2003/2013), made up of 350 pingpong/plastic balls, rackets, guitars, guitar effects, amplifiers, drums and cymbals, “audiences create music by throwing an assortment of balls at guitars and drum sets, creating spontaneous compositions along the way” (Ang, 2019b, p. 37) (Fig. 4).

Fig. 3 Silent Walk (2014) (Image courtesy of Song-Ming Ang)

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Fig. 4 Piece for 350 Onomatopoeic Molecules (2003/2013) (Image courtesy of Song-Ming Ang)

In the 15-min video installation, Recorder Rewrite (2019) presented as part of Music for Everyone: Variations on a Theme at the Singapore Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 2019, Ang created a film where “twenty children from diverse backgrounds created a recorder composition of their own through a music workshop before performing it at the Singapore Conference Hall, one of the original venues of the Ministry of Culture’s Music for Everyone concert series” (Ang, 2019a, p. 35) (Fig. 5). As project advisor, Michelle Ho explained Ang’s intentions further: Ang avoids the historical baggage of a top-down approach by elevating the modest instrument that is often used as a teaching tool in music lessons. He presents a musical piece, not through the methods of playing learnt in school, but with an alternative pedagogical approach of improvised composition and extended recorder techniques. His vision comprised of the following three criteria: that the work will be performed by children who may not necessarily be musically proficient; that they will, with the help of a facilitator, create their own composition, and that the work will include imperfections in the process of learning, as well as mistakes made in the course of performing, as legitimate elements of a musical composition (Ho in Ang, 2019a, p. 13).

It is clear through Ang’s creative works that the joy of art-making and “purposeful play” (Ho in Ang, 2019a, p. 15) is emphasized, focusing also on re-defining what is considered music and who has access to these creative possibilities. For Ang: It is more important to think of experiments in music as projects of wonder and curiosity, and his conviction in this comes from the belief that anyone-in addition to everyone-using not just their ears and voices, but also hands and feet, could have made these scores, and could have composed something as a non-composer and produced music as a non-musician (Tan in Ang, 2019a, p. 28).

Ong Kian Peng I enjoy observing the world and frequently playing the role as an observer.

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Fig. 5 Recorder Rewrite (2019) (Image courtesy of Song-Ming Ang)

Ong Kian Peng is a media artist whose practice speaks to the relationship between man and nature, examining environmental issues like climate change causing sealevel rise, providing “new ways of perceiving new realities for the audience” through the use of art and technology. Ong readily admits that his art is “non-activist in nature” but more of a way of: allowing the audience to re-encounter nature or issues at hand, allowing them to feel these elements through their bodily senses …to think about the things that they see, the problems that the artist(s) are trying to express through the works…a very experiential way of making art.

Ong wants his audience to take time to immerse in the visual/sound-scapes that he creates, to have a deeper connection with the work, to experience in visceral rather than verbal, textual or intellectual (didactic) ways. Ong is of the view that people who grew up in urban environments are often disconnected with nature. And it is the “lack of touch with nature that causes a lot of our…inability to understand why it is important…because we don’t have personal memories or connections of being in this environment.” Ong thus tries to use: art to change or to address these issues…try to present certain natural phenomenon through sound or through videos or through a combination of sculptures and sound…allowing them (audience) to encounter this natural phenomenon differently.

Moreover, messaging about climate change issues often come in the form of infographics, news or media, and Ong feels many are desensitized to these modes of communicating the issues. He wants to tap on technology to create an immersive environment for the art to be experienced:

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to allow the audience to feel these changes through their bodies…into the guts of their very selves, to then influence, or to make them just think about these in a very different way, to make them feel these emotions that they might feel in the work…hopefully…they go back and they talk about this with friends or their loved ones…change things slowly but surely.

There is an intention as well for Ong to connect to the sublime through his artworks, by allowing the audience to re-experience through the use of technology in art, the sights and sounds of nature, giving the “experience of being there”. This comes from Ong’s personal experiences encountering particular instances of nature that gave him a sense of euphoria, “a kind of feeling that was unforgettable”. Specific to natural sound worlds, Ong spoke to how with the invention of audio recording, “People started to expect a kind of sonorous quality…it has to be musical…choreographed and arranged…this idea of sound as a living thing that is continuous, that’s changing, that’s fleeting in a moment, became lost.” There is little attention to the “phenomenon that we face every day like the sound of the wind, the sound of the rain”. And it is precisely these natural soundscapes that Ong wishes to “use art to interpret and to present them…that changes the way we understand and appreciate the very same things and I think that’s one of the power that art has”, to bring people back to nature. Works In Acoustic Territories, Ong wanted to explore the spatial qualities of soundscapes (Fig. 6). It began with the question, “How does a snapshot of sound look like?” Ong created a recording instrument that “simultaneously record 12 directional amplitude levels with a custom array of microphones” in different architectural spaces in Paris. The sonic snapshots are then “used as materials to generate sculptural forms as visual representations of sonic spaces. These images often reveal a surprisingly unique sound signature and offer a deeper understanding of our everyday environments.” (https://www.ongkianpeng.art/kinetic/acoustic-territories). Rainscapes Imagined was a result of Ong’s yearning for the rain when he was in Los Angeles, “What makes rain so appealing? And how do we remember the rain?” (Fig. 7). The work is conceptualized as “a non-narrative account of memories surrounding my experiences with rain, which translates into different stages where intensity, movement and textual qualities interact with space and our bodies”. Utilizing surface transducers installed beneath the floor of the exhibit and customized software to spatialize sound and light, the audience is able to experience and feel within the exhibit, the passing of rain (https://www.ongkianpeng.art/kinetic/rainsc apes-imagined). Coronado was inspired by Ong’s sonic experience at the Coronado beach in California. It is a six-channel kinetic sound installation where the focus point is the soundscape source created by an ocean drum controlled by mechanical arms (Fig. 8). The technological aspects consist of a feedback loop and recorded sound waves that are bounced across the channels, “creating a spatial interpretation of the soundscape” (https://www.ongkianpeng.art/kinetic/coronado). For a further discussion on the environmental considerations of Ong’s creative works, please refer to Chap. 8 in this book.

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Fig. 6 Acoustic territories (Image courtesy of Ong Kian Peng)

Fig. 7 Rainscapes imagined (Image courtesy of Ong Kian Peng)

Kray Chen As mentioned in Chap. 3, the creative works of the conceptual artist Kray Chen speak to issues of body politics through his lived experience in Singapore as someone who is marginalized by governmental policies because of his “own big body”. Chen reference musical repertoire and instruments in his video works as body shape/type identity markers to inject dark humour in critiquing these issues of marginalization.

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Fig. 8 Coronado (Image courtesy of Ong Kian Peng)

Works In the video work I’m a Steamroller Baby (2017), Chen made reference to experiences during his National Service1 days being placed in the Eagle Company, “the company where the fattest people will go for 26 weeks compared with others for only 9 weeks. It is really quite a spectacle if one imagines a company of maybe 250 very big soldiers all lined up.” The soldiers were made to sing the song, I’m a Steamroller Baby, often as they exercised or marched, making it an emblematic identity marker for the company (Fig. 9). As Chen recalled: The interesting and perverse thing was that the song that was meant to make fun of us became quite an identity marker. Because we were so loud… and our footsteps were heavy and they could hear us from a distance… every time we marched we would sing that song. It was almost like an announcement that the Eagle Company was arriving. There was this weird moment where you almost felt proud to be a part of it.

The other identity marker referenced in the video work was the musical instrument, tuba. This was reflective of Chen’s school experiences playing in the brass band: The reason why I played the tuba was because I was big right, so they just automatically assigned the tuba to me…Somehow again, I felt like this bass sound became synonymous with fatness.

The video work depicts Chen running along the service basement of the Esplanade2 (the site of the work was situated in a basement tunnel leading up to the Esplanade). Chen explains: 1

National Service (NS) is a national policy in Singapore that requires all male Singapore citizens to serve a compulsory period within the army or other governmental uniformed services. 2 The Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay is Singapore’s premier performing arts centre featuring a large concert hall and theatre space alongside other small and medium sized spaces.

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Fig. 9 I’m a Steamroller Baby (2017). (Images courtesy of Kray Chen)

I edited the video in such a way that whenever you walked along the tunnel, you would encounter the running person screen after screen… I worked with a brass band and… a composer… to rearrange this tune… whenever the music played [visuals and sound of four brass players playing including a tuba player], they were actually playing at a very strict tempo whereby at the end of the tune, I would have been able to… if my footsteps followed the tempo…to complete the 2.4 km run in the gold military standard…Whenever the music played I actually artificially manipulated my footsteps in video to match the tempo, and then whenever the music stopped, the footsteps would return to this very irregular, startling tempo…So to me it was the idea of using the video to create a performance that was mediated through video because then the video in a way un-limit my body…I could run forever in video and emancipate my real body.

A Parade for the Paraders (2018) continued Chen’s critique on the body and its cerebral and muscle memory links with militarism through a 14-min video work (Fig. 10). The work featured seven former Singapore Armed Forces military band musicians in casual clothes doing standard warm-ups on their instruments, bugle call to assemble in a school assembly hall before playing military parade repertoire and marching across a defunct school in Singapore across an old school motto of Respect, Resilience, Responsibility and Integrity. The work: takes a humorous but aesthetically formal look at the (now discarded) regimens of a marching band”, which might be contrasted with “the infinitely rehearsed and nationwide broadcasted military band marches that are performed annually at the National Day Parades on the 9th of August, where in a perverse ironic twist, these band players are not actually permitted to play live music (http://bab18.bkkartbiennale.com/project/im-a-steamroller-baby-2/).

Referencing music repertoire and instruments as identity markers within some of Chen’s creative video works, he takes on body politics through his physical self and lived experiences to comment upon the meaning of meritocracy, progress, efficiency, and capitalism within his home nation, Singapore.

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Fig. 10 A Parade for the Paraders (2018) (Images courtesy of Kray Chen)

3 Discussion Connecting with the Everyday Through Deep Listening and the Creation of Soundscapes Song-Ming Ang’s No Man’s Band (2007–2010) and Recorder Rewrite (2019) alluded to the lack of creative choice and agency provided to students within the Singapore music education system. Perhaps informed by his personal experiences and anecdotal observations of the conduct of rigid top-down instrumental skills training by music teachers in general music classes and music CCAs3 in primary and secondary schools, Ang wanted to highlight through these two works, students’ innate creative energies and their desire and ability to compose and improvise freely given the time, space and artful facilitation of such activities by more open-minded arts educators and practitioners in reframing of what constitutes the criteria of art and music. Indeed, for many Singaporeans who have had their primary education in local government schools from the late 70 s, singing and playing the recorder were synonymous with general music classes. Recorder playing experiences have mostly been rather placid or even unpleasant, with students squeaking their recorders in class (being playful or that their fingers were simply not big enough to cover the holes on the recorder), and provided with a rather didactic way of learning, asked to play one note at a time or nursery tunes repeatedly by their music teachers. General music classes today are starkly different. To begin with, there are now a few more instrumental options including the ukulele, guitar, keyboard, xylophones and many more. Recorder playing is still being taught in Singapore schools as one of the many instrumental options but what is fundamentally different as well, is that the level of pedagogical know-hows and musicianship of school music teachers has been raised considerably since the 70 s. There are now specialized music teachers devoted to the teaching of music in primary schools as opposed to before, where generalist teachers (who may or may not have music background, the interest or know-how in teaching music) were being tasked to teach music to fill up their extra periods in their work schedule. 3

CCAs refer to Co-curricular Activities in Singapore schools. In this particular instance, it refers to Visual and Performing Arts CCAs such as band, choir, Chinese orchestra, etc.

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Music teachers in general music lessons are also engaging students in more creative, collaborative and engaging ways. In the latest MOE music education syllabus (2015), two key aims state that students should: (i) Develop awareness and appreciation of music in local and global cultures (ii) Develop ability for creative expression and communication through music There is an understanding that music plays a crucial role in culture and society. Thus, through a wide range of exposure to different musical cultures, students will know about the particular musics, its role and value in culture to gain a deepened and more contextualized understanding. There is also a greater emphasis in the general music classroom today in creating music, in allowing students greater autonomy and agency of having their musical identities and voices heard through group and individual songwriting exercises, informal music making experiences in pop band settings, various improvisational and compositional processes, and soundscape creations, through analogue and technological means (https://academyofsin gaporeteachers.moe.edu.sg/star/resources/music-resources). The creative music-making experienced by the primary school students in Ang’s Recorder Rewrite (2019) through the workshops they attended on extended recorder techniques, is very much within the palette of what students are exposed to these days in local schools, not just from a Western classical contemporary paradigm but a gamut of creative strategies and processes that spring from a wide range of cultures from Indian classical to Indonesian gamelan, from jazz to Xinyao music references. But certainly more can be done to continually encourage a deep listening and creation of the soundscapes of the everyday that students are exposed to in order to further open their minds to a re-definition of sound and music and the diverse relationships and connections sound and music can have in various socio-cultural contexts. Pedagogical possibilities can take on suggestions from anGie seah’s Everyday Life Orchestra (2014) or Song-Ming Ang’s Silent Walk (2014). Arts educators can imagine an arts lesson where students are tasked to list down three or four distinctive sound signals in their home and getting their family members involved in the same activity to see if their list matches up with the students. Students can then be encouraged to recreate these sound signals using either their voice, body percussion, or objects they can find at home, experimenting with different possibilities to figure out which timbre fits closest with each sound. Furthering the activity, students can be asked to create graphic notations and/or record a short soundscape composition based on the distinctive sound signals of their home with their family members. The activity may be repeated for sounds at school or within the students’ communities, working with their classmates or their friends. An activity as such can be a good way to help teachers determine the ‘sound health’ of their students at home and within their surrounds. One might be surprised by what comes up in these simple explorations in probing deeper into their connections with family and community relationships. These activities can also serve as safe spaces to develop mutual empathy between classmates understanding each other’s social situations at home, in school or within their communities.

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Advocates of the use of soundscape creation within arts education like Murray Schafer (1969, 1975, 1977) and Paynter and Aston (1970) have provided numerous ideas on projects and activities that students can engage with deep listening and soundscape creative experiences in the arts classroom. Ng (2019) within the Singapore secondary general music context has also contributed a three-pronged strategy for students’ collective improvisation through a structured soundscape project. The ideas suggested are much akin to Ang’s directions for Silent Walk (2014) which can be traced back to the Fluxus avant-garde art movement and the dominant thoughts of artists like Marcel Duchamp and John Cage (4' 33'' being the prime example) who “championed the use of everyday objects and the element of chance in art, which became the fundamental attitude and practice of all Fluxus artists” (DiTolla, 2012). Arts educators can continue to explore the works of soundscape educators like Paynter and Schafer, local contemporary artists and artists of the Fluxus movement (for example, Yoko Ono) and composers like Pauline Oliveros, to gather more pedagogical ideas and resources in soundscape creation for the general arts classroom. Communing with Nature Ong Kian Peng’s evocation of nature through his immersive creative works like Rainscapes and Coronado, are attempts to bring the audience through technological means, particularly of urban dwellers, to experience viscerally the power of nature, to connect/re-connect people with the significance of nature in hopes that they will start having conversations about, care for and urged into action about environmental issues. Taking the cue from Ong, arts educators can certainly support these efforts by encouraging nature-linked creative soundscape exercises in their arts classrooms to help attune students to the sounds of nature in their environment. Some possibilities can include taking sound walks in nature parks or reserves like in anGie seah’s community project Sounding Motion (2018), where students are encouraged to individually record sounds of nature that attracts them during their field trips. Students can also be tasked to walk around in their immediate environment or around their neighbourhoods to locate sounds of nature within their urban dwellings. A more in-depth exploration could include tasking students to think about nature sights and sounds that are no longer visible/audible in their immediate environment and asking students to further the task by speaking with their parents or grandparents about their experiences with nature in their immediate environments and what has changed over the years. The cumulative sounds and sights gathered in these suggested activities can then be transformed into compositional activities like the creation of nature soundscapes utilizing recording or compositional softwares like GarageBand. Students might also be encouraged to advocate for certain environmental issues that they may have encountered through artistic means. Identity Markers and Personal Experiences From the creative works of Kray Chen, one learns about the significance a song or a musical instrument can have as identity markers which can have a profound impact on an individual’s well-being. There is definitely room within arts education to open

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up a safe space for critical dialogue about such experiences with students be it linked with body politics, racial, religious, gender, or socio-economic issues. Arts educators can tap on existing creative works like those of Kray Chen or research studies about gender associations with instruments (Abeles, 2009; Wrape, et al. 2016), body politics and musical choice (Koza, 2010), or religion and music education (Harris, 2006), to examine deeply entrenched issues and dispel negative stereotypes to broaden students’ world-views about music and sound, and the dangers of not questioning these harmful identity markers. Taking Kray Chen’s I’m a Steamroller Baby (2017) as an example, visual arts teachers working with secondary or pre-tertiary students can adopt the Entry Point Approach (Davies, Donahue, Leach & Michaelson, 1996) as starting points for engaging with the video work. The Entry Point Approach suggests five entry windows (aesthetic, narrative, logical quantitative, foundational and experiential) of engagement in no particular order (Davies, Donahue, Leach & Michaelson, 1996). Under ‘Aesthetic’, the visual arts teacher might begin by asking students to examine the video work closely and describe in detail what they see and hear in the work. For ‘Narrative’, the teacher might suggest to students if they could figure out if there is a narrative or story-line depicted in the video work. And if so, might students suggest a title to the work. The title of the work will subsequently be revealed with the teacher asking students why they feel the artist might have chosen the title. In ‘Logical Quantitative’, the teacher might consider asking students, “In making this video work, what do you think the artist did first? Do you think the artist took a long time to make this work? How can you tell?” For ‘Foundational’, the teacher can open up conversations with students and ask if they consider the video work a piece of art and why they would or would not consider it so. The teacher might continue to probe students in thinking about whether they feel the video work has an important message to say and if so, what might that be. Finally, in ‘Experiential’, the teacher might get students to mimic the actions by the jogger (the artist) and the musicians in the video and ask them how they might feel in each of these roles. The teacher can then break students into groups and suggest for them to create a short piece of collaborative performance that resonates with the video work before an open critique session. anGie seah’s Empathic Voices can serve as an exemplar participatory soundscape project for students to delve into current issues in society utilizing an inquiry-based approach. The arts teacher may get students in groups to research and discuss current social issues that they are aware of and impacted by in their community as a start. Students can then determine ways with which these social issues can be portrayed through the gathering of recording or recorded sound bytes from people directly or indirectly impacted by these issues. The participatory levels of such a project can be worked out with the arts teacher depending on pragmatic and logistic possibilities. With the help of digital sound tools like GarageBand or other platforms, students can then arrange and create soundscape compositions that hints at these particular social issue for presentation.

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4 Sound and Well-Being The selected creative works of contemporary artists aGie seah, Song-Ming Ang, Ong Kian Peng and Kray Chen, pointed to the significance of deep listening and the creation of soundscapes in connecting with our daily lives and environment, being more in touch and communing with nature, and being cognizant of the power of sound and music in establishing identity markers that can have a lasting impact on the lives of individuals in society. This is of course only one interpretation of how arts educators can build upon the ideas gathered from these creative works through the lens of soundscape and well-being, to explore and critically examine with students in the arts classroom. For instance, having had students identified sound signals from their homes and communities categorized into human (e.g. singing), nature (e.g. bird calls) and mechanical (e.g. vehicular buzz), beyond facilitating collaborative soundscape compositions that creatively personify these collection of sounds, arts educators might also ask students to identify and note down positive and negative associations attached with these sounds. There can then be a critical dialogue facilitated between peer groups to speak about these associations and if there are ways or suggestions to reduce, eliminate or come to terms with these sounds in their immediate environment. As Rehan (2016) reminds us, “We are all…largely unaware of the importance of sound in relation to how we perceive the quality of a place and a good living environment” (p. 337). Taking on the task of opening the ears and minds of students to the sounds of their immediate environment, arts educators can facilitate critical dialogues within the safe space of the arts classroom and creatively engage students through the arts in compositional and performative ways, bringing them closer to action as they ponder upon the significance of sound and its impact on their living environment and the environment at large. Perhaps, as Edgar Cayce, the American Mystic in the twentieth century once said, “The medicine of the future will be music and sound”.

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Afterword by Natalie Alexandra Tse By listening we got an impression of the world into which we were born, and with soundmaking we expressed our needs, desires, and emotions. As babies, listening was for us an active process of learning, one way of receiving vital information about our surroundings and about the people who were closest to us. And whatever we heard and listened to became material for vocal imitation, for first attempts to articulate, express, and make sounds. Listening and sound-making (input and output, impression and expression) were ongoing activities, like breathing, happening simultaneously, always in relation to each other, in a feedback process. The relationship between the acoustic information we received as babies and what we expressed vocally was balanced. And in this balance between listening and sound-making, we never questioned how our time passed. It simply passed by virtue of our being active inside each moment. (Westerkamp, 2001, pp. 144–145)

Canadian soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp’s writings, as above, has been an illuminating and inspiring articulation to the work I have been doing alongside babies (and their parents/adult counterparts). And I owe my curiosities towards sound, that deconstructs notions of music previously taught to me through my growing up years, to my practice as an experimental improviser on the guzheng. Resonant with Song-Ming Ang’s artistic response to his childhood experiences as an “amateur musician”, my musical experiences as a child were similarly limited to a top-down approach from the teacher, instructor or conductor. There were little opportunities for creative agencies to be activated. Like Song-Ming Ang, my foray into experimental music only began when I was in university; even then, I considered myself fortunate to had been deemed fit by educators to participate in external festivals, giving me an opportunity to engage with established musicians at festivals where I was forced to exercise my creativity and make aesthetic choices. As an experimental improviser on the guzheng, I discovered through opportunities offered to me from university and after, that the fundamental building blocks of music were sound; that I didn’t have to follow a score to make music; that being a performer in music did not mean that I have to present the musical thoughts of an other. On hindsight, these may seem naive to a cultivated mind, but yet it was only truly felt when I could experience, explore and experiment with what I could do on my instrument. This realization, along with my experiences working with young children teaching music and movement from 6 months through 8 years old, led me to ponder further into the sonic perceptions of the early years. The contemporary art practices of anGie seah, Ong Kian Peng, Song-Ming Ang and Kray Chen relate to me in terms of how I have come to understand babies’ experiences in sound. Westerkamp’s words as presented above articulate it beautifully—babies simply exist within soundscapes, taking in the sounds through listening, and responding through sound-making. As artists, rather than musicians, their works may come across to some as treading the boundaries of art and music. Yet, such blurring of boundaries between artforms, is but a reprise to pre-modern, pre-colonial experiences of life. In Singapore, the socio-cultural politics driven by the need for economic success has perhaps led us to appreciate aesthetics like our colonisers. The experience of piano learning and taking graded examinations such as

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through the ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) are perhaps unanimous experiences across colonised societies (e.g., Chen, 2013; Lum & Dairianathan, 2013). In the context of music, this has resulted to the majority of music learners starting with the piano and ending with a graded certification. The experience of music is in silos to our other sensorial experiences. However, this is not how we experienced music, or life, as babies. Babies experience the world globally, rather than amodally. The experience of sound is not only perceived through the ear, but also through the body’s multisensoriality, where kinaesthesia and kinesics also play a large part by way of an active experience of vibrations. Ong Kian Peng’s Rainscapes Imagined is probably illustrative of such an experience. It goes beyond the experience of sound, or sight, in silos, and invites an experience that also appeals to the body. Toop (2004) writes, “We hear, not just through the ears, as a conscious activity, but through the whole body, in a mixture of fully conscious, peripherally conscious and unconscious awareness” (p. 47). In my own observations of babies in sonic experiences that I create, it is clear that the various senses function in an undifferentiated manner to offer a holistic experience. For example, the perception of sound is often accompanied by gaze, where a baby may turn his/her head towards a sound source to look at where it is coming from. Babies also tend to experience sound through the body, where the attunement with rhythms leads to their innate agency to move along to the rhythm. As Indian Sufi philosopher Hazrat Inayat Khan writes: The infant begins its life on earth by moving its arms and legs, thus showing the rhythm of its nature and illustrating the philosophy which teaches that rhythm is the sign of life. (Khan, 1996, p. 200)

Discourses around soundscapes are symbiotic to that of Nature. This chapter began with references to R. Murray Schafer’s writings, who lamented the loss of our conscious awareness to the sounds of our natural environment. His advocacy for ‘ear cleaning’ resonates with other early contemporary music practitioners such as Pauline Oliveros, who turned towards electronic means of re-creating natural soundscapes. She similarly felt a sense of loss, where childhood sonic memories that were “rich and dense” with the sounds of “insects, birds and animals…filled with chirping, rasping rickets, frogs and melodic mocking birds” (Oliveros, 2005, p. xxi) were taken over by soundscapes of a concrete jungle. As such, she similarly advocated for listening that were an expansion of the perception of sound in which she termed “deep listening”. John Cage, in his renowned 4' 33'' and visit to the anechoic chamber (Cage, 1973/1961) were also statements that direct our consciousness towards sound that may otherwise seem silent. He also related to Nature, where the function of Art was to imitate that of Nature. Ong Kian Peng’s Rainscapes Imagined, Coronado as well as anGie seah’s Sounding Motion (2018) are indeed also a commune with Nature as mentioned in the chapter. At the beginning of this writing, I made reference to Westerkamp’s words on the existence of babies within soundscapes by way of listening and sound-making. It seems ironic that while babies seem to have the innate ability without a need for Schafer’s ‘ear-cleaning’ (1977) nor Oliveros’ ‘deep listening’ (2005), we seemed to

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have lost such abilities as older beings. In recounting my personal experiences, I wonder if this were because of the rigidity in my musical training, or perhaps a lack of appropriate educational opportunities for such an awareness towards sounds? While education has evolved greatly since I was a student, MOE’s music education key aims as outlined in the chapter seems fixated on the notion of established musical cultures. The exploration of soundscape or creative musicking not as a specialist but as a cognizant human being seems limited. The above-mentioned concepts of earcleaning and deep listening may be worth exploring both from an educator as well as child’s perspectives. Particularly, existing and pre-service educators should receive professional development in these areas, such that new connections between sound and music could perhaps be formed. Such keen sensitivities towards sound, as well as an exploration of the experience of sound not simply perceived through the ears but also through the body (somatics, if you’d like) could perhaps lead to affordances in mental health and physical well-being. This could even be helpful in discourses related to trauma informed care, or simply care, in general. The notion of care perhaps often relates to caregiving practices, whether for a child, an aged parent, or an ill patient. In the landscape of Singapore’s early years sector, infant care services are offered from approximately 2–18 months, where caregiving is key. According to the Early Years Development Framework (EYDF) by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA): The Programme for infants, toddlers, and nursery children is defined by care-giving, play and other daily routines for physical care, building relationships, learning and developmental experiences…(ECDA, 2013, p. 26)

“Aesthetic experiences” is considered in this “intentional programme”, that is limited to “music and movement experiences” and “art experiences”. It can be observed that though the programme is meant for children up to approximately 3 years old (nursery age children), it views music and art in silos rather than as a holistic experience. I think much of the practices from contemporary art practices, such as the four artists who engage with sound as medium could further inform the programming of our infant care centres in Singapore if it were to be truly “intentional”. Sound, plays a fundamental role for the survivability and socio-emotional development of babies from infancy, yet is hardly discussed nor presented as such. While the focus on care-giving for this age group is developmentally appropriate, it is perhaps overlooked that much of the developmental opportunities that happen during care-giving (ECDA, 2013, p. 28) needs to occur through listening, and responding through sound-making. In my sonic experiences with babies, I was informed by Ellen Dissanayake’s theory of mutuality, Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Trevarthen’s theory of communicative musicality, as well as Daniel Stern’s theory of affect attunement through vitality dynamics. All these theories underpin the notion that the communication between mother and baby, or primary caregiver and baby are sonic in nature, and is dependent on a keen sense of listening, not just through hearing, but through the body, and a felt, temporal sense of attuning to each other through sounds, facial expressions, gestures and movements. There is much that has not been explored, but should be pursued as an offering in infant care settings to clear

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the ears of educarers and cultivate their deep listening. This could be done through activities similar to anGie seah’s Sounding Motion (2018). For babies in an infant care environment, I recommend the affordance for babies to engage in their innate agencies to experience and make meaning of the world through multi-sensory manners. I encourage educarers to consider the sonic environment— sounds that can be heard in the infant care space; and sonic objects—daily items or simple instruments that can be purposefully placed in the space for babies to explore at their own pace. Babies need to experience through their sensory and motor development. Educarers in infant care settings are the primary caregivers of babies, and these early years in a human being’s life determine what synapses are formed or pruned depending on experiences. Why not sustain our innate abilities to exist within soundscapes, listening and responding through sound-making, rather than relying on ear cleaning practices, or learn to cultivate deep listening only in later years? The 4 artists are fine illustrations to the inherence of soundscapes in our lives. The connections between soundscapes, nature, identity and well-being have also been made. Hopefully, this encourages further explorations of sounds in our classrooms, whether for babies, MOE students or educators’ professional development.

References Interviews Cited Song-Ming Ang, 6th March 2021. Kray Chen, 24th November 2020. Ong Kian Peng, 30th September 2020. anGie seah, 15th September 2020.

Other References Abeles, H. (2009). Are musical instrument gender associations changing? Journal of Research in Music Education, 57(2), 127–139. Ang, S. M. (2019a). Music for everyone: Variations on a theme (Vol. 1). National Arts Council. Ang, S. M. (2019b). Music for everyone: Variations on a theme (Vol. 2). National Arts Council. Boucher, H., & Moisey, T. (2019). An experiential learning of a philosophy of music education inspired by the work of Canadian composer R Murray Schafer. Creative Education, 10, 2111– 2131. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2019.1010153 Davis, J., Donahue, D., Leach, B., Michaelson, M., Museums Uniting with Schools in Education (Organization), MUSE., & Harvard Project Zero. (1996). The MUSE Book: A report on the work of Project Muse. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Project Zero. Project MUSE. DiTolla, T. (2012, January 21). Fluxus movement overview and analysis. TheArtStory.org.https:// www.theartstory.org/movement/fluxus/ Erfanian, M., Mitchell, A.J., Kang, J., & Aletta, F. (2019). The psychophysiological implications of soundscape: A systematic review of empirical literature and a research agenda. International

References

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Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16, 3533. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph 16193533 Fong, J. (2016). Making operative concepts from Murray Schafer’s soundscapes typology: A qualitative and comparative analysis of noise pollution in Bangkok, Thailand and Los Angeles, California. Urban Studies, 53(1), 173–192. Harris, D. (2006). Music education and Muslims. Trentham Books. Koza, J. E. (2010). Listening for whiteness: Hearing racial politics in undergraduate school music. In T.A. Regelski & J.T. Gates (Eds.), Music education for changing times (pp. 85–95). Springer. Ministry of Education (2015). Music teaching and learning syllabus: Primary and lower secondary. https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/primary/2015musicteachingandlearningsyllabusprimar yandlowersecondary.ashx?la=en&hash=41025D7E02879592E04790C645AF026FD33D64E9 Ng, H. H. (2019). Structured surround soundscapes: A three-pronged strategy for effective and meaningful collective improvisation. Music Educators Journal, 106(2), 51–57. Payne, S. R., et al. (2011). Soundscapes within urban parks: Their restorative value. In M. Bonaiuto, M. Bonnes, & A. M. Nenci (Eds.), Urban diversities—Environmental and social issues (pp. 147– 158). Hogrefe Publishing. Paynter, J., & Aston, P. (1970). Sound and silence: Classroom projects in creative music. Cambridge University Press. Rehan, R. M. (2016). The phonic identity of the city urban soundscape for sustainable spaces. HBRC Journal, 12(3), 337–349. Raimbault, M., & Dubois, D. (2005). Urban soundscapes: Experiences and knowledge. Cities, 22(5), 339–350. Schafer, M. (1965). The composer in the classroom. BMI Canada Limited. Schafer, M. (1973). Further thoughts on music education. Australian Journal of Music Education, 13, 3. Schafer, R. W. (1977). The soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. Simon and Schuster. Schafer, R. M. (1967). Ear cleaning: Notes for an experimental music course. Clark & Cruickshank. Schafer, R. M. (1969). The new soundscape: A handbook for the modern music teacher. Associated Music Publishers. Schafer, R. M. (1975). The rhinoceros in the classroom. Universal Edition. Sterne, J. (2013). Soundscape, landscape, escape. In K. Bijsterveld (Ed.), Soundscapes of the urban past: Staged sound as mediated cultural heritage (pp. 181–194). Sound Studies, 5. https://lib rary.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/31458 Wrape, E. R., Dittloff, A. L., & Callahan, J. L. (2016). Gender and musical instrument stereotypes in middle school children: Have trends changed? Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 34(3), 40–47.

Afterword References Cage, J. (1961). Silence—Lectures and writings by John Cage. Wesleyan University Press. Chen, L. H. (2013). Balancing change and tradition in the musical lives of children in Hong Kong. In P. S. Campbell & T. Wiggins (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of children’s musical cultures (pp. 402–418). Oxford University Press. Early Childhood Development Agency. (2013). Early years development framework: Educarer’s Guide. Early Childhood Development Agency. Khan, H. I. (1996). The mysticism of sound and music: The Sufi teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Shambhala Publications. Lum, C. H., & Dairianathan, E. (2013). Reflexive and reflective perspectives of musical childhoods in Singapore. In P. S. Campbell & T. Wiggins (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of children’s musical cultures. (pp. 332–349). Oxford University Press.

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Oliveros, P. (2005). Deep listening: A composer’s sound practice. iUniverse. Schafer, R. M. (1977). The soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. Destiny Books. Toop, D. (2004). Haunted weather music, silence and memory. Serpent’s Tail. Westerkamp, H. (2001). Speaking from Inside the Soundscape. In D. Rothenberg & M. Ulvaeus (Eds.), The book of music and nature: An anthology of sounds, words, thoughts (pp.143–152). Wesleyan University Press.

Chapter 6

Social Practice Art in Singapore: Creative Approaches Towards Participation and Social Amelioration Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray

“Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.” —Gloria Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back, 1981, p. v

1 Introduction Social practice art, sometimes known as art as social practice, is an emerging and transdisciplinary field of practice within contemporary art that seeks to destabilize, question and overturn the notion of the audience as spectator, and involve audienceparticipants more actively in artistic processes and creation (Helguera, 2012; Sholette et al., 2018; Bishop, 2012). The use of the term, and its subsequent institutionalization, are relatively new1 —appearing in Euro-American theoretical discourse in the early 2000s,2 and the practices that have been associated with it occupy a relatively small niche relative to more dominant contemporary art practices around the world. 1

Even though “social practice art” as a term and field of praxis is mainly claimed by and borne out of Euro-American academic discourse and milieu, moving beyond the Euro-American framework of social practice art’s institutionalisation, one finds other genealogies and affinities. For instance, communally performed arts such as theatre and puppetry have also had a long and rich history of social practice. In Southeast Asia in particular, communal forms of art have a long presence due in part to traditional family and community structures and organization (Koh, 2020). Though this is beyond the scope of this chapter, the influence of different forms of Southeast Asian communityengaged theatre (eg. the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) founded in 1967 and Makhampon Theatre Group formed by artists and activists in 1981 in Thailand) and the rise of various sociopolitical movements emerging from the grassroots to combat the inequities in the wake of industrial capitalism have undoubtedly influenced and percolated into contemporary social practice art as it exists in the region (see Pillai, 2019). 2 The institutionalization of social practice art within US institutions of higher education was cemented with the pioneering Social Practice MFA at the California College of the Arts in 2005.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_6

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Yet social practice art has enlivened the contemporary art world with works and dynamic debates about what constitutes contemporary art today, and has helped to shift practices and attention beyond the hegemonic gallery/museum system and art market (Helguera, 2012; Kennedy, 2013; Kester, 2011). At a certain level, social practice art conceives of human interaction and action as the art in and of itself (Finkelpearl, 2012; Jackson, 2011). In other words, people and their interactions constitute the “medium or material” of the work (Tate, n.d.). Art as social practice is therefore not necessarily object-focused (Helguera, 2012, p. 8). Producing aesthetic objects may be a concern of secondary importance or not at all, and if produced, they are often viewed as equally or less important than the collaborative process behind them (Shrag, 2015). In his seminal handbook Education for Socially Engaged Art, Helguera distinguishes between “two types of art practice: symbolic and actual” and argues that “SEA [socially-engaged art] is an actual, not symbolic, practice” (2012, p. 4). He describes symbolic social action as “imagined or hypothetical” (a representation of social action), and “actual” social action as impacting communities and environments in real ways (Helguera, 2012, p. 22). “Actual” effects in Helguera’s view include the capacity to “build community bonds” and “activate members of the public to go beyond passive receptor/consumer” (Helguera, 2012, p. 8). However, how one defines and measures “actual” effects is complicated. Would expanding people’s horizons be considered “actual” or “symbolic”? How could one determine if interpersonal bonds, empathy or conviviality were fostered? Nonetheless, Helguera’s definition is helpful in bringing to the fore the desire to champion social change. His emphasis on the importance of real-world action points to a more or less explicit developmentalist kernel (a striving toward social amelioration) within a significant proportion (though by no means all) of the practices in the field. Let us keep in mind two caveats, however: firstly, how one defines social amelioration or positive social change is entirely open to interpretation. Secondly, more symbolic (“imagined or hypothetical” in Helguera’s words) forms of art, whose effects on participants and the public may be unseen and indeterminate, could in some cases be considered social practice art, even if they are not as explicitly socially ameliorative. That said, this chapter seeks to explore the aesthetic and conceptual frameworks and strategies relating to participation, and how these are informed by, and effect, values and understandings of social amelioration. This will be done via an exploration of four works which I situate within, or closely adjacent to, the field of art as social practice in Singapore. The chapter is organized as follows: (i) I will begin with a discussion of the relationship between aesthetics and social amelioration within the current literature on social practice art, (ii) followed by an overview of the history of community art(s) in Singapore and its associated notions of social amelioration, (iii) before exploring the four following works: Buangkok Mall Life Club by Salty Xi Jie Ng, The Everyday Life Orchestra by anGie seah, Unseen: Constellations by Alecia Neo and I am LGB by the LGB Society of Mind (a collective that includes Ray Langenbach, Shawn Chua Ming Ren, Lee Mun Wai, Bani Haykal, Kelvin Chew, Chan Silel, Loo Zihan and creative agency TRIPPLE).

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2 A Note on Definitional Challenges In the contemporary Western and Global North context, the term social practice art is often used interchangeably with a number of others such as socially-engaged art, community-based art, relational art, participatory art and collaborative art (to name a few) (Bishop, 2006; Jackson, 2011). The terms have arisen from different contexts and disciplines, and are used with slightly different intents and reference points. Their interchangeable usage in the existing literature complicates rather than unifies theoretical understandings of this emerging field of practice, and some scholarly debates are rooted in authors’ divergent disciplinary assumptions (Jackson, 2011). In Singapore, related terms that emerge in theoretical discourse are “community art(s)”, “community-based art(s)” (Trivic, 2021), “arts-based community development” (Lee, et. al., 2020), and more recently “socially-engaged art”—which has been used in attempts at bridging the gap between community development and the art world (Lee et al., 2020; Asia Research Institute, 2018). In contrast, the emergence and usage of the term “social practice art” in local theoretical discourse appears to be quite recent, with a few mentions in courses at tertiary education level.3 There is greater familiarity with “relational art” (Chieng and Loh, 2019; Xatart & Segar, 2014), owing to the global influence of French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud’s “relational aesthetics” (1998), and high-profile artists like Félix GonzálezTorres and Rirkrit Tiravanija (both of whom showed recently in Singapore and were cited as influences by some of the artists in our research study). I have chosen to use the term “social practice art” or “art as social practice”4 because these are broader and, in my view, make room for community art(s), socially-engaged art and relational art and their myriad cross-pollinations. I will nonetheless be drawing on literature that deploys a variety of terms in order to interweave conceptual frames, questions and common threads in my analysis of social practice art in Singapore. The inherent hybridity of social practice art also compounds the definitional challenge. Artists working collaboratively in a wide range of sociocultural and political contexts are increasingly informed by disciplines outside of the arts, including political and community organizing, performance, anthropology, cultural studies, urban, environmental or labour studies, public architecture, pedagogy, and psychology, among others. As Helguera notes, this field of practices exists “somewhere between art and non-art” and thus “its state may be permanently unresolved” (2012, p. 8).

3

Most notably, Yale-NUS College has been offering a Social Practice Art module taught by Parttime Senior Lecturer in Humanities (Visual Arts) James Jack. At the time of writing, it is currently cross-listed as an Arts Practice and Anthropology module. 4 One artist featured in this chapter, Salty Xi Jie Ng, recently started using the term “social forms of art.”.

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3 Social Amelioration and Aesthetics In theoretical discourses on social practice art, it is hard to avoid the long-standing debate between those who analyze social practice art from the perspective of aesthetics, and those who prefer to judge it in terms of social amelioration. The debate is often couched in starkly binary terms, while proposing frameworks for defining and evaluating the value and efficacy of social practice art from either of these viewpoints (Jackson, 2011). Nonetheless, both perspectives contain truths that are worthy of consideration. British art historian and critic Claire Bishop, who has written extensively about participatory practices in contemporary art since 2006, argues against tipping the scale too far in favor of didactic socially ameliorative goals. Drawing on French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s work about the politics of aesthetics, she views all contemporary art as implicitly socially ameliorative in so far as it disrupts the governing order by reconfiguring one’s alignment of perception and meaning (cf. Rancière, 2000: “partage du sensible”, translated as partition or distribution of the sensible). Therefore, vanguardist aesthetic approaches, in which the potential for social change is already embedded, may be much more politically radical than art masquerading as unaccountable social work. In her 2012 work entitled Artificial Hells, Bishop expounds on the repercussions of pseudo-ethical artworks steeped in developmentalist principles of ‘doing-good’; at best, they can be toothless and moralistic, and at worst, they legitimize unjust systems through gestural congeniality and harmony that do not change systemic problems. On the other end of the spectrum, American art historian Grant Kester decries politically disengaged ‘art for art’s sake’. He points out the elitist glorification of aesthetics in vanguardist history which he deems biased against grassroots creativity and the kinds of creative problem-solving found in community activism. At the same time he contends that social practice art proposes alternative notions of aesthetics. In his 2004 book entitled Conversation Pieces, Kester makes a case for “dialogical aesthetics” in which communication, listening and consultation are the criteria for value and the material of artistic production. He references feminist studies including Belenky et al.’s (1986) book Women’s Ways of Knowing which explores how women in differing conditions of sociopolitical subjugation use conversation as a high-context method to gain knowledge via understanding others’ viewpoints (a process which Belenky et. al. call “connected knowing”). In the context of Singapore, the divergence between aesthetics and social amelioration also manifests: in the division between the fields of contemporary art and community art(s). On the one hand, the local contemporary art ecosystem, a relatively recent development5 compared to that of arts-based community development, 5

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) was the first art museum to open on the island in 1996.

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is by and large structured following the Euro-American model dominated by bigger institutions like museums and National Galleries. The kinds of art that are created for and shown in these large institutions tend not to be geared towards community development and, for the most part, remain distant from the arts-based community work that has been occurring outside of its doors. On the other hand, there is a relatively longer history of community art(s) in Singapore, whose development and existence is inextricably tied to the state’s nation-building interests. Both this historical context and institutional environment impact the ways in which social practice art is viewed and carried out in Singapore today.

4 National Context of Community Art and Contemporary Art From the perspective of the Singapore state, community art largely falls under the category of community development. There are a number of systems in place for providing community development in Singapore, not all of which are governmental, but a large proportion are. According to a 2020 study of arts-based community development in Singapore focusing on (and commissioned by) ArtsWok Collaborative,6 community development in the country is mainly state-led and “based around a planned, service delivery and consensus model” (Lee et al., 2020, p. 11). This is done through the People’s Association (PA) and the Community Development Councils (CDC). Founded in 1960, the PA is a statutory body whose mission is to oversee and consolidate community centres and CDCs. The PA system has been instrumental in nation-building efforts (with its National Day Parade involvement and programs such as the National Youth Leadership Training Institute), and has effectively consolidated what was previously a “fragmented and politicised community sector” (Lee et al., 2020, pp. 11–12). The creation of intermediary institutions between the government and the grassroots followed. These include Goodwill Communities set up in 1964, Citizens Consultative Committees in 1965 and Residents’ Committees in 1978—all of which serve “to communicate policies and to convey feedback from the ground,” to “strengthen bonding and promote cohesion within local communities and to improve efficiency and coordination in public assistance schemes” (Lee et al., 2020, p. 12). According to the ArtsWok Collaborative case study, “Voluntary efforts at community work will typically have to either work within the PA system or find a niche outside them” and tend to “focus on the delivery of direct services to tap into available funding” (Lee et al., 2020, pp. 11–12).

6

An arts-based community development organization that functions as an intermediary between communities and artists for the purpose of community capability building and active citizenship (ArtsWok Collaborative, n.d.).

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In her 2019 investigation on cultural policy and community arts engagement in Singapore, Xue Xuan wrote that the publication of the 2012 Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR) by the National Arts Council (NAC) “initiates a shift of the arts and cultural policy from profitable creativity economy development to expedient tools for social cohesion and community building” (Xue, 2019, p. 2). The arts and culture became focus points for state policy due to their potential for community development and community building. The ACSR detailed the state’s mission of “bringing the arts and culture to everyone, everywhere, everyday” (ACSR report, cited by Hoe, 2018, p. 5). To meet the objectives of ACSR, three master plans were drawn up focusing on different strategic areas. The Community Engagement Masterplan (CEM) was allocated the most funding (a total of S$210 million) of which 45% would go towards creating “community touchpoints for the arts and culture” (Hoe, 2018, pp. 5–6). In the guide entitled Bringing Arts into the Neighbourhoods: Choosing the Right Space and Structure published by NAC in 2019, authors Trivic, Mascarenhas and Duong describe the wider vision behind these touch-points: The Arts and Culture Nodes initiative, launched by the National Arts Council in 2012, establishes an island-wide network of arts touch-points within neighbourhoods to provide all Singaporeans with greater access to quality arts, bring vibrancy and stronger identity to public spaces, and increase opportunities for community participation and bonding through the arts. Such touch-points go beyond formal arts venues (typically found in the city centre) and involve partnerships with various institutions such as libraries, government agencies, civic centres, community and recreational clubs and corporate organisations that play a key role in their respective neighbourhood (Trivic et al., 2019, p. 3).

Xue argues that sustaining interest is necessary beyond providing opportunities for “first-timers” to get exposed to arts and culture (2019, p. 14). Citing trends revealed in NAC’s Population Survey on the Arts,7 she notes that: the attendance rate from 1996 to 2017 is climbing but fluctuates dramatically. Meanwhile, the gap between sustained interest in the arts and attendance of arts events is becoming wider and reaches 32% in 2017, which demonstrates the overhasty state-led community arts programming aims to reach new audiences but fails to ensure correlating cultivation of people’s appreciation (Xue, 2019, p. 14).

Trivic et al. (2019) emphasize the need to stimulate more “active” forms of participation in order to sustain people’s interest over time. One of the “potential visions” they identify is to use arts and cultural activities as a way of “empowering the residents by encouraging active community participation” (p. 8), coining the term “Inventive Arts Participation” which they envision “Engages the mind, body, and spirit in an act of artistic creation that is unique and idiosyncratic, regardless of skill level” (p. 49).

7

The goal of the survey is to “track and understand: [h]ow Singaporeans perceive the value of arts and culture in Singapore, [h]ow the level of engagement in arts and culture has changed in Singapore; and [w]hat the motivations and barriers to embracing arts and culture events and activities in Singapore are." (National Arts Council, n.d.).

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Suggesting a reason for the lack of sustained interest in community arts programmes, Xue (2019, p. 15) highlights their homogeneity and emphasis on simplistic congeniality: Judging from present community arts programs, they are generally critiqued as “quite similar” and “only about happy8 ” (Koh, 2020. Liang, 2017. Low, 2017). The simplicity of content is the result of over-management and over-control on the contents which greatly limits the potential of community arts.

Increasingly, stakeholders are pushing for greater imbrication between the spheres of contemporary art and community art, exemplified by the growth of platforms and intermediary organizations, like ArtsWok Collaborative, that aim to bridge the gap (Lee et al., 2020). More effectively and long-lastingly “[e]mpowering the residents” (Trivic et al., 2019) would entail less directed initiatives (cutting back on “overmanagement and over-control” in Xue’s (2019, p. 15) words) and allowing fresh ideas and approaches to be tried. In this regard, artists, and contemporary art as a field of research and practice, can help to provide a greater diversity of approaches to (i) creativity and artistic practices, (ii) forms of engagement and public participation, and (iii) defining and effecting social amelioration in ways that are less top-down and more open-ended. The question of funding also sheds light on the national context within which community art and contemporary art operate. Just like community art, contemporary art (and arts and culture in general) is strongly reliant on state funding. According to Edwin Tong, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth & Second Minister for Law, government funding for the arts and culture amounted in 2021 to “around $450 million per year, compared to 300 million per year before 2013” (MCCY, 2021, n.p.). This corresponds to about 80% of total arts and heritage funding) of which about one third goes to the NAC to disburse to the arts community via commissions and grants (Ibid.). NAC allocates funds by art form (more or less according to the relative proportion occupied by each within the arts ecosystem), which, in 2019, meant about 60% went to the performing arts, 20% to the visual arts, and 15% to the literary arts (Ho, 2017). Other than NAC, government funding goes to the National Heritage Board and other national arts and culture institutions like the Esplanade and National Gallery Singapore, both of which commission arts groups and individuals for exhibitions and festivals (Ibid.). Like many contemporary artists in Singapore, social practice artists are heavily dependent on direct state funding and/or commissions by state-funded arts and culture institutions (see Lee et al., 2020, p. 12). Private donors generally only make up about 20% of the total funding for arts and heritage, and this often requires incentivizing through MCCY’s Cultural Matching Fund (for which the government matches private donations dollar-fordollar), or initiatives such as NAC’s Patron of the Arts Awards (which significantly 8

In the sense that these programmes only deal with or invite positive themes and emotions.

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boosted private donations during the year of Singapore’s 50th birthday Jubilee in 2015) (Ho, 2017). Larger private donors tend to be captured by government bodies or high-profile art companies with established fund-raising capacities, both of which can offer donors visibility—something ephemeral and intangible relational works cannot. In addition, social practice artists whose work is not primarily object-based (thus eschewing commodification by the art market) are not usually represented by commercial galleries, which favor traditional art forms such as painting and sculpture. In a context where state-managed arts-based community development and reliance of the arts on government funding predominate, social practice artists in Singapore face particular opportunities and constraints. Operating in alignment with certain strategic areas of interest to the state means potentially accessing a ready pool of funding. Lee et al. (2020) identified two areas of interest: “arts-based community engagement that focuses on building national identity and interracial harmony receives much government support and funding” and “community art that helps support therapy, health and social care are also welcomed by the arts administrators, social service providers, hospitals and community organisations” (p. 4). However, “artists who choose to engage the community in dialogue on perceived sensitive issues continue to negotiate with the state for a space to do so” (Ibid.). This negotiation (and the censorship and self-censorship it implies) is something many of the artists we interviewed corroborated.

5 Social Practice Art in Singapore: Four Case Studies 5.1 Buangkok Mall Life Club (2020) Buangkok Mall Life Club (BMLC) is a project by Singaporean artist Salty Xi Jie Ng. This project, commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC) in partnership with the Housing Development Board (HDB) saw the artist take over an empty unit (#01–05) of a small neighbourhood shopping centre called Buangkok Square, from mid-September to early December 2020 (Fig. 1). Open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for three to four hours at a time, Buangkok Mall Life Club transformed the empty space into one of “intimacy, connection and alternative economy” (Ng, n.d.). Salty created a number of activities through which she hoped to engage members of the public (who consisted mainly of shoppers and mall workers) and entice them to visit the space. By far the most popular initiative was her Buangkok Exchange Department, which encouraged people to bring their personal belongings to exchange (one-for-one) with items brought by others (Fig. 2). No money exchanged hands.

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Fig. 1 Buangkok Mall Life Club exterior with team members Crystal Ng and alex t posing as window displays. (Image courtesy of Salty Xi Jie Ng)

Items were not assessed according to market value and each swap was assiduously recorded by Salty in a big ledger. The encounters and interactions fostered by this alternative exchange platform prompted innumerable congenial, intimate, oftentimes humorous connections. During our interview, Salty reflected upon the unexpected forms of sociality created by the Exchange Department: When you look at all the things in the space it becomes a snapshot of Buangkok as a neighbourhood or our society in Singapore, or of the world, and then you start thinking about consumerism and access and who made this stingray wallet from Thailand or who has worn this body shaping bra before. And the aunty who brought in the body shaping bra said that she used it to seduce her husband 20 years ago and she was finally letting go of it. Five minutes later she had a conversation with this other aunty about that aunty’s bra size and whether it would fit. All these exchanges were deeply fascinating and as result of the exchange department. So the exchange department had a utilitarian function in terms of giving people an opportunity to release objects and take in new ones, but it also created a new social space.

When I visited Buangkok Mall Life Club, the one-for-one exchange period was over. The Exchange Department had turned into a “Free Store” where anyone could

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take whatever they wanted. The space was buzzing with people rifling through heaps of items. A small group had gathered around a table, making sculptures out of donated items. Salty and her teammates fielded questions and beckoned some puzzled passersby to enter. My first impression was of a fun, quirky space that invited the curious with cozy seating (a very plush sofa), warm mood lighting, colorful art on the walls and of course, haphazard piles of free things (tantalizing bargain bin aficionados like myself). Aside from the Exchange Department/Free Store, there were other ways in which Salty strove to foster public participation. She set up an arts and crafts corner on a table, with some glue and scissors and many small items in various stages of reuse/transformation. One wall was dedicated to community painting—where people could come in and paint or write a piece of news from their everyday lives on stretched canvases. There was the “Heartbreak Altar,” a participatory installation where the broken-hearted could build little shrines in memory of extinguished old flames. Salty also came up with, in her words, an “aspirational” project in which she and her team mates aimed to talk to every single mall worker. Over the course of the project,

Fig. 2 “Legendary Customers” with their finds from the Buangkok Exchange Department; (from left) Nguang Nai, artist Salty Xi Jie Ng, Ya Mei, Sabtu, Linda. (Images courtesy of Salty Xi Jie Ng)

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they jointly met dozens of mall workers, interviewing them about their jobs and thoughts on life in the mall. The resulting questionnaires, which included people’s photographs and handwritten answers, were prominently displayed at the entrance to the space. Finally, in an attempt to reach those mall workers who could not drop by BMLC due to their work schedule, Salty occasionally kept the space open beyond her regular hours. Beyond these participative frameworks, Salty’s artistic persona and peoplecentred approach also helped encourage public participation and engagement in the space. Complete with sparkly make-up and ribbons dangling from her Princess Leia styled hair, Salty’s whimsical persona contributed to the singularity of the space and its alternative rules of sociality. This persona, which she insists is close to her usual personality, coaxed people to partake in the friendly alternative universe of BMLC, and experience a momentary respite from capitalist transactionality and the insularities of pragmatic individualism. Salty worked hard to facilitate the communal spirit of the place and cultivate relationships. She seemed to always be deep in conversation with someone, befriending regulars (whom she knew by name) and bestowing them honorific titles such as “Legendary Customer” (to designate someone who has an exceptional spirit) and “Beloved Customer” (someone who frequents the store often). Merely relying on the participatory activities would not have garnered the engagement BMLC did without the constant unseen work of outreach and community building done by Salty and her team. People were made to feel that they mattered, were a part of something larger—something temporary yet precious, and that they too helped make the space what it is. As previously discussed, obtaining state funding is often the only option for social practice artists in Singapore. While Claire Bishop (2006, 2012) argues that any art that takes money from the state is inherently co-opted to serve its interests, others believe that certain forms of art acquire their radicality and potency to effect social change by operating within institutions of power. Shannon Jackson (2011) points out the possibility of opening spaces of negotiation via institutional critique, citing the artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s iconic Maintainance Art (from the 1970s and ‘80 s) which she undertook within various institutions (Touch Sanitation carried out during her residency with the New York City Department of Sanitation, and Washing/Tracks/Maintenance at the Wadsworth Atheneum art museum are two examples that bring to light underappreciated and unseen labor). By virtue of insider access to institutional resources, such art can be effective at shedding light on systemic issues and power imbalances (Jackson, 2011). In the case of BMLC, Salty was able to leverage the resources of the state for her own artistic ends and personal convictions.9 BMLC, located at a prime ground-floor corner unit, enjoyed 9

It should be noted that Salty felt free to conceptualize and implement her ideas (within the themes explored and constraints of the space and budget) without interference by NAC or HDB.

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high foot traffic; being able to occupy this space in a neighborhood mall allowed for privileged access to an entirely new public which the artist would otherwise not have been able to engage with without institutional support. The visibility and easy access to the space as well as the extended run of BMLC (allowing mall goers to get accustomed to it), also contributed to creating a low barrier to entry for the public and increasing engagement. BMLC is not an institutional critique10 of its government funding provider (NAC) and space partner (HDB), but Salty was still able to shake up how community art (and commercial mall spaces) are typically run in Singapore, offering a fresh take on public engagement, and helping to broaden people’s conceptions of what art is, and what art can do. Creatively deploying the resources at her disposal, Salty came up with a creative use of the space geared towards nonintrusively infusing imagination, fantasy and creativity in everyday (mall) life. By doing so, it catalyzed new and exciting processes and dynamics of sociality, community building and meaning-making. The varied participatory offerings at BMLC allowed for a range of ways for people to participate and interact. People often came for the Exchange Department, then discovered the other creative outlets, the casual socializing and spirit of neighborliness. BMLC fostered an open, inclusive community space where dropping by (and possibly participating in any activity) was a low-risk, low-commitment act; people were free to come and go as they please, exchange belongings and engage on their own terms. Even onlookers who peered through the unit’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows were exposed to some form of art and witnessed different modes of exchanges (whether social or material). Salty told me some people simply came to sit on the couch, presumably taking a break from walking, shopping, working or whatever they had been doing. BMLC in a sense democratized art, de-eliticized it, making allowances for pragmatic everyday needs, as succinct as the need to simply sit and rest. BMLC is informed by, and situated within, the adjacent and overlapping realms of contemporary art and community art in Singapore. Yet it did not feel like a pretentious public artwork out-of-place in a community which didn’t ask for it. Nor did it feel like an awkward yet well-meaning attempt to “do-good” and “help” a community through art and as some community projects sometimes do. It was simply there, holding space for neighborly exchanges, uncanny encounters, moments of respite and creative experimentation. Reimagining what mall life, community and art could be, BMLC existed at the ambiguous threshold between everyday life and art, between congenial social amelioration and gentle resistance. An experimental approach towards both community art and contemporary art in Singapore—an interstice filled with possibilities.

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Interestingly, Salty’s next work, which she developed while in residency at the Singapore Art Museum, signals a shift in the artist’s practice towards institutional critique; Dear Singapore Art Museum Acquisition Committee is a performance-lecture in which she playfully prods the museum’s acquisition practices and queries how social forms of art can enter national collections.

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5.2 The Everyday Life Orchestra (2014) and Homework (2020) Singaporean multidisciplinary artist anGie seah has been creating community engaged art projects for over 15 years. In 2014, she was commissioned by the People’s Association to work with seniors at the Changkat Community Centre on a project called The Everyday Life Orchestra. This was part of the PassionArts Festival whose theme that year was “Coming Home”. The Everyday Life Orchestra was a series of 12 sessions during which participants experimented with creating sounds using their voice and objects. The workshop culminated in a final public performance as an ‘orchestra’ at the community centre. The objective of the project was to give seniors the opportunity to explore their own creativity while having fun, socializing and being active. One of anGie’s core beliefs is that the everyday is an endless source of inspiration, spontaneity, and creative potential. Seeing and listening to the seemingly mundane with new eyes and ears is what anGie hoped to instill in the participants: I actually spoke to them about… to create sound and how you’re able to do that even at home, like, enable them to relate it back to their everyday life, like you cook every day, you sleep, use your pillow, you know… all these are all different elements of sound. So in a way, I think they can relate to that. So while they are doing those actions, they don’t find it that... they don’t feel awkward, you know? And that is how I’m able to make them be attentive to sound.

Mindful not to alienate the elderly participants, anGie avoided giving them unfamiliar instruments to play, asking them instead to choose items from their home for their sonorous potential. Participants brought to the workshop pots and pans, spatulas and cutlery, empty bottles filled with rice or beans, mortar and pestles—these would be the orchestra’s instruments! The entire ensemble was divided into groups based on instrument type (eg., percussion vs. wind), like in a conventional orchestra (Fig. 3). Acting as the conductor, anGie stood in front of them, signaling to each group when to play and how loudly, and when to stand up and sit down. The Everyday Life Orchestra stands apart from other perhaps more ‘typical’ examples of “community art.” The feedback shared by participants indicated they were pleasantly surprised by the originality of the approach, describing the project as a refreshing change from the usual People’s Association community art fare for seniors, which tends to be more crafts-based. One participant, Kamariah binte Tohid, shared: This project is very interesting in a way that whatever anGie brings in is different from others. and I’ve learned a lot from her in the experience I’ve gained here … it’s about art, but it’s from a different angle. Previously we learned that art is just a piece of drawing. But here we have movements, voice and instruments and we make our own instruments (anGie seah, 2014, 7:40).

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Fig. 3 Participants with their musical instruments. (Image courtesy of anGie seah)

Activating the corporeal—our ability to sense, understand, remember and do things with our body—can be a powerful framework through which to engage diverse publics. In his PhD thesis about participatory art practice, Anthony Shrag (2015) argues that corporeality is “a shared touchstone between all humans” (p. 72). He notes that, unlike traditional practices like painting (which draw heavily on acquired visual and aesthetic skills and knowledge of art), “to formulate projects within a physical framework requires no preconceived knowledge and therefore has a more immediate, broader reach to diverse communities and individuals” (Shrag, 2015, p. 72). The Everyday Life Orchestra hones participants’ corporeal capabilities through its emphasis on multi-sensorial and perception-based activities. Each session deployed elements of sound, touch, movement and visual cues, while practicing hand-to-eye coordination and situational awareness vis-à-vis other participants and the ‘conductor.’ anGie’s predilection for multisensorial embodied approaches is reflected throughout her artistic practice. She often deploys the body as a recentering tool, helping people to be present, to explore, and (re)connect with their inner selves and everyday worlds. Out of all the senses, anGie works most often with the sense of hearing—the perception and the creation of sound in its multiple forms. Her instrument of choice? Vocal chords. She is not interested in drawing on music theory or social constructs

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Fig. 4 anGie seah emphasizing everyday movements and sounds as part of the orchestra’s repertoire (eg. “laugh,” “sing,” “complain” and “shaking”). (Image courtesy of anGie seah)

of what is pleasant-, melodious- or harmonious-sounding. During our conversation, anGie shared she likes sounds that are not words, finding verbal language too “literal,” cognitive, rational. Our ability to make sounds, on the other hand, can still be imbued with that prelinguistic, instinctual, primordial essence we share with other animals. anGie likes raw and unfiltered sounds, and believes a person’s voice is their identity, in that it is a “primal tool that is actually literally coming from the inside.” (Fig. 4). In a similar vein to The Everyday Life Orchestra, anGie has conducted multisensorial workshops in which participants are led through sense-based explorations and activities. I had a chance to participate in one called Homework, which was part of local theatre company Drama Box’s SCENES 2020 festival11 (offered entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The workshop took place over several days and anGie gave participants a series of prompts to carry out individually, as homework. These included recording ourselves making sounds, drawing a circle with our eyes closed, observing something out of the window (to name a few). Some exercises were also done together during our collective Zoom sessions, like balancing a sheet of paper on one’s head as we walked in circles. anGie’s activities prompted us to explore 11

The SCENES 2020 micro-site contains more details of anGie’s workshop: http://scenes2020.dra mabox.org/workshops/homework/.

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our homes and everyday life via our senses and corporeal perceptions, reframing the familiar and mundane through playful experimentation (Fig. 5). Releasing the voice was something anGie spoke about in the workshop – how our voice is often ‘trapped’ inside us, its full scope of abilities hidden from the world… and how she wanted us to let it out! One exercise helped do just that. Tasked to express a complaint or rant via any form of vocalization, I found myself emitting a series (or abstract atonal soundscape) of grunts, growls and eardrum-shattering yodeling, all of which felt surprisingly stress relieving. We also chanted, gurgled and screamed at the top of our lungs all together over the Zoom platform (which chimed in with its own feedback, audio delays and background sounds). It was a cathartic albeit momentary surrender to our collective sensorial animality. In Phénoménologie de la Perception (1976), Maurice Merleau-Ponty proposed that bodily experience (by way of sensorial perceptions) is the primary means by which humans understand the world. Perceptions, and the embodied cognition they engender, cannot be translated into another language, be it intellectual, conceptual, semiotic. Embodied cognition as a field of study views basic cognitive processes, such as identification, as intrinsically embodied, i.e., dependent on bodily/physical

Fig. 5 Example of one sensorial (listening and feeling) “homework exercise” provided to us by anGie seah to do on Day 1 before bed. (Image courtesy of anGie seah and Drama Box)

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perceptions. These perceptions in turn inform mental and ontological frameworks (Balcetis & Cole, 2009). By extension, participatory practices which use the body or physical perceptions to approach a context activate embodied cognition, and generate new understandings by harnessing the body’s ways of knowing. Moreover, embodied participatory practices are collectively-experienced, and the shared knowledge they catalyze is the basis for participants’ interconnection (Shrag, 2015, p. 85). From the perspective of social practice art theory, the embodied (inter)actions carried out by participants in The Everyday Life Orchestra and Homework are the very material and end-goal of the art; not a mere means to another end, whether aesthetic, intellectual/conceptual or socially ameliorative. However, The Everyday Life Orchestra, which is clearly inscribed within the local genealogy of community art, has evident benefits which happen to align with the state’s strategic community development goals. Multisensorial and corporeal participation was designed to get senior citizens to move their bodies, stimulate their minds and socialize with neighbours—cornerstones of active ageing and healthy living. One participant shared her appreciation for the project by saying it allowed her to meet old friends and make new ones. Another said she enjoyed the physical exercise it encouraged, and her husband described how he usually feels intimidated in group classes, but that he was not afraid to be singled out to play his instrument (anGie seah, 2014). Through structured yet playful (and unintimidating) participative frameworks, The Everyday Life Orchestra and Homework deploy the power of multisensorial embodiment to engage people in fun and experimental ways. Integrating the wide spectrum of human perceptions and the corporeal in participative frameworks is an underexplored approach in local community art. But as anGie’s works show, this approach can be a powerful way to generate interest in art, and challenge participants’ notions of creativity. Providing people with multiple sensorial entry-points to appreciate and partake in exploratory play and experimentation helps participants connect with themselves, and form new and shared understandings of the world around them.

5.3 Unseen: Constellations (2014–2016) The Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School was the first public school in Singapore to integrate students who live with blindness and visual-impairment into national mainstream education. Responding to the absence of a permanent art programme for these students, Singaporean artist Alecia Neo initiated an independent art project in 2014 with the mission of providing students access to artistic and cultural activities. The initial plan was to carry out an eight day workshop, however, the project grew into something much larger. As Alecia got to know the students’ passions, talents and dreams, she decided to turn the project into a platform for the youth to come up with their own creative projects. Pairing them with sighted mentors from their fields of interest, the students were supported as they worked on their projects

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from conceptualization to completion over a period of two years. Thus, Unseen: Constellations morphed into a “humble platform and network for exchange and collaborations” (Neo, n.d.) and a “bridge between sighted people and people living with visual impairment” (Unseen Art Initiatives, n.d.). Seven students participated and over the course of the project each met their mentor twice or three times a month to work on their project (Fig. 6). The completed works included an audio book about a blind criminal investigator, experimental films about coming of age, original music compositions including one for a symphonic band, music videos and a proposal for an alternative orphanage (Unseen Art Initiatives, n.d.; Cheng, n.d.). Throughout, participants explored their self-identities and aspirations through various creative prompts and activities led by Alecia, the mentors and a team of volunteers. All the while, artists and collaborators strove to get to know the context they were inserting

Fig. 6 Selected images from the Unseen: Constellations (2014–2016) project (L-R top to bottom): Neo Kah Wee with student mentor Loo Bin Hui and fellow schoolmates from Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School pictured after completing a scene for Kah Wee’s short film. Adelyn Koh with student mentor musician Sara Ismail, working on Adelyn’s original composition. Nurul Natasya Zain, mentored by music conductor Zaidi Sabtu-Ramli, walks off stage after performing her original compositions during a concert in collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic Symphonic Band. A group photograph taken during a meet-up for John Danesh’s project at student mentor chief psychologist (Singapore Police Force) Dr Majeed Khader’s office, accompanied by project manager Safiah Sulaiman, fellow student mentor, Prison Fellowship counsellor Peter Lim and artist Alecia Neo. (Images courtesy of Alecia Neo)

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themselves in, and be respectful and considerate of individual participants’ interests, values and expectations. In 2016, the Unseen: Constellations Art Exhibition was held at Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film (Singapore), featuring live performances and workshops by the student participants, public talks and sharing sessions, and a blindfolded night walk around the Bugis neighbourhood (Cheng, n.d.). In relation to our discussion about frameworks of participation and how these are informed by and impact goals of social amelioration, the metamorphosis of Unseen: Constellations is eye-opening. Both the anticipated forms of participation and Alecia’s ideas and goals of social change evolved greatly. In our extensive interview, Alecia shared that she had started off with an “entrenched” mindset to “push for certain kinds of change within the system” and “get the participants to see a particular way of understanding their reality.” She had defined a number of specific criteria by which to gauge the success of the project, and when it failed to meet these, Alecia said “[she] didn’t feel like it worked well” and felt “very disappointed”. However, over time, she realized she had had a “myopic way of looking at socially engaged practice.” She became more open to new possibilities, within herself and the project. This is when the project shifted towards a more long-term platform of exchange and collaboration, where participants could take ownership of their creative ideas and be more empowered to influence the direction of the wider platform. Alecia’s capacity for reflection and adaptability allowed her team and herself to more meaningfully engage with the students, by getting to know their concerns and interests and allowing these to inform the direction of the work. The project evolved from a structured intervention with relatively rigid success metrics to a flexible, nurturing and people-centred space where participation could deepen and become the very core and purpose of things. In a way, the project is an example of decentralizing control and letting things flow. One of the lessons Alecia learnt from Unseen: Constellations is that social amelioration can take many unexpected forms: What’s interesting with regards to transformation in an art practice in the social realm, is that, contrary to what a lot of artists and audience feel, it needs to be dramatic, epic and instant. However, we often overlook the stabler but necessary and important sorts of transformations that take place in long term durational projects. These transformations in relationships are often difficult to document and discern... Making them seemingly invisible at times will stop but it does not mean that they don’t take place. But I look forward to is the change of or disruption of perceptions about social norms, the ability to nurture individuals and collective agency and forms of behavior, and how we relate to each other (Neo, cited in Mendolicchio & Bosch, 2017, p. 111).

For these overlooked processes of individual and interpersonal transformation to occur, the relationships and power dynamics between Alecia/her team and the students had to change. In a sense, Alecia and her team’s role shifted from being implementators, facilitators and chief creatives to being fellow participants in the project, eager to listen, learn and follow students’ cues. Social practice art that engages with lower-resourced or disenfranchized communities always raises ethical concerns, and it’s important to acknowledge power dynamics between artists and

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participants. Genuine empathy needs to underscore interactions and processes at every stage, in order to avoid exposing participants, making them feel used or otherwise contributing to their marginalization (Lee, 2015). Though the power imbalance can never be fully erased, Alecia and her team worked hard at building trust over time, and strove to always be aware, sensitive and attuned to students’ diverse contexts and needs. The extended duration of the project was also crucial, allowing everyone to get to know each other’s values and interests, and develop close bonds of friendship which continue today. Alecia’s ethos of participation can be encapsulated by “just being together in the same space” and, engaging in activities which “may sometimes not be even verbal.” She observed the power of holding space for togetherness and letting things emanate from that: It’s these sort of small encounters and intimate ways of meeting another person, right? And sort of being immersed in another’s world, that doesn’t have to always be like, in your face, that I found a lot more effective and so that’s actually where I’m going with my work now. I feel like right now, I’m a lot more open towards allowing certain things to just be.

Importantly, Alecia noted that being together in a space did not equate only to harmonious conviviality and instant connection—it actually entailed “long processes of negotiating differences which were relational and experiential,” and that “the relationship between the different groups of mentors, students, volunteers and [her]self, developed overtime through both tension and disruptions, as well as alignment and temporary solidarity” (Mendolicchio & Bosch, 2017, p. 113). Alecia highlighted the importance of letting “both positive and negative feelings” emerge so they may be addressed, allowing “micro-shifts” resulting from challenged assumptions to occur. It is only by airing differences in values, experiences, interests, and expectations that space is cleared for more egalitarian relationships and more meaningful processes of collaboration and co-creation. For artists working with communities, letting go of control of the decision-making process brings opportunities for participants to connect with and feel genuine ownership over a project. People generally feel more invested if they are entrusted to contribute in shaping a project. Helguera (2012) writes that an artist’ expectations for a community’s participation in socially engaged art should only be: proportionate to the community’s investment in the project and to the responsibility it is assigned in it. It is unrealistic to demand a lot of participation or work from collaborators who are not also part of the decision-making process, without creating other incentives to make them feel ownership of the project (2012, p. 55).

When working with disabled communities, more horizontal forms of collaboration and co-creation can appear when one moves beyond the charity model of disability (i.e. working "with" versus "for" them). According to Justin Lee, a scholar of community development and social work in Singapore, focusing on finding and leveraging participants’ strengths is more empowering: Instead of seeing impairment, we can see resourcefulness. In other words, instead of being fixated on what people with disabilities cannot do, and attempting to correct for that; the

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focus can be on what they are competent at, and building their strengths in those areas (Lee, 2015, n.p.).

Social practice art seeks to decenter the focus away from the artist as a singular creative mind and often questions the notion of authorship altogether. Unseen: Constellations is testament to this process of decentering. What began as a work idealised by Alecia has evolved into a more open structure in which others have stepped in, contributing their own artistic visions and decision-making power. Since 2016, Unseen: Constellations has undergone yet another transformation. Now known as Unseen Art Initiatives, the platform welcomes anyone keen to helm disabilitydriven artistic projects to propose their ideas and use the support and resources of the platform, whether production-related, artistic or financial. In 2019, Unseen: Constellations alumus Claire Teo—who had by then completed further studies at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, approached Alecia and Unseen Art Initiatives with a disability-centered artistic proposal she had conceptualised with sighted fellow artist Kira Lim. The ensuing collaboration resulted in Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out), an interactive, sensorial installation showcased at National Gallery Singapore in January 2022 as part of the Light to Night Festival. Featuring sound works created with twelve visually-impaired co-creators, the installation was accompanied by a series of voice, movement and storytelling workshops for visually-impaired individuals, as well as public tours and activations (Fig. 7). According to Claire, this was “[her] first project as lead artist where [she] could make decisions that are “disability-centered,” prioritising the access needs and rights of [her] visually impaired co-creators12 ” (Teo, 2022, p. 14). Helguera wrote that as a “structure becomes more open, more freedom is given to the group to shape the exchange. The main challenge is to find the balance between the investment of the participants and the freedom provided” (2012, p. 48). Unseen: Constellations (now Unseen Art Initiatives) has found that balance by sustaining a long-term commitment to a community and adapting its participative framework in a way that made room for being together and negotiating differences through dialogue, trust and empathy. Today, the platform embodies nimble, context-adaptive flexibility and a commitment to recognizing others’ potential, leveraging their efforts and empowering them to pursue their dreams. Community art and contemporary art alike can garner wisdom and insights from the enduring, ever-changing and selfless nature of this work.

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Claire contrasted this to past opportunities where she has felt her presence was treated as “dispensable and tokenized” (Teo, 2022, p. 16). The artist, who trained in a professional conservatory, described one particular performance: “I was involved in a major event that took place at the Esplanade Concert Hall. Despite the music in the concert being messy, uncoordinated, and pitchy at times, the ‘inclusive’ orchestra received a standing ovation from the audience. I never want anyone to feel the way I did in that moment—small and insignificant, condescended. After that experience, I promised never to settle for less than the best—from myself or the people I work with.” (Ibid.).

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Fig. 7 Selected images from the Unseen: Inside Out (2020–2022) project (L-R top to bottom): Artist Claire Teo and co-creator Sherri Lim engaging in a movement exercise during a workshop session. Co-creators Cheyenne Phua, Desmond Toh and Firdhaus Jaafar lead a series of public dialogues at the Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) art installation during the Night to Light Festival at National Gallery Singapore in January 2022. (Images courtesy of Alecia Neo). During the Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) art installation, an audience member navigates a maze of colourful ropes with touch, while listening to the audio track (Image courtesy of Samuel Woo).

5.4 I Am LGB (2016) I Am LGB is a participatory work conceptualised by the LGB Society of Mind—a collective that includes Ray Langenbach, Shawn Chua Ming Ren, Lee Mun Wai, Bani Haykal, Kelvin Chew, Chan Silel, Loo Zihan and creative agency TRIPPLE. It was commissioned for the 2016 Singapore International Festival of Arts. Taking place over two storeys at the site of local theatre company TheatreWorks, and lasting four

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hours each time, the work involved 100 participants per session and occurred four times—three were ticketed events and one was a free rehearsal for invited guests. I Am LGB was inspired by the concept of the escape room (where people must complete a series of time-based tests before they can exit), and by the collective’s experience of streaming13 exercises and culture of competition in the Singaporean education system. The first storey, designated as the first chamber, was where participants gathered and were put through a series of competitive pseudo-pedagogical exercises including throwing balls, dancing, mathematical quizzes, sorting objects and drawing pictures. After each test, some people would (seemingly) randomly be “liberated” (as per the language used in the work) and were led to another chamber on the second storey of the venue. This was an archive holding area where they were able to view the rest of the performance remotely, while accessing archival material that was used in the creation of the production, including videos, newspaper articles, photographs and other personal memorabillia from American performance artist and academic Ray Langenbach’s archive. People who were not “liberated” continued being subjected to the tests downstairs. As the number of participants performing the exercises dwindled, a final vote was held among the “liberated” participants to determine who would be the next “LGB” (or Lan Gen Bah, Ray Langenbach’s alter ego and long-term artistic collaborator) (Fig. 8). I Am LGB borrows from contemporary theatre, relational aesthetics and game design, but its participative framework and the kinds of relationality it generated through shared action and experiences overlap with certain elements of social practice art. I am including it here because the work offers an interesting approach to participation, one that is based on discomfort and (consensual and performative) coercion, and which has implications for social amelioration. While some examples of social practice art favor consensus and congeniality—prioritizing a ‘gentler’ form of resistance to social norms and structures, others embrace more wholeheartedly the generative possibilities of dissensus and contention. In Helguera’s view, “confrontation implies taking a critical position on a given issue without necessarily proposing an alternative. Its greatest strength is in raising questions, not in providing answers” (2012, p. 59). Indeed, a number of highly regarded social practice art, such as the controversial works by artists Santiago Sierra and several by Francis Alÿs, take the form of antagonistic, confrontational and even antisocial social action, whose power dwells in the ability to make us question our assumptions. I Am LGB aligns itself with this approach, with its “goal of pricking people awake, gadfly-style, making us question the little Hunger Games rat race of our lives on this island” as one participant, Ng Yi-Sheng, wrote (2016, n.p.). There are a number of ways in which I Am LGB deploys discomfort and confrontation in its participatory framework. For one, the premise of the escape room creates and slowly increases the pressure (and fatigue) felt by participants over the four hours of participative endurance. The rising tension and spirit of competition provoked in 13

Streaming, introduced in 1980 in Singapore’s secondary schools, is a process whereby students are divided into Normal Academic (NA), Normal Technical (NT) and Express classes. This paradigm will be phased out in Singapore schools from 2024 (Ministry of Education, 2019).

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Fig. 8 Participants performing a peripheral sensing exercise guided by Lan Gen Bah (appearing via video projection). Image Singapore International Festival of Arts 2016 (Photo by Kong Chong Yew, courtesy of Arts House Limited)

I Am LGB is reminiscent of that fostered by certain video games. Many multiplayer video games are designed in a way which “exploits the anxious relation of self to other in the act of targeting, risking the boundaries of character for the reward of promoting the character to a new level” (Poole, S. cited in Wark, 2012, p. 26). Participants’ anxiety is thus “rendered useful, productive, rather than paralyzing or profound” (Ibid.). The kind of dynamics which form between players can be understood as “agonistic,” to borrow French philosopher Michel Foucault’s term. In The Subject and Power (1982), Foucault suggested: Rather than speaking of an essential antagonism, it would be better to speak of an “agonism” of a relationship that is at the same time mutual incitement and struggle; less of a face-to-face confrontation that paralyses both sides than a permanent provocation (p. 342).

The Greek root of agonism is agon—which refers to a public contest/game played for a prize, or a verbal competition between two characters in a play, thus as opposed to antagonism, agonism “lacks a violent desire to abolish the other” (DiSalvo, 2012, p. 50). In situations where participants are pitted against one another whereby outcomes are mutually exclusive (winner takes all), agonism can manifest in disagreements, strife and highly individualistic behaviors (DiSalvo, 2012). The competitive exercises and escape room framework in I Am LGB contributed to inciting agonism between participants. Pitted against one another but also depending on each other to carry out certain tasks, participants in numbered lab coats were subjected to a gamified and mildly sadistic pseudo-meritocracy in which they had to follow rigid rules,

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Fig. 9 Participants were tasked with selecting an item to illustrate a collective dream. (Image courtesy of Wan Zhong Hao)

but could still be eliminated for no apparent reason even when they did (Fig. 9). Frustrated, some people left the experiment while others doggedly continued on. Reflecting on his experience as a participant, arts writer Helmi Yusof, described: how automatically selfish and competitive people become when they are ranked against each other according to test scores, physical abilities, verbal wit, and so on. Even when the tests seem utterly purposeless - can you perform the Nepalese bell dance? Can you draw three windows and interpret them intellectually? - many participants displayed a serious determination to pass them (2016, n.p.).

In her lecture entitled “Agonistic Politics and Artistic Practices,” French philosopher Chantal Mouffe argued that: Those [artists] who advocate the creation of agonistic public spaces where the objective is to unveil everything that is repressed by the dominant consensus are going to envisage a relation between artistic practices and their public in a very different way than those whose objective is the creation of consensus – even if that consensus is considered critical consensus. According to the agonistic approach, critical art is art that forms a dissensus – that makes visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate, aiming to give voice within the existing hegemony (The Glasgow School of Art, 2007, 34:03).

So what kind of invisibilized elements did I Am LGB reveal? And to the point of this chapter, did participating lead people to new understandings, make them question their assumptions, make visible the workings of the existing hegemony? According to Loo Zihan, I Am LGB is a social experiment whose “overarching thematic tension is one that negotiates between solitary individual interest and collective solidarity” (Z. Loo, personal communication, July 10, 2022). Yusof for his part wrote that participating made him “wonder if these expressions of competitiveness are born out of pure

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human instinct or a distinct Singaporean predilection fostered by the system” (2016, n.p.). The work certainly appeared to be an indictment of highly controlled winnertakes-all systems that strictly enforce compliance and individual performance. By injecting a big dose of arbitrariness in the eliminations, I Am LGB undermined participants’ expectations of meritocracy in the world of the experiment. Being forced to obey increasingly absurd directions while being subjected to arbitrary judgement would lead anyone to frustration and cynicism. It follows that participants would eventually start to question the fairness and purpose of the whole opaque and oppressive system, and maybe even ponder if their ringleaders harbored an ulterior agenda. For another participant, art critic Corrie Tan, the experience of agonism led to other sets of questions. She described her mixed emotions as the rounds of elimination began: “We’re first introduced to what it feels like to be part of a large, safe group, and immediately after, how it feels to go solo. Freedom and fear conflate and combine” (Tan, 2016, n. p.). She continued: “Every interaction primes you for another moment of independent decision-making but also undercuts or subverts your expectations, the process of which molds you into a form of perplexed cooperation” (Ibid.). The fear of performing poorly. The freedom of acting individually. The pressures of groupthink. The gaze of others. All these point to the relational nature of social existence (and anxiety). In this participatory framework where participants go from being part of a crowd to one of a handful, they are confronted to relationallyarticulated discomfort. This is destabilizing and perplexing because it plays on one’s assumptions and expectations about Self and society. Interestingly, the gamified “oppression” invented by the artist collective might not be what causes people the most anxiety. That is because it is not inherently oppressive—just like escape rooms and Disney’s Haunted Mansion might “scare” you, but ultimately are just entertainment (i.e. the suspension of disbelief). How participants choose to respond and react to the rules of the game -- the social and relational dynamics required to be in the game -- might be the more directly anxiogenic source. The hope then is that such discomfort would lead participants to questions things. How is individual agency impacted by a totalizing system with a winnertakes-all paradigm? How is individual agency influenced by one’s relationship to a larger group? Why do we interact the way we do, and are there other ways to do so, including acting collectively or with solidarity? How might a system promote conformity in thinking, and how might this be beneficial to the maintenance of said system? These are some of the questions that might arise from participating in I Am LGB. More than providing answers, the artificially enforced agonism and relationally articulated discomfort inherent in the work open spaces for criticality and self-reflection, while hopefully encouraging people to reconsider the certainties and hegemonies on which their world and lives are based.

6 Conclusion Art has always served the wider purpose of making people think about issues and prompting conversations that in turn could help effect change in the world.

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Engaging the public beyond more passive forms of spectatorship opens possibilities for meaningful individual and collective change. The four works exemplify different approaches to public engagement through active, embodied and creative participation, which, in some cases, might be considered co-creation. Their aesthetic and conceptual approaches towards participation, relationality and intersubjectivity are informed, to different degrees, by underlying hopes of social amelioration (and ways to strive towards it). An analysis of these works suggests broad and diverse understandings of social amelioration, though a common thread is their strong inclination towards provoking the rethinking of assumptions, expectations and norms of behaviour among participants. As we have seen, the four works deploy a variety of strategies and frameworks to prod this critical rethinking and foster new ways of connecting with oneself, others and the world. Buangkok Mall Life Club reimagined public space, and the kinds of interactions that can occur in it, by creating an alternative platform for neighborly exchanges and by offering various creative entry points for the public. The Everyday Life Orchestra activated the corporeal through multisensorial experimentation and play, helping people connect in childlike wonderment with themselves and their everyday. Unseen: Constellations committed to the work of being together and negotiating differences, which led to radical shifts in its participatory paradigm towards decentering away from the authorial artist, and empowering participants. I Am LGB demonstrated how an immersive social experiment designed to induce agonism and discomfort can potentially trigger profound philosophical questions and generate critical thinking among participants. In his investigations of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Brazilian educator Paolo Freire suggests the importance of integrating action within that process of rethinking as a necessary element to changing one’s assumptions: “it is only as [people] rethink their assumptions in action that they can change. Producing and acting upon their own ideas—not consuming those of others—must constitute that process” (1968, p. 109). Rethinking assumptions in action is the crux of social practice art’s change-making potential. Recall Helguera’s description of socially engaged art as being “actual—not imagined or hypothetical—social action” (2012, p. 22). Thus, social practice art in Singapore can be viewed as existing at the intersection between community art (with its explicit socially ameliorative impetus) and contemporary art (with its aesthetic sensibilities). Some of the works have a stronger connection to either of these reference points, while others may be viewed as sitting ambiguously between the two. Rather than attempting to categorize the works (and their corresponding approaches) as either belonging to one field or the other, the chapter sought to draw out their very different ideas and strategies of participation and engagement, as well as their socially ameliorative yearnings and/or effects. It is my hope that in discussing these four works together we may also rethink and destabilize the boundaries between community art and contemporary art in Singapore. Borrowing from multiple fields, existing between art and non-art, and eliding aesthetics and social amelioration, social practice art is inherently interstitial, in-between, a bridge at the borderland.

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Afterwords by Salty Xi Jie Ng and Alecia Neo Salty Xi Jie Ng

Afterwords by Salty Xi Jie Ng and Alecia Neo

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Alecia Neo Access as a Laboratory for Innovation In 2014, I first met Claire while she was a student at Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School. Claire expressed a deep interest in the performing arts from the getgo. Alongside her fellow schoolmates, she participated in our art platform’s pilot project Unseen: Constellations. This two-year-long mentorship programme paired seven visually impaired youths with mentors who shared their passions and interests. Our project’s intention was centred on reimagining art education for visually impaired students and has since evolved into a volunteer-led arts platform focused on supporting the work of disabled artists and communities through fostering collaborations with diverse partners and creative practitioners. Claire later continued pursuing her artistic path by enrolling in Lasalle College of the Arts to pursue a Diploma in performing arts. She chose to pursue an uncharted journey for visually impaired artists in Singapore. Having observed how she overcame a lot of scepticism, ableism and fear at the beginning of her artistic journey, her tenacity is something I deeply admire. Through witnessing Claire’s journey and the experiences of our visually impaired co-creators, the Unseen team began to reflect more deeply on the gaps in our society that limit the capacity of disabled persons to learn and pursue their aspirations. Very often, disabled persons are denied entry from certain educational programmes and work opportunities due to stigma or to the organisation’s lack of dedicated resources, expertise and experience in supporting or providing for access needs of disabled persons. These exclusions occur at multiple stages and areas of their lives, often resulting in limited options for schools, careers and personal development when compared to non-disabled persons. This lack of opportunities can significantly impact their mental and emotional well-being, livelihoods, socio-economic status, as well as their families and caregivers. These challenges faced by disabled persons are made worse when intersecting with other factors that can lead to discrimination, such as gender, class, race, age, physical appearance, sexuality and more. It’s clear that in Singapore, we still have heaps of work to do in this area. Many disabled persons find it challenging to secure good jobs and stay in them, pointing to a lack of innovative, nurturing learning environments for disabled persons that provide relevant and desirable skills to thrive in today’s world, especially at the early stages of their lives.14 Being exposed to these urgent gaps has also propelled us to reorient ourselves and our work. What does a paradigm shift look like? How can we be better collaborators?

14

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/disability-inclusive-workplaces-help-employers-tapunder-utilised-talents

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Access as a Laboratory for Innovation One of the significant changes that Unseen has strived to make with this project is shifting the power dynamics of our collaborative work. This invitation from Claire to collaborate on this project—with her taking on the role of the lead artist—gave us the perfect opportunity to deepen our work (Fig. 10). In the past, our platform has organised short-term workshops and creative exchanges led by visually impaired artists from different disciplines. However, this particular project involved a much more extensive process. We supported Claire and Kira in their incubation phase in 2019, followed by the development phase from 2020 to 2021 and the launch of the installation Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) in January 2022. With a disabled artist leading the process, artistic and access gaps that are often neglected were spotlighted. During the process of this project, we had to constantly ask ourselves, “How can our facilitation of the experience be meaningful? How can we avoid simplistic, literal and incomplete approaches to access work?”. For example, observing how Claire and Kira creatively and seamlessly wove together audio descriptions into the workshop process video inspired our team to experiment with audio descriptions of our social media posts. We also began paying attention to how our digital access packs could be designed more engagingly for Deaf and hard of hearing audiences who cannot access the audio walk. Access consultations with disabled artists and focus groups with participants with diverse needs were not just a good-to-have but a necessity in developing the exhibition.

Fig. 10 In a bright, spacious studio, artists Claire and Kira stand in the middle of the group of visually impaired participants and their access workers, preparing to give instructions for a workshop activity. They wait in anticipation. (Photographed in 2019 at Gateway Theatre during Unseen Art Workshops, in an artistic exchange with Inner Eyes Family Orchestra, a Bangladeshi music group.)

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Fig. 11 (from left to right) In the foreground, Mohua Rahman Ruba of Inner Eyes Family Orchestra guides a fellow visually impaired workshop participant to touch the strings on her musical instrument, the Sarod. Her sister and fellow musician, Antara Rahman TungTang, sits in the background interacting with another participant. (Photographed in 2019 at Gateway Theatre during Unseen Art Workshops)

Access work involves many hours of creative labour, serious experimentation, debating and deliberating between potential approaches, and weighing the brilliance and effectiveness of ideas against the practicalities of budget sheets. However, this process is particularly challenging for independent art groups and artists due to the modest funding available for artistic projects. There are times when we don’t get it right and have to learn from our mistakes. Most importantly, this journey would not have been possible without the commitment and creativity of the entire team. I am deeply thankful to our artists and teammates: Claire, Kira, Clarence, Samuel, Jesslyn, Jasmine and Athirah, and all our co-creators for their hard work (Fig. 11). While considering the many areas of access that need improvements, we’ve learnt that it is vital for institutions and artists to be careful about focusing only on a narrow idea of access which might prevent more novel and critical approaches to curating content and programmes concerning disability issues. For example, concerns about safety and convenience came up a lot while considering the various pathways for users with diverse needs to experience the installation. However, provoking discomfort in the audience as they navigated the art installation with their eyes closed was one of the primary goals for the artists. Hence, maintaining that artistic integrity—while balancing access needs—required not only a nuanced approach, but also taking a stand.

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When we stop treating access as an afterthought and as the sole responsibility of art institutions’ educational and programmes departments, access becomes an innovative tool for shifting and broadening perspectives. Access can shed its association with charity and functionality and instead become a laboratory for reimagining curatorial and art practices and languages (Figs. 12 and 13). Another area of profound growth for the artists and the creative team has been in gaining a deeper understanding of how to employ a person-centred approach. While the desire for mainstream artistic excellence and professionalism often creates particular demands or expectations, it also requires genuine listening and extensive experience to discern and unpack the subtext in the room. What is often not easily expressed or perceived as challenging behaviours point to underlying complex issues of inequality, which require sensitivity, skillfulness, and compassion to recognise and navigate. Working with communities requires not just artistic technique, but also dialogical skills and the investment of time and energy that easily go beyond the

Fig. 12 Visually impaired painter Kok Choon Choo guides a participant’s gloved hand to touch and feel the contours of the side of his face. (Photographed during Unseen Art Workshops 2018, charcoal drawing workshop)

Fig. 13 Pictured over the shoulder of a participant from painter Kok Choon Choo’s workshop, the participant uses charcoal to draw a face inspired by a small black and white tactile portrait of a man in glasses

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workshop time and space. This area also remains a work-in-progress for everyone in the team. As our access consultant, Dr Dawn-Joy Leong reminds us, “For a disabled person to exist is a political act. Even a pleasurable activity can cause exhaustion and pain. But does this mean we should stop creating?”. In reviewing our humble journey of collaborating with disabled artists and visually impaired persons, it becomes ever more clear that our efforts are deeply interconnected with many others. It remains that many of our key collaborators, including myself, are non-disabled. There have simply not been enough opportunities to support the growth of disabled artists who wish to work professionally as artists. We realise that we still have a long way to go for a genuinely and deeply disability-led artistic process. For such work to take root and bear fruits, it needs to be supported by an entire ecosystem to enable more sustainable, meaningful and engaging experiences and opportunities for disabled artists and art audiences. It is an aspiration for our platform that younger generations of disabled practitioners eventually take over the work and continue breaking boundaries, both creatively and politically.15

15

NB: This essay was previously published by Unseen Art Initiatives, which grew out of Unseen: Constellations. The publication, entitled The Making of Move For?ward, accompanied the Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out) installation at National Gallery Singapore in 2022, and comprised essays by artists Claire Teo and Kira Lim and their collaborators, including Alecia Neo as Coproducer and Founder of Unseen Art Initiatives. Alecia’s essay is included here as an Afterword to this chapter because it provides valuable insights into her collaborative artistic process, in which bridging and decentralising are key components.

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Kester, G. (2004). Conversation pieces: Community and communication in modern art. University of California Press Ltd. Koh, J. (2020). Unpacking the aesthetics of working in public space in Malaysia and Southeast Asia through the lens of art-led participative processes. Third Text, 34(4–5), 519–537. Lee, H. G. J. (2015). Making inclusion unremarkable. IPS Commons, Institute of Policy Studies. https://ipscommons.sg/making-inclusion-unremarkable/ Lee, H. G. J., Lim, A., Sim, J. L., Zainuddin, S., Devadas, D. (2020). The unique value of the arts in community development: A case study of artswok collaborative. ScholarBank@NUS Repository. MCCY. (2021, May 11). Government’s funding for the arts sector and the sector’s contribution to GDP and job creation. https://www.mccy.gov.sg/about-us/news-and-resources/parliamentarymatters/2021/may/government-funding-for-the-arts-sector Mendolicchio, H., & Bosch, S. (2017). Art in context: learning from the field. Goethe-Institute. V. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1976). Phénoménologie de la Perception. Gallimard. Ministry of Education. (2019). COS 2019: Supporting Our Students Through the Years—Evolution of Streaming in Secondary Schools. https://www.moe.gov.sg/microsites/psle-fsbb/assets/infogr aphics/full-subject-based-banding/Evolution-of-Streaming.pdf National Arts Council. (n.d.). Overview of Population Survey on the Arts.https://www.nac.gov.sg/ resources/research/population-survey--on-the-arts/overview-of-population-survey-on-the-arts Neo, A. (n. d.). Unseen: Constellations (2014–2016). Alecia Neo’s website. https://alecianeo.myp ortfolio.com/unseen-constellations Ng, S. X. J. (n.d.). Buangkok mall life club. http://www.saltythunder.net/buangkok.html Ng, Y.-S. (2016 August 25). I Am LGB. Singapore International Festival of the Arts archive. https:// www.sifa.sg/archive-blog/i-am-lgb Pillai, J. (2019). Socially engaged arts in Asia today. ALFP e-magazine Issue 3: Arts and Society. https://www.i-house.or.jp/eng/programs/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ALFP-emagazine-3-article-1-Eng.-Janet-Pillai_PDF-version.pdf Rancière, J. (2000). Le Partage du Sensible. La Fabrique anGie seah. (2014). The everyday life orchestra by anGie seah [Video]. Vimeo.https://vimeo.com/ 145596303 Shrag, A. G. (2015). Agonistic tendencies: The role of conflict within institutionally supported participatory practices. PhD Thesis. http://www.anthonyschrag.com/images/PhD/A-Schrag-A. T.-Thesis-web.pdf Sholette, G., Bass, C., & Queens, S. P. (2018). Arts as social action: An introduction to the principles and practices of teaching social practice art (p. 336). Allworth Press. Tan, C. (2016). I Am LGB–an experiment by the LGB society of the mind. https://corrie-tan.com/ blog/2016/8/19/i-am-lgb-an-experiment-by-the-lgb-society-of-the-mind Tate. (n. d.). Socially engaged art. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socially-engaged-practice Teo, C. (2022). Breaking grounds: the heart of a disabled leader. The making of move forward (Unseen: Inside Out) by Unseen Art Initiatives. The Glasgow School of Art. (2007, March 2). Chantal Mouffe, ’Agonistic Politics and Artistic Practices Audio Recording. [Video] Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/60549192 Trivic, Z. (2021). Community arts and culture initiatives in Singapore: Understanding the Nodal approach. Routledge. Trivic, Z., Mascarenhas, N., & Duong, Q. (2019). Bringing arts into the neighbourhoods: Choosing the right space and strategy. Singapore: National Arts Council. Unseen Art Initiatives. (n.d.). Unseen: Constellations (Singapore).https://unseenart.myportfolio. com/unseen-constellations-singapore Wark, M. (2012). Gamer theory (excerpts). In M. Jahn (ed.) Pro+agonist: The art of opposition (pp. 24–28). Canada: REV Xatart, S., & Segar, S. (2014). Taipei study trip—delving into relational aesthetics. Asian Art Histories, LASALLE College of the Arts. http://www.asianarthistories.com/site/taipei-studytrip-delving-into-relational-aesthetics/

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Chapter 7

Negotiating Truths, Realities and Puns Chor Leng Twardzik Ching

This chapter will explore the various notions of truths, reality and visual puns that artists use to navigate our postmodern world. One notable artist who used visual puns to turn the art world on its head is Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968). Duchamp made headlines, not for making traditional paintings but for challenging the existing art world. He set out to question several assumptions, ‘What is art?’ and ‘Who has the authority to decide what is art?’ In 1917 The Society of Independent Artists was having an exhibition and the only criterion for entering work into the show was for each artist to pay $6. Duchamp decided to test this seemingly democratic criteria by entering the infamous Fountain (1917), an overturned urinal, under the pseudonym R. Mutt. Fountain ended up being rejected even though it fulfilled the only criteria of the $6 payment and went down as one of the most successful pranks in art history (Bacharach, 2021). Duchamp’s artworks are controversial mainly because they push the boundaries of what art is or can be, giving way to an intriguing question in the art world, ‘What is Art?’ This question is both a form of self-critique and self-renewal. On one hand it devalues what art has been defined as, and on the other it liberates art from tradition, allowing artists to create in a more exploratory way in all genres. Duchamp was a key figure in Dadaism which rejected reason and logic, preferring to express nonsense, irrationality, anti-bourgeois sentiments, and was considered a prelude to postmodernism (Lowenthal, 2012). The postmodern condition according to Lyotard (1984) is the end of “grand narratives” or “metanarratives”, which tries to give a totalizing account to various historical events and cultural phenomena based upon the appeal to universal truth or universal values, “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives” (p. xxiv). Lyotard (1984) stated his leaning towards a plurality of small, local narratives, and the diversity of human experiences, replacing the totalitarianism of grand narratives. This scepticism of modernist ideals of universal truths and one-dimensional objective reality is an attitude that is found running through the contemporary works of Singaporean artists Ezzam Rahman, Shayne Phua and Vertical Submarine. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_7

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1 Ezzam Rahman: Fooling the Eye Ezzam Rahman’s Here’s who I am, I am what you see (2015) looks like precious fossilized flowers that the artist preserves in bell jars. Upon closer inspection the audience would realize that they have been fooled (Figs. 1 and 2). The flowers are actually made from the artist’s skin, skin that the artist spent months harvesting from the bottom of his feet. Elements of the grotesque and ghastly transform and intermingle with the seductive and sensual. The flowers, so beautifully encapsulated in the bell jars, upon closer inspection reveal their material origins in the artist’s own dead skin. Much like a moth to a flame, the viewer becomes so irresistibly mesmerized and attracted by the artworks that they do not realize the macabre reality of the source material until it is too late (Twardzik Ching, 2015, p. 84).

The use of optical illusions in the history of art has been well recorded. For example, Trompe-l’œil (French for ‘fool the eye’) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create an optical illusion of reality in paintings. One of the first examples of Trompe-l’œil dates back to ancient Greece concerning the story of Zeuxis and his contemporary Parrhasius who staged a contest to determine who was the greater painter. Zeuxis’ painting of grapes was so realistic that a bird tried to peck it off its bowl. But when Zeuxis tried to unveil the painting that Parrhasius made, he realised that the curtain was part of the painting, thereby determining Parrhasius as the winner of the contest. During the Renaissance, the fascination with perspective drawing gave rise to a trend of illusionistic ceiling paintings that employed techniques such as foreshortening to create the impression of greater space or illusions of openings into the sky/heavens for the viewer below. As such, the better the illusion is able to fool the viewer, the better the artwork. The realization that they have been fooled

Fig. 1 Here’s who I am, I am what you see (2015). (Image courtesy of Jun Tsujioka)

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Fig. 2 Here’s who I am, I am what you see (2015). (Image courtesy of Jun Tsujioka)

reminds the viewer that nothing is as it seems. Ezzam’s skin flower sculptures also succeed in this same way by luring in the unsuspecting. As the title suggests, the skin used in Ezzam’s sculptures become a metaphor for his coming out and confronting the world with who he is because, “sometimes being a brown Southeast Asian, Malay-Muslim body, you disappear”: when I look at myself I don’t find myself attractive in…any way. And I do see myself as an abject body and maybe that’s how society look at me too… how society look at a brown Malay… no, a brown oversized body equals to stupidity…really confront the audience…Like, oh, once you are fat you eat too much. Once you are brown you are a labourer. Again, all those stereotypes…I want to throw back to the audience face…

To Ezzam, the artwork has many layers. On a personal level, the work speaks of the loss of his father. The discovery of his father’s possessions after his passing left Ezzam and his family more questions than it did answers. These unanswered questions prompted Ezzam to question his own impact in this world: when I lost my father 10 years ago and when we unearth his objects. There are documents that we don’t understand, there are things that we have never seen before, and a lot of questions were unanswered because he buried his narrative with him. And, hence, because of that I’ve always been questioning what is presence of a person, of a body, and who am I as a person, what kind of impact do I, no, will I leave behind? What kind of impact I have made to someone’s life?

Using the remnants of his own body speaks of a need to leave a legacy, something that he felt his father did not leave behind after his passing:

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And that’s why a lot of like these materials like dealing with, you know, direct remnants of my body like my… my skin, my saliva, my tears, my sweat, being recorded in materials…when anybody enter a gallery and saw my works and like, hey, I can feel Ezzam Rahman there even though that Ezzam is not there physically, but Ezzam is there because his skin is there right?... makes me question what kind of legacy do I want to leave behind…going back to like a Malay saying that I really hold on to…when a tiger dies it leaves its stripes, but when a person dies you’re remembered by your name…Harimau mati meninggalkan belang, manusia mati meninggalkan nama. And how do you want to be remembered?

There is also a wider reading of Ezzam’s artwork to “question the sense of belonging, identity, absence, presence of minority voices” for the sake of cultural preservation and fear of the disappearance of one’s own identity: when I’m no longer around you see a Malay skin in a glass jar being preserved by the museum… If you break the word ‘melayu’, it’s m-e-l-a-y-u. If you break it apart me, m-e, and layu, l-a-y-u, in Malay language, l-a-y-u means to wither slowly and to decay slowly. And when I look at this word ‘melayu’, it’s the act of withering and I look back at my own race, I’m Malay, I’m Melayu and is my community withering? Is my… own identity disappearing and decaying slowly?

Ezzam uses the titles of his artworks as a form of pun to hint at, insinuate, tease or in his own words “mindfuck” the viewer to get them to guess the meanings of the work instead of a more “in your face” approach: I would want to leave clues and hints definitely in my artwork… Especially my long titles…it’s always a dialogue… They are always telling a story… When you read I meet him or… I should have kissed you when I had a chance. Or how can I give you all of me when I’m not even half a man? So these are little innuendos or little hints. Usually I hide it in my titles.

Using puns is also his way out of self-censorship “Of course there are rules and regulation out there. If you can’t break them, you dance around it. That’s what I do”. Ezzam’s play with words in his titles seduces the viewer to read further into his intentions and allows for a wider interpretation of his artworks.

2 Shayne Phua Shi Ying: The Functions of Dysfunctional Malfunctions One of the pressing questions posed by Sabapathy (1993) while discussing notions of identity and self-determination is how the urban construct of Singapore, rampant consumerism and uniform obsessive consumption impinge upon creativity, innovation and authenticity. Perhaps Phua’s Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 (2017) being the antithesis of pragmatism, provides a clue in answering that question. Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 uses functional objects such as traditional coffee pots, watering cans, smoking pipes and spittoons and reconstructs them into unusable forms. The reason Phua creates these malfunctioning objects out of functioning ones is because ceramics has often been marginalised as an art form because of its functionality and so raises questions on whether it is considered a form of art or craft:

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it has been a medium used for functional objects, so there is this…it’s not art kind of thing, so there is this problem with it. But I personally didn’t find it that problematic, but I realise there has been a lot discourse on this, on ceramic being a medium and whether it’s considered craft or art.

Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 is Phua’s way of challenging those notions of form and function, art and craft and to confront insecurities in art making (Fig. 3): there’s this fear of making functional objects, I feel, like in ceramic field… being in the contemporary art scene cause it’s being seen as craft, and I feel like we shouldn’t right? Because… I mean so what if it’s a pot or so what if it’s something functional? I do want to play with that. And even if I do make something… right now I’m doing Malfunctioning because I’m playing with the idea of form, but I do also want to make some fun functioning forms and… yeah, it did help me to think about [what] we shouldn’t be afraid of…

Phua plays with functional forms by dissecting and connecting parts of different objects together such as joining a spout from a watering can to a spittoon, “I dissect forms and I join forms and I think of how… how we can push the functioning part of the form”. Other than everyday objects, Phua also gains inspiration from ceramics in museum collections: when I played with functionality…you tend to also look at stuff that are functional and that helps me to think about how things function and the beauty of things functioning and the form of that function. So I like to play with those and… because the idea of how museum…

Fig. 3 Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 (2017). (Image courtesy of Shayne Phua)

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you can’t use those objects being kept in a glass box anymore, so you look at them in a way where you can only imagine them being used…

From antique moulds to everyday functional objects, Phua’s oeuvre deals with childhood stories and memories: I also collected some antique pastry moulds…to play with the textures. But… when I research more into the things that I collect, I try to understand the symbolism and it helps to…draw like stories that I’ve heard of or like my childhood memories, and especially like my grandma where she always shares stories with me, so I put that into…the collection.

When asked if she has been more influenced by Western art history and Western ceramics or Eastern art histories and processes of making and thinking about ceramics, Phua said that she is influenced by both East and West: for the functioning part where I got a lot of inspiration is when I visit Taiwan, when I visit Jing De Zhen… I also visit Japan and Korea, all these museums with lots of ancient ceramic. And the way… because you can’t see all these shapes of functional objects anymore, so those things really amuse me a lot cause nowadays things are very simplified. Because to make something function you don’t really need that many extra parts anymore… I guess you can consider that more Asian because that’s all in the Asian countries. But then…when I look for artists…I follow artists on Instagram, those artists that I’m inspired by…they are mostly from Los Angeles or New York or…but then some of these artists…they are also from Asian background… it’s a good blend of Eastern and Western in ceramic art form itself.

Phua also cited what she explains as the genealogy of her ceramics education from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) as an amalgamation of philosophies from both East and West: … these are all called studio pottery right, where in the past where Bernard Leach, where they… Sh¯oji Hamada, so at that modern period there is already a blend of Japanese and English, this combination of exchange of ideas. So it has already blend in that period. So up until today when it’s spread around in so many different countries, even where I learn my ceramic from NAFA, so my lecturer studied in Australia, so that… I think it has also spread to Australia this studio pottery of Bernard Leach and Sh¯oji Hamada.

The Arts and Crafts movement started in England in mid 1800s as a reaction against a perceived decline in standards due to the rise in mechanistic factory produced functional wares during the industrial revolution. The movement subsequently spread to the rest of Europe and America. Around the same time, the Mingei movement (meaning folk craft or folk art) was developed in Japan in the 1920s by a philosopher and aesthete, Yanagi S¯oetsu (1889–1961), together with a group of craftsmen, including the potters Hamada Sh¯oji (1894–1978) and Bernard Leach (1887–1979). Mingei may be seen as a reaction against Japan’s rapid westernisation and modernisation processes and worked to raise the status of the ordinary and utilitarian everyday objects or traditional Japanese folk craft. Phua uses ornamentation in her work to challenge notions of pattern and femininity as undesirable in modern art. By using excessive patterns and decorations in her work, Phua battles to overcome pervasive modernist ideals of beauty:

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because the works I made there’s a lot of so-called decoration right, and when I research into ornamentation… is something you consider feminine; hence, woman; hence, undesirable. In that modern period. So that did kind of make me feel like, hey, I want to make decoration, ornament… the functionalist will think that it’s something not useful, not functional, hence like… excessive and very bourgeois…But then it kind of…marginalized woman at the same time right? Because that’s where they portray themselves, they identify themselves, being so much in the history, being in the domestic area. So… through that I realise… that’s why I’ve always been afraid to also show things that are too glazed, like too excessive, too decorative… somehow there’s this still… there’s these strong modernist ideas still floating around… minimalist is aesthetic, it’s beauty. But it’s more than that. It’s more than that. I think we should be more open to all kinds.

Phua uses ideas from the Pattern and Decoration movement to frame her design concepts and connect them to feminism: pattern and decoration as an art movement itself, through learning that I realise… yeah, there should be more push into the way I do my works. I should be… I feel expressive and not be affected by how I think of beauty… I realise ornament and decoration…relates to feminists and their…aesthetic

Pattern and Decoration was an art movement that started in the United States from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Pattern and Decoration artists reacted against the restrained compositions of Minimalism and challenged the Westernised, male dominated climate of Modernism that led to a marginalisation of what was considered non-Western and feminine. Hence, Pattern and Decoration had close connections with the feminist art movement. Many Pattern and Decoration works mimic patterns like those on wallpapers and quilts, and draw inspiration from geometric and floral patterns from Islamic tiles, Byzantine mosaics, Turkish embroidery, Japanese woodblocks and Iranian carpets (Swartz, 2007). Interestingly, even though Malfunctioning 01, 02, 03 has clean and minimal looking silhouettes, Phua would consider the series as ornamental because they are non-functional: But then that itself, the whole piece I would consider it ornament. Because it is not functional right even though it is not decorative. But itself is not… it’s not so much that functionalist’s idea of functional where things are flat and clean, remove of those things that don’t help to function.

Phua also draws on her roots and cultural heritage to create specific vocabularies in her works. Her belief in feng shui and Chinese mythology for example comes from her upbringing in a Confucius-Taoist-Buddhist family: I put a lot of like…feng shui idea in it right and Chinese mythology and stuff. Because I grew up in a Taoist family, Taoist but a mix of Buddhist and you know how Singapore is like, mix of Confucianist, Buddhist and Taoist. So it has been my entire life and it’s what define like my family and… I feel like identity is something that you… how to say? It’s your… your memory of stuff. It’s a collection of your experience that forms your identity. So… so if I’m gonna look at my identity I have to look back in my childhood, how I become who I am today, how I think of stuff.

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The artwork titled Oryza Tuberose (2018) is a play on words to portray two Chinese euphemisms of faeces. Since Chinese characters are pictograms, Phua plays with the Chinese character for faeces by taking it apart to form different meanings: I’ve always been playing with so many Chinese words and this is one of the words that I learnt when I was younger. mˇı tián gòng (米田共). We… we like to play with it. Because mˇı tián gòng (米田共) means shit because…when you put it in vertical form it is the word fèn (糞 - shit) in Chinese. But mˇı tián gòng (米田共) itself is… a word to call shit in a nicer way. It’s like a euphemism. Yeah, so it’s very poetic and I try to also portray it in more… like you will never look at this work and think of shit because it’s like a, you know, and shit is not something that looks like that.

On the other side of the same pot, Phua uses another euphemism for faeces, she explained: So… so there is this both side. And this is like yè lái xi¯ang (夜来香)and the word is flip because the mould is… you know. So yè lái xi¯ang (夜来香) is night blooming plant… and it’s also the term we called... Cesspool collector… so they collect, yeah, at night… for fertilizer… So the whole street will be filled with that smell when they come and collect this… that’s why they call yè lái xi¯ang (夜来香- directly translates to night brings fragrance)…there’s also this strong smell and it’s also at night…. So there’s this… juxtaposition of like rice and shit...

Phua was brought up in a Chinese-speaking family1 so many of these puns are used in the common vernacular as inside jokes with other Chinese speaking friends or family members, “my cousins we all play with it knowing that this means shit. We play around with that. Because we know some people don’t know about the meaning, so we, yeah, go around playing with this”. Phua’s traditional Taoist family works with a Feng Shui master, so the placement of everything in her home has a meaning and function, “I do believe in it which is why I think that’s also part of my work”. U + 1F595 Talisman (2018) was inspired by the folklore of a skilled exorcist named Shi Gan Dang from Tai Shan Mountain (Fig. 4): I think there’s a lot of wisdom in all these practices…there is… an exorcist in the past called Shi Gan Dang… his name is being carved on mountain to protect the mountain from creatures and protect demons, protect, you know, so that also became an object for… protection of house. So which is why this is being placed at the balcony. And in front of it… facing the outside is Shi Gan Dang, and on the inside this has written fù jiˇa yì fang (富甲一方).fù jiˇa yì f¯ang means fortune on the inside. So I thought that idea of this object being put that way… it’s very smart, you know. Like it’s very direct and…I thought that’s conceptual art man.

Phua also wanted to use the shape of the sculpture as a social experiment to see if viewers would read it as a sculpture of a mountain or as a hand giving the middle finger, “There are people who immediately see it as hey you are doing a middle finger right, and that kind of thing. There also people who I don’t see middle finger at all, it’s just a mountain right”. Through this work, Phua realised that even though 1

Not all Chinese families speak Chinese/Mandarin at home. There are many Chinese families in Singapore that speak English at home.

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Fig. 4 U + 1F595 Talisman (2018). (Image courtesy of Shayne Phua)

the talisman is a typical Chinese cultural artifact, “pop culture is so infused in all of us…we really lost a lot of our cultural understanding cause it’s all homogenized”. Phua feels that regardless of one’s understanding of what the talisman represents, both a mountain or a middle finger, they can both be a form of protection against evil, “the way where you put out a middle finger, you’re asking people to get off right, in some form. This itself is to protect the house away from all the other bad forces, so… I thought even… in this misunderstanding there’s relation”. Phua’s puns involves personal, cultural and religious understandings of the symbolisms behind the forms used. One is not likely to immediately understand the jokes and hidden meanings behind the works unless one takes time to ponder and read into them. However, this hidden meaning also draws viewers deeper into the artworks beyond their immediate visual appeal.

3 Vertical Submarine: Punny Subversions Rendering functional objects of the everyday dysfunctional reminds one of Duchamp’s object interventions such as Bicycle Wheel (1913) and the infamous Fountain (1917). Through his artworks and interventions, Duchamp was able to prank curators and art connoisseurs into questioning their own value judgement of what art is and challenged the position of powers that dominated the art world in his day. Vertical Submarine uses similar techniques in their works to subvert official narratives and turn them into witty puns in order to bring awareness to specific

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topics. Vertical Submarine is an art collective founded in 2003 by Justin Loke, Joshua Yang and Fiona Koh. Justin Loke served as the collective’s spokesperson and was interviewed for this research project. Vertical Submarine started as a group formed for an art school project at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). They started with using a pun for the exhibition title and hit it off, so they stayed as a collective after they graduated, “just want a pun of nonsense and ‘Non_Sands’…Then after that, we keep in contact, we started…presenting ourselves as a collective… so Vertical Submarine maybe is an extended school project. (Laughs) That went a bit too serious”. The collective’s name was taken from the word ‘subvert’ that has been switched around to become vert-sub and then extended to form Vertical Submarine. The collective’s interest in the idea of subversion, came from Derrida’s (2021) semiotic analysis known as deconstruction: our theory- thesis lecturer at that time was Ho Tzu Nyen. Then he was talking about when he met Derrida in person, when he was in Australia. And he won the Derrida Prize, because everyone was doing gigantic, monumental sculpture based on Derrida’s writing, then he just tear off like pages from Derrida’s book and turn it into a cigarette. Like a cigarette box. So the whole thing is just, his whole artwork is like he say it’s like this size. Like so small. And then he got the prize la. So he say, then there was this lecture that Derrida gave in Australia. I don’t know where was he la, at that time. So then he say that he is French right, so he has very limited English vocab or I don’t know what. But he kept repeating the word, ’subvert’, ’subvert’. So then talked to Joshua, Joshua say he went home he say that then the word ’subvert’ should be turned around. So ’Vertical Submarine’ actually came from the word ’subvert’. Ya and then by subverting the word.

Derrida’s deconstruction is an example of subversive thinking from the margins that critically questions hegemonic power structures to achieve an opening for a more just relation to the “other” that has been marginalized by history (Hernandez, 2014). Subversion creates open spaces for justice as a response to the demand of the call of the “other”, it “is a commitment to a life of freedom; though a freedom that is already conditioned by its responsibility for the plight of the other and one that necessarily positions itself against the totalizing hegemony of any kind of power” (Hernandez, 2014, p. 117). Through an analysis of the artworks by Vertical Submarine, one can see how puns and inside jokes are used to subvert colonial and capitalist elitism and give voice to the marginalised. Loke gave the example of an artwork titled 此地无银三百两 (cˇı dì wú yín s¯an bˇai liˇang) (or Fool’s Gold- 2008) that Vertical Submarine made for ZoukOut, one of Asia’s largest music dance festivals held annually in Singapore. Since the event was more a social event than an art event, Loke figured that the organizers would not take the art seriously. Instead of a ‘serious’ artwork, Vertical submarine decided on a signage piece that would make fun of the ‘idiots’ at the party: ZoukOut event right is music and then people go there to meet each other and carry on their social activities, you know? (Laughs) So they won’t look at art. So, you know, you put something light art all this, some people are drunk and all this, you know. So we start to think that it shouldn’t be an artwork, it should be some signages telling them what to do or what not to do…it was just this sign that points to the ground and say, "no gold buried here". Because that year the theme for ZoukOut was gold. Something about gold-related.

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So we say, "no gold buried here". And it’s actually extracted from some Chinese idiom, a story about a fool’s gold. Like this idiot, right, he bury his gold and he afraid that someone will find it. And then he put a sign to say there is no gold here. So that’s a very textbook understanding, right? So we don’t state something so obvious and explicit…If anyone were to believe that we are those idiots and they start digging, they are the real fool.

Vertical Submarine did a second artwork for ZoukOut titled Flirting Point (2009). Flirting Point is a satire of the culture of restrictions in Singapore. The work suggests that due to the controlled and regulated lifestyle in Singapore, even flirting has to be confined to a designated area: Second one is Flirting Point. That time even more, you know, like more daring already. They say, actually nobody went there for the music, they just go there want to flirt…So we want to make it a bit more explicit…what nice sculpture and everyone will be admiring and celebrate our artistic talent. No such thing. We’re going to play the bureaucrat. So if smokers are irritating, they need yellow box2 …So, this yellow box then I thought hmm, maybe flirting should be also- it’s a hazard ah. And they should have designated areas…So I recontextualized and say that, yeah, exhibition opening also a lot of people. Very irritating. I want to look at the artwork and they are flirting in front of the painting or in the installation space. So they should be segregated.

Abusement Park (2010) was a commission for the Singapore Night Festival in 2010. Vertical submarine was making a parody of the amusement parks and carnivals (Fig. 5): carnival is a very medieval thing and medieval in Europe was also a very violent time and all these things right? …And we thought that, okay, then maybe it’s not amusement la. People enjoy being abused. So again, we reversed things around…we got this barbed wire that looked like some slave camp or concentration camp and…our crew, they behave like clowns and… we’re gonna restrict the number of people coming in…we purposely make it a bit more bureaucratic. So then it will look like there’s a long queue, like it’s something so popular.

This resembles the Futurist’s tactic of selling ten tickets for the same seat to their performance events in order to anger the crowd before the performance even starts (Bowler, 1991). The Futurist’s aim was to promote anarchy and subvert the idea of art being an elitist activity for leisure and enjoyment. Even though Vertical Submarine used strategies similar to that of the Futurists, they were not trying to promote anarchy, they were simply making fun of everyone: people are queuing up right? They are excited, they are going to the fair right? I have this like Sergeant Major person right, with balaclava and all this, scolding them, you know. Telling them to "keep quiet!" you know, and all this thing. So people are like, "what the hell is this?" And then, you know, they all look like they are entering some golden triangle, military drug lord camp or all this thing. So when they are queueing up there’s this thing we are playing with, like normally you have these events, we say "welcome here" and all these things, right? Our way of welcoming is scolding them and everybody is laughing. So when... They laugh, because they know that we mean no harm, right? But the guy is so fierce. The reception guy say, "Shut up! Stop laughing!" Then the girls are like giggling, all this. So we took a lot of these fun photo, that they are laughing, being scolded. 2

A yellow box is usually used to indicate designated areas such as smoking areas in public spaces in Singapore.

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Fig. 5 Abusement Park (2010). (Image courtesy of Justin Loke)

Loke explained that through this piece, Vertical Submarine was critiquing issues of social inequality. The inclusion of a guillotine, slave trading counter and fake currencies for example only appears to be politically incorrect and carnivalesque, but in fact they were used as subversive tactics to get viewers to question practices and ideas such as capital punishment, colonialism and capitalism: At that time we were still reading a lot of things that talk about social inequality la, you know. And then young and then think that you are very moralistic or heroic like that, always criticise capitalism and all this. So we say, how do people can come in for free? Even though we need a revenue. So we thought that the best way is that if these people who wants to come in but doesn’t want to pay right, they can go to this other counter where they ask our staff and they can pawn their time. So they get locked up in stockade. And then they get exhibited for 20 minutes. After that they can go in for free that like we give them our fake notes, fake currencies…those are the carnival coupons. So we have our own system there and then...Those who are like relative of Li Ka-shing3 or all these rich people right, they have no time, they will just pay to go in. And there’s an exchange rate. Then we also screw up the exchange rate. So if you use Indonesian rupiah right, one dollar- one rupiah right, can get like 100 fake currency. But if you use US dollar right, 1000 you only get two dollar, fake Singapore dollar. You know, we just like, turn things upside down…Not arbitrary. It’s actually the reverse…So once they are inside there, for instance, we have a guillotine…But the blade just stops right before it touches the neck... So they pay…to get executed by us. Then we have a shooting gallery where you choose all the different weapons to be shot at…you choose the cane to be caned. So it’s all these crazy things…We have a information counter that’s called ’counter information’. So you are lost in that pub, you ask Sir Li Ka-shing GBM KBE JP (Chinese: 李嘉誠; born 13 June 1928) is a Hong Kong business magnate and philanthropist.

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Fig. 6 Eville (2014). (Image courtesy of Justin Loke)

the information counter right, it will always misdirect you…someone came and changed a lot for fake notes and asked to buy a slave. Because we have a slave trader counter.

The exhibition was very well received. Vertical Submarine succeeded in luring in the crowd by being politically incorrect and even offensive, “Very good reception. “We liked it”, “we had fun” and public ah? Some were offended, sometimes. Because it was politically incorrect… So these are events in the carnival. So the whole thing right, was very… is that the word, carnivalesque”. Beyond the successful reception of the exhibition, one would never know what the crowd truly gained from their experience. Perhaps this is the true power of subversion, that it eats away at you slowly and when you least expect it, hits you like a tonne of bricks. Eville (2014) was an artwork commissioned by the Singapore Kindness Movement for the Singapore Night Festival that attracted a lot of controversies. Vertical Submarine’s tactic was to invert the message of kindness as a form of subversion (Fig. 6): …it’s called Eville. ’Evil’ and ’ville’ are joined together. Ya. And we managed to con Singapore... They asked us to do an artwork for Singapore Kindness Movement campaign…So we managed to convince them, we said that, "do you know that your message for kindness ah"—I talk like the bureaucrat like that ah, no, not bureaucrat, sorry, the government—"do you know that the reach of your message right, you only reach the 20% who by nature they are good people? And there are these 80% right that needs to be rehabilitated," you know. "And it won’t get to them! They see that lion4 and then they just turn off. They look the other way. So the thing is to trick them in and then you lecture them." So we must make something outwardly right, that we are celebrating being evil. You know, kind and then evil.

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The mascot for the Singapore Kindness Movement is a lion—Singa The Kindness Lion.

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For Eville, Vertical Submarine received backlash from the church as well as animal rights activists. However, this only helped to highlight the issues that they were criticised for: …we have all our clowns and crazy people, you know...that we purposely plant in…Then we have flyers, and we have the ten anti-commandments. So everything like from "love your neighbour" until all these things right, we just set the opposite thing. And we were next to a church ah. So some of the flyers flew in leh and then they wrote to us after the first weekend, say we are satanic and all that…Because it’s like, it was written as the ten anticommandments…Then we had one flyer right, we talked about how... Why all the stray cats should be killed. You see, it’s to attract evil people, right? You understand? Then the animal right activists they saw it. And they went online and scolded us and all this, so we got a lot of negative publicity. And then at the same time, the PR team from Kindness Movement right, went in to social media and readjusted the crowd. Then there’s another group who say that, "all these Singaporean are jumping to conclusion, they didn’t understand the whole context" and all this. So there was a lot of like, quarrel online... But Vert Sub had to come up with a public statement to clarify. And then later on then Kindness Movement stepped in. So it’s quite fun.

Eville was essentially a Venus flytrap, at first seducing viewers with what seems curiously outrageous, a celebration of evil, but at the end, traps them with the real message, one of kindness, almost to the point of indoctrination: They see all this artwork celebrating evil…So it has this very context that they are all sinners and all these things. So it’s an exhibition of sinful behaviours and all these. Until the final room and that room right, it happens to have this metal door that is sliding. So they go in, I say that’s the best thing you should see. You know, our guide will guide them in. And the door is locked. Then all the Kindness Movement messages kicks in. So it’s like a venus flytrap. That... So they bought it. Convinced... We had fun together.

The modus operandi of Vertical Submarine is not to confront viewers with facts or what they consider to be the truth. They prefer to find gaps within the system and work around censorship with sarcasm, satire and inside jokes. Loke has no qualms about people calling them a sell-out because to them mockery and self-parodying is part of their arsenal: I think, occasionally can still find a gap in their rules or who is it that is ready to raise his own position to try out. So I’m not totally like... Because I’m not a confrontational person and so whatever method or strategy, right, it doesn’t have to be head on. We can take a detour…Some artists right, their political activism in the form of art. We are really not that type. So if someone heard our name and all these right, then they thought "Oh! Vertical Submarine, you’re supposed to be subvert..." then you know... And then we are not. Sometimes we are a bit sell-out. Sometimes we do nonsensical stuff. Why one work so serious, talk about history, cultural politics and all these, then the other one appear so frivolous and all these things. We are not... We have never positioned ourselves in that sense. Yeah, we are just like self-parodying or, you know, mocking things, you know.

Another Vertical Submarine work titled Penetrations (2015) takes a playful stance on the otherwise serious topic of identity politics in Singapore. Disguised as postwar advertisement posters at classy art events, Vertical Submarine serves up Hokkien rhymes that are common vernacular in local coffee shops. This series is a continuation of Incendiary Texts II: Selected Anatomical Studies or Thirty-Six Eastern Vulgarities and One Incendiary Oath … in Roman Letters (2011), a hidden mockery of the

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wealthy elite who are often the benefactors of these art events but are oblivious of the meanings behind the artworks: So that work was done for actually all the art handlers at Art Stage, because I used to work at NAFA gallery as an assistant curator. So I got to know a lot of these people from Helutrans and Agility who will definitely swear a lot of Singapore vulgarity. And definitely when they are doing, rushing work for Art Stage setup, they will swear a lot. (Laughs) So, the vulgarities in the Incendiary Texts, my ideal audience were actually them. Because when the show opens, they have all these people who are erudite art collectors, bankers drinking champagne. And if they pass by that site, they will have all these Hokkien words that are silent but shouting at them. All these Singlish, it’s not definitely Hokkien. But they are mainly Hokkien vulgarities and then in the form of drawing and all that. So those art handlers, who some of them who I know, when they knew about it, we were having a good laugh.

4 Punchline The art of Ezzam Rahman, Shayne Phua and Vertical Submarine use tactics such as visual deception, turning functional objects into malfunctioning forms, and using puns and inside jokes to prank viewers as methods of subversion. Ezzam Rahman uses Trompe-l’œil to fool viewers into believing that the skin he spent months harvesting from the bottom of his feet are precious flowers. The visual deception succeeds in inverting ideas of beauty thereby reminding viewers that nothing is as it seems and not to take ‘truth’ for granted. Shayne Phua Shi Ying turns traditional, familiar and working-class functional objects such as coffee pots, watering cans, and spittoons into unconventional, unfamiliar, unusable fine art objects. Phua aims to challenge ideas of art and craft, and dissect modernist aesthetics. Her forms being the antithesis of function and pragmatism provides a response to Sabapathy’s (1993) concern that rampant consumerism and obsessive consumption encroaches on creativity, innovation and authenticity in the Singapore art scene. One is also reminded of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades used to challenge the art world’s assumptions on art and the powers that dominated the art world. Using similar methods such as witty puns, playful pranks and satire, Vertical Submarine tricks the institutions and the public to subvert official narratives and to highlight specific topics such as colonialism and capitalism. Through these subversive tactics, Ezzam, Phua and Vertical Submarine negotiate official “Truths”, actual “Realities” and serious “Puns” to peel off layers of lenses, screens, tints and veils that cloud, colour and hide different versions of truth. The sometimes fun and witty nature of these tactics catches us off guard and seeps into the fabric of our collective consciousness to shift our perception of truth in subtle ways and give rise to what Derrida calls ‘differance’, instigating “the subversion of every kingdom” (Derrida, 1978, p. 22), to be open to contingency, undermine fixed identities (Newman, 2001) and question absolute truths, ending the era of “grand narratives” (Lyotard, 1984). These artists have planted the seed of doubt in universal truths and metanarratives within their artworks. It is now our turn as viewers to ‘get’ the punchline and step up to the challenge, to have an open mind in order to perceive these alternate truths and realities.

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Afterword by Louis Ho There are No Facts Here “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts” (Hughes, 2016). So proclaimed a pro-Trump political commentator ahead of the inauguration of the forty-fifth U.S. president, a lead-up to four long years that ultimately culminated in a mass assault on the Capitol building. Our fact-free zeitgeist–marked by the rise of Trump-ian politics, the partisan fracas of the Brexit saga and, here in Singapore, the advent of POFMA, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019, intended as a corrective for what the government perceived to be an explosion in fake news, so worrying that it warranted a legislative response–was officially celebrated with its own moniker when Oxford Dictionaries named “post-truth” the Word of the Year in 2016. Lies and untruths have always come with language use, but the post-truth vernacular suggests that “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (Oxford University Press, 2016). Post-truths are less about an assertion of actuality. Rather, they indicate a subjectively determined framing of facts that legitimizes a particular point of view, or is geared toward an intended aim. This view or aim, of course, is often sociopolitical in nature, an ideological context supported by a massaging of the pertinent facts. Philosopher Lee McIntyre expanded on this privileging of ends over means when he wrote that post-truths simply validate “something that is more important to us than the truth itself”, amounting, in essence, “to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are trying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for it or not” (McIntyre, 2018). Twardzik Ching’s topic of choice, read against the backdrop of our post-truth moment, is a timely one. Singaporean artists Vertical Submarine, Ezzam Rahman and Shayne Phua have adopted the tactics of masquerade or dissimulation to produce objects that take on the physical guise of another, or speak against contextual assumptions—playful, punning works that are nonetheless premised on destabilizing received notions of social privilege, minority identity and linguistic hierarchy. As the author points out, theirs is an art historical lineage that may be traced, at least in the twentieth century, to Marcel Duchamp’s infamous urinal, which served to foreground doubts about the ontological and material parameters of art as a category. The history of art is, of course, littered with examples of verisimilar forms or semblances, but it is the reflexive self-consciousness engendered by the readymade that serves as the critical tipping point here. Duchamp’s nomination of a mass-produced urinal as an object of art perhaps recalls the desire of political post-truth discourse to compel belief, good evidence for it be damned. If we accept that a sanitation fixture signed by an artist is art, then we can well believe the American president when he tells us that injecting bleach might help combat the COVID-19 virus (Eaton et al., 2015). Or, to put it another way, if the gesture of designating a urinal as art brought to view issues of the ontology of the art object, and the labour that sustains it, then being advised by a politician to put corrosive substances into our bodies should give us

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pause to question the utility of political institutions, and the power structures that sustain it … After all, as the lyrics of the Talking Heads’ 1980 single, “Crosseyed and Painless”, go: “Facts don’t do what I want them to / Facts just twist the truth around” (Byrne et al., 1980). Art has always had fun toying with the facts, even at its own expense, but it seems as if politics is still busy attempting to screw the truth.

References Interviews Cited Justin Loke, 14th October 2020 Shayne Phua Shi Ying, 11th December 2020 Ezzam Rahman, 19th September 2020

Other References Bowler, A. (1991). Politics as art: Italian Futurism and Fascism. Theory and Society, 20(6), 763–794. http://www.jstor.org/stable/657603 Derrida, J. (1978). Margins of philosophy. (A. Bass, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (2021). Deconstruction in a nutshell: A conversation with Jacques Derrida, with a new introduction. https://www.amazon.com/Deconstruction-Nutshell-Conversation-Perspecti ves-Continental/dp/082329028X Hernandez, M.R.F. (2014). Philosophy and subversion: Jacques Derrida and deconstruction from the margins. Filocracia: An Online Journal of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Study, 1(2). Lowenthal, M. (2012). Translator’s introduction. In F. Pacabia (Ed.), I Am a Beautiful Monster: Poetry, Prose, and Provocation. MIT Press. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge/Jean-François Lyotard; translation from the French by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi; foreword by Fredric Jameson. University of Minnesota Press. Newman, S. (2001). Derrida’s deconstruction of authority. Philos. Soc. Crit., 27(3), 1–20. Swartz, A. (Ed.). (2007). Pattern and Decoration: an ideal vision in American art, 1975–1985. Hudson River Museum. Bacharach, S. (2021). Arthur C. Danto (1924-2013). In A. Giovannelli (Ed.), Aesthetics: The Key Thinkers. Bloomsbury Publishing. Twardzik Ching, C. L. (2015). Ezzam Rahman in conversation with Twardzik Ching Chor Leng. President’s Young Talents 2015, 6, 83–92.

Afterword References Byrne, D., Eno, B., Frantz, C., Harrison, J., Weymouth, T. (1980). Crosseyed and Painless [Recorded by Talking Heads]. On Remain in Light [Album]. Sire. Eaton, M., King, A.B., Dalmayne, E., & Seigler, A. (2020). Trump suggested ‘injecting’ disinfectant to cure coronavirus? We’re not surprised. New York Times.

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Hughes, S.N. (2016, November 30). Scottie Nell Hughs on The Diane Rehm Show. McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press. Oxford University Press. (2016). Oxford Word of the year 2016. Oxford Languages. https://langua ges.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016/

Chapter 8

Land and Environmental Art: Reflecting on Creative Processes of Singapore Contemporary Artists Chee-Hoo Lum

1 Introduction The beauty and fragility of our environment can be understood and amplified through how artists relate to the environment in their aesthetic processes and works. Under Goal 3 of the ‘Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education’, endorsed in 2011 by all UNESCO Member States, there is a call on governments and communities worldwide to ‘apply arts education to solving the world’s social and cultural challenges’. More specifically, one of the action items within Goal 3 states a dedicated focus of arts education activities towards ‘a wide range of contemporary society and culture issues such as the environment, global migration and sustainable development.’ (Seoul Agenda, 2010). Heeding the call particularly towards environmental issues in contemporary society, this chapter focuses on the inquiry-based creative processes and works of a few Singapore contemporary artists who have devoted their artistic practice towards examining local and global environmental issues and concerns.

2 A Brief Survey on Land and Environmental Art Environmental artists have a host of differing approaches, methods, and beliefs. Generally, however, they are actively involved in a mix of raising awareness about the fragility of the environment, using green methods and natural materials to create their works, and investigating how the environment works (Thornes, 2008, p.407).

The emergence of Land Art coincided and is perhaps a reaction to the unrest in 1960s America with anti-war and civil-rights movements, and calls for governmental protection of the environment after a slew of environmental disasters. As Kastner (1998) remarked:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_8

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Land Art emerged from a mid-1960s art world that was seeking to break with the cult of the personalized, transcendental expression embodied in American post-war abstraction…It includes site-specific sculptural projects that utilize the materials of the environment to create new forms or to adjust our impressions of the panorama: programmes that import new, unnatural objects into the natural setting with similar goals, time-sensitive individual activities in the landscape: collaborative, socially aware interventions (p.12).

Site-specificity was one of the key features in land art, with locations chosen where artists want to comment on particular issues or events related to the site, thus also creating art that existed outside of the confines of the gallery and museum settings (Hinchcliffe, 2017, p.9). Land and environmental artists were also responding to the “negative side effects of urbanization, growing populations, and industrialization” (Hinchcliffe, 2017, p. 11) including “the globalization of electronic and cultural technologies” (Wallis, 1998, p.24). While some land and environmental artists made works that focused more on visual aesthetics, there are a growing number of artists as Boetzkes (2010) mentioned, who are more concerned with the restoration of nature, of “ecological resuscitation” as they collaborate with “scientists, landscape planners, engineers, environmental specialists, activists, and local communities to create art projects that would overhaul degraded sites and quite literally bring them back to life” (p. 31, as cited in Hinchcliffe, 2017). In Kastner’s (1998) survey of land and environmental art, works were grouped in terms of: (i) Integration; (ii) Interruption; (iii) Involvement; (iv) Implementation; and (v) Imagining. In works under ‘Integration’, artists: manipulate the landscape as a material in its own right. The artists add, remove or displace local natural materials to create a form of sculpture that reflects the ethos of Minimalism in its emphasis on materiality, elemental geometries and siting. Their work draws out the relationship between the existing characteristics of a site and evidence of human intervention (p.45).

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) and Andy Goldsworthy’s Ice Piece (1987) being prime examples. ‘Interruption’ houses projects where the environment conjoins with human activity: by employing non-indigenous, man-made materials…the artists place an increasing emphasis on the transgressive qualities of the activity, questioning the definition of what is ‘natural’. They both participate in and critique the kind of terrestrial exploitation frequently carried out in the name of industrial and urban development. They also interrupt the landscape by bringing its dirt and organic randomness into the acculturated white cube of the gallery (p.72).

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast (1969), Running Fence (1972–76), Surrounded Islands (1980–83) and The Umbrellas (1984–91) serve as ‘Interruption’ examples. Works under ‘Involvement’ focus on the artist:

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acting in a one-to-one relationship with the land…They emphasize a primal and symbolic link with the earth, creating contemporary forms of ritual…In contrast to the boundlessness suggested by early earthworks, the landscape may be revealed as a zone of invasion or exclusion, divided by invisible yet complex networks of political and ethnic boundaries (p. 114).

Some examples include Ana Mendieta’s Untitled (from the ‘Silueta’ series) (1979), Richard Long’s A Line in the Himalayas (1975), and Hamish Fulton’s No Talking for Seven Days (1993). In ‘Implementation’, artists explored: nature as a dynamic and interactive system, they point out parallels with social and political structures and their impact on each other…The works…demonstrate how human relations with the natural environment are based not only on perception and pleasure, but also exploitation, waste and destruction. Industrial development, urban expansion, mass market agriculture and scientific intervention within natural processes are perceived as causes of global pollution and social alienation (p.136).

Hans Haacke’s Rhine-Water Purification Plant (1972), Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison’s The Lagoon Cycle (1972–82), and Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape (1965–78) and Circles of Time (1986–89), are ‘Implementation’ examples. Finally, in ‘Imaginings’: The artists make works that take the land not as physical matter, but as metaphor or signifier. They understand it as a concept, as an optical construction or linguistic elaboration that may take the form of a diagram, sentence or a photograph…played with as theoretical constructs, arbitrary and contingent acts of interpretation…all part of a rich iconography symbolizing culture, civilization and mortality…provides a repertoire of potent symbols that can also be deployed to describe contemporary society (p.174).

Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Woodwind Song (1968), and William Furlong’s Time Garden (1993) serve as examples.

3 Context of Land and Environmental Art in Singapore Economic growth and development are always at the forefront of governmental discussions and decisions in Singapore. As Kong (2000) argues: The identity to be constructed for Singapore is still one of an international city, but concomitantly, one with an ‘Asian’ heritage as well. Capital, as represented by developers, retailers, and service providers, is driven by profit motives, and any identity to be evolved, whether international and modernist, or historical and heritage-based, is secondary to how well each may contribute to its ultimate goals. For individuals-especially former residents (including students) and former retailers of conserved districts and buildings- the ‘spirit’ and identity of place, rooted in history and community life, are eroded with commercialization (p.363).

Urbanization is thus at odds between differing value systems, “often represented by economic values privileging growth and redevelopment on one end of the spectrum, and more symbolic values giving prominence to, inter alia, the conservation

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of heritage and culture, on the other” (Kong, 2000, p. 354). The preference of the government towards more instrumental and utilitarian goals have also been applied across the environmental front as Han (2017) argues that Singapore’s authoritarian environmentalism has led the state to adopt “a top-down, non-inclusive environmental governance model in order to lead the country’s green transition from the perspective of ecological modernization…result[ing] in remarkable policy outputs, such as reduction of pollution and waste, and more recently, the dramatic expansion of green spaces and infrastructure” (p.17). The downside of a top-down approach would be that the country pays “disproportionate attention to environmental infrastructure and green technology projects at the expense of other environmental concerns and goals, such as natural habitat and biodiversity protection” (p.17). Understanding the political and social-cultural motivations in Singapore, local contemporary artists have been voicing out critical opinions through their creative works about land and environmental issues that serve to question and open up conversations for public engagement. One such artist is Tang Da Wu, a pioneering contemporary artist in Singapore, whose Earth Work (1979), as Yusof (2016) argues, “is believed to be the first instance of land art by a Singapore artist.” Tang created the work in response to the rapid urbanization of Singapore in the 1970s. In a restaging of Earth Work in 2016 at the National Gallery Singapore, Usha (2016) in response to Gully Curtains [part of Earth Work] cleverly remarked: The erosion stains on the cloth pieces are yellowish, read and rust-coloured, and are framed by dark ink outlines, reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink paintings. Singapore’s landscapes of course, have no mountains, but Tang’s approximation of them through the utilization of their geological opposites (i.e. gullies, or holes in the ground), presents a clever reversal of stereotypical assumptions about Singapore’s geographical makeup, perhaps recalling a time before urban redevelopment levelled the few remaining hills in the country.

A number of Singapore contemporary artists concerned with the articulation of issues related to nature and the lived environment has since emerged and more recently, these would include the works of Chu Hao Pei, Genevieve Chua, Charles Lim, Jason Lim, Donna Ong, Ong Kian Peng, Zai Tang, Zen Teh, Robert Zhao Renhui, and Chor Leng Twardzik Ching. In Too Far, Too Near (2015) for example, media artist Ong Kian Peng who straddles between art, science and technology, created a “two-part installation with audiokinetic sculptures accompanying a video of melting ice sheets and glaciers filmed on location in Greenland” (https://www.ongkianpeng.art/kinetic/too-far-too-near). Ong would like his audience to have an immersive experience through his creative work to ponder upon issues of climate change, particularly as he feels that urban dwellers have lost touch or are disconnected with nature. As he articulates: Using technology in my work is a way to create an immersive environment and I think one of the biggest problem with understanding what climate change is that, a lot of these is done through things like infographics, done through like the newspapers or media in general, and so far they have failed us…because I think we are very desensitized by a lot of this information and it’s very hard for us to comprehend what these things are…what I want to do by creating this immersive environment, is that I want to allow the audience to feel these changes through their bodies, you know into the guts of their very selves, to then influence,

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or to make them just think about these in a very different way, to make them feel these emotions that they might feel in the work…hopefully you know, they go back and they talk about this with friends or their loved ones, and I think it is really this one to one or one to a few kind of approach that I’m looking at, that hopefully would change things slowly but surely.

As part of the Unearthed exhibition by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the site-specific art installation, Real Estate (2014) by Chor Leng Twardzik Ching was presented, where the artist excavated a 240 X 240 cm plot of earth from the front lawn of SAM and exhibited the plot of earth in a glass encasement within the museum. The exhibition catalog states of the work, By laying bare the ground in front of the Museum, the artist invites us to consider what lies beneath – the foundations on which we have built our city and our institutions – as well as to intimately observe the material qualities of the earth itself: its colours, textures, and detritus. This material and physical understanding of land presents a stark contrast to how we conventionally speak or think about land in Singapore, which is often foregrounded by its status as a prized commodity (in terms of ‘real estate’), or in abstract and territorial terms of land ownership and contested sites…The ground, along with the history sedimented in its strata, like the earth in Real Estate, is displaced. In bringing the dislocated plot into the Singapore Art Museum, Twardzik Ching elevates the status of this humble and overlooked material, by inviting us to consider the place and importance of land in Singapore (https://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/-/media/sam/files/exhibitions/une arthed/unearthed_shortguide_final.pdf?inline=1)

Twardzik Ching had initially wanted to exhibit the plot of earth without any encasement in the museum but met with objections from the museum authorities as they were concerned about possible insect infestation if the earth was allowed just to be placed freely on the gallery floor. As Twardzik Ching recounted: I guess the galleries have their limits in Singapore? But the glass was interesting, because it kind of brought in another…terrarium effect, almost, to the piece, because then the bugs started to come out. And of course there’s not enough air for them to survive so they started to die and then…white kind of furry things started to [appear]…almost like snow. And then the glass was all dewy, so... so at some points, you really can’t see what’s going on because it was all fogged up. So... that added actually another layer of... kind of curiosity, I think, to the piece and that whole life cycle that it went through, from bugs emerging, to the grass... not really dying, actually… the mould emerging, and then at the end of the day, when they had to take the piece out, they wouldn’t use the soil to put it back in the ground. It had to be disposed of because God knows what kind of mould is in that soil. And they hired a pest control unit to fog the piece as they opened the glass and they sealed off the whole [gallery space] while they did that…so that I thought was an interesting interaction with... the society of the museum people in Singapore. And then, of course, the hole outside, when we were digging it…other than it being an excavation of the history of the site, it was an excavation of our kind of perceived worth of…the value of land…and people…thought it was just a construction site, right? And they didn’t see it as art because it was not…a sculpture or an object that was put on that land…they didn’t see the hole outside as art but what was in the gallery space is immediately, you know, deemed as an artwork.

Thus, Real Estate (2014) as an example of land art in interruption (Kastner, 1998) literally “interrupt the landscape by bringing its dirt and organic randomness into the acculturated white cube of the gallery (p.72).

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4 Perspectives from Singapore Land and Environmental Artists This chapter will continue its focus of discussion on the creative processes and works of Singapore environmental artist Zen Teh having given some accents from the land art of Chor Leng Twardzik Ching and works concerning environmental issues by Ong Kian Peng. Zen Teh, Chor Leng Twardzik Ching and Ong Kian Peng were interview participants in the current research study. Kastner’s five groupings of land and environmental art mentioned above will serve as a critical reflective lens, drawing to a close implications for the teaching and learning of land and environmental art in the context of primary and secondary classrooms. The chapter will draw extensively on the interview transcript between the author and Zen Teh, recorded on the 13th of April 2021 at Teh’s exhibition, A Familiar Forest, held at Hygge at the NTU Lee Wee Nam Library, Singapore (Lum & Teh, 2021). The themes discussed during the interview were based on data analysis of a prior extensive research interview by the research team with Zen Teh on 16th Oct 2020.

5 In Conversation with Zen Teh Zen Teh, environmental artist and educator, focuses her artistic works on the relationship between man and nature, highlighting environmental issues that require investigation and collaboration across multiple disciplines. The resultant work often serves as a platform for Teh to better understand her micro–macro relationship(s) living within her urban environment, while also serving to raise awareness for the audience about the issues highlighted be it oil pollution, secondary forests or wild plants surfacing from the pandemic.

5.1 Environmental Artist Teh: It started as part of a lifestyle…I’ve always been interested in aspects of nature, studying natural phenomena...things that are around us…like potted plants or... or wild plants on the streets…what we’re looking at in terms of the sky, the weather... the humidity, and all sorts of aspects of...nature that exists just around us. Being observant... And I think the art practice is one where the making is something that requires time. Being a vegetarian, that has been more than a decade. All that, I think, constitutes to sort of wanting to understand more about the environment, about nature…this ongoing relationship as this evolves and... and becomes more complicated, especially in urban settings.

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I wouldn’t call myself an outright activist, because I don’t go on the streets (laughs)... protesting …Through my art making as a way to kind of raise awareness... for that cause of the environment, but also for myself to understand this natural phenomena and the context of that in urban settings a little bit more (Lum & Teh, 2021).

Understanding the complex relationship between nature and human seems to be the broad overarching interest that drives Teh’s creative process and choice of lifestyle. By being observant about the interaction between urban dwellers and natural phenomenon around us, Teh begins a personal, critical and reflective inquiry process which would often lead to creative work that aims to raise awareness about particular issues of the environment.

5.2 Urbanization and Consumption Lum: Could you talk a little bit more about the key themes that you’ve been exploring…this idea of urbanisation and consumption? Teh: This ongoing investigation into the Anthropocene is related to these two themes that you talked about...how these forces or these changes, or... almost like evolution, I would call it, between nature and human beings - how that affects our way of life. Not just in the sense of…a general population, but really people who are living on the land. I think art has...the ability to activate some of these concerns… The art comes…like a reminder for us to look at what we haven’t maybe quite observed or... It hasn’t been at the front of our attention. And that calls up to our attention through the art making… to engage people on a personal basis, rather than to shock them. To...engage and to sort of, almost like, lure them into this conversation for them to then think a little bit more (Lum & Teh, 2021).

As Teh pointed out, she is keen in examining human’s impact through urbanization and consumption on our environment with focus on visible signs of this impact in our daily lives and experiences through her keen observation and raising awareness of these observations through her creative processes and art works. A glimpse of Teh’s inquiry-based process through observations and personal experiences is presented below through her descriptions of three works, A Familiar Forest (2021), Mirror of Water (2018), and Garden State Palimpsest (2018).

5.3 Inquiry-Based Process: Connecting Through Observations and Personal Experiences Set in an urban space, A Familiar Forest…is an immersive art installation that replicates the ambience of a natural forest in the night. This interdisciplinary blend of art and science is a response to the complexities of human-nature relationships in the context of urbanity…We present a replica of a local forest. This is also a manifestation of our imaginations and desire towards nature as urban dwellers (https://www.zenteh.com/a-familiar-forest) (Fig. 1)

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Fig. 1 A Familiar Forest (2021). (Image courtesy of Zen Teh)

Teh: In this work, we are particularly looking at the forest... in the context of Singapore, it is one where, our urban planning has led to a very clear segregation between man and the wild or the wilderness. In terms of our nature reserves… are really tucked in certain areas of Singapore where…for most part... we do have to travel to experience an authentic... or rather, an almost authentic forest experience... we [the authorities] still sort of clear [path] ways for... people to walk and so on... So, a lot of this sense of comfort…is placed attention to in our... experiences with nature. It’s an art and science kind of collaboration... when we look at the idea of a forest, we were referencing our experiences with greenery or green spaces that are around us with some distant memory, almost, of some trekking experiences… we interpret what the forest is. None of these [photo shots of A Familiar Forest] are real forests…they are constructed based on our interpretations of forests, of nature. The soundscape, as well... is one in which it is made entirely out of artificial sound. So this is done in collaboration with sound artist Brian O’Reilly and... and so the sounds are digital noise that were manipulated to mimic sounds of like, crickets. When I was experiencing the space... when I was photographing in these spaces that are forest-like…they are green spaces in the midst of densely built areas- so they’re in pockets of these spaces or in periphery area of urban spaces... I actually felt then…at some pointbecause of the lack of familiarity with... green spaces in the night time or even in any areas that look a little bit more dense other than parks…there is this sense of danger. Will there be a snake that will come out in the middle of night as I’m shooting…So, all that sort of then goes into this soundscape. The scent is one in which I co-concocted with Dr Ching. So, we had to really kind of interpret again, what is familiar, what is the scent of the forest. To deconstruct and think about what is the base note, what are the second layers of scent…When we do visit, for example, the secondary forests…you will start to see as well, there are quite a lot of flowering plants

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around. And... and these are actually relics of the past. They are from kampongs1 and... so the kampong residents have planted them and then when they will need to kind of leave a kampung to... be in HDB2 areas, you know, in the 1970s to 1990s, then they [plants]... become almost... embedded within the secondary forests and they then become, sort of, a relic of the past...These flowers becomes as well, then, the scent that we thought that we wanted to add in one juncture and it’s somewhere in the middle of this installation... we’re informed by our experiences and memories. I think the messaging or the environmental message... comes in two ways. One being, of course, through the text, where it is a little bit more loaded in the content... It’s contextualised from, you know, between individuals. In terms of our bodies, we talk about the science, we talk about the innate longing for nature, which is the biophilia hypothesis…this idea in communities, this shifting baseline, and how we would accept the degradation of our environment because we’re so highly adaptable as individuals and as human beings... to this global phenomenon of this loss of... or the degradation of our natural environment because of rapid urbanisation. Thinking about how we are adapting to... this artificiality and ‘enjoying’ this artificiality it’s also a kind of evolution, because we have adapted to this point where... we’re somehowwe’re really comfortable in this [referring to the audience being immersed and situated within the Familiar Forest installation] (Laughs). The artworks are only the beginning of the conversation. They are one that raise awareness of the particular phenomena that I’m looking at…allowing the art then to bring together the different disciplines, to bring together different people (Lum & Teh, 2021). Mirror of Water is composed of a series of photographic sculptures hovering on the surface of a water body, and a single-channel video of oil deposits swirling in the water. The installation creates an otherworldly experience, a place of limbo where time appears to stand still. The abstract, surreal beauty of the imagery belies the reality of the farreaching consequences water pollution has on native ecology, and the gravity of the situation at hand. (https://www.zenteh.com/mirror-of-water?pgid=kdtuww3w-ae1117a4-3e82-4e8eb993-c4e3f8a0244e) (Figure 2) Teh: Mirror of Water…is a more kind of... spontaneous and direct kind of interpretation from the observation... episode... of oil pollution that was along this canal that was very near my house. And... and I was very alarmed, seeing that... that, almost like, oil spill, that are on the surface of the water. Later on, I worked with an ecologist who corrected me... (Laughs) It is not an oil spill, it’s an oil-like residue on the water…But then, I was already very alarmed because I think to me, I’ve not seen that kind of scale. And somewhere that is just everyday…just by my house. So I walked hundreds of metres and it was almost never ending. I started getting concerned about... what is happening then to the marine life living underneath these oil-like residues… I was concerned whether you know, there will be issues with…breathing and so on…starting to wonder what could have happened, what are these oil-like residues and so on. So this interest and curiosity…document... photographs, videos…along the way, as I was waiting for authorities to actually react upon them, because I called them up and tried to sort of get that resolved. And then later on send all these footages to the ecologist, who then sought 1

Kampongs refer generally to traditional living villages of the people in the Malay Archipelago with which Singapore belongs. In Singapore, due to urbanization, people who used to live in kampungs have been relocated to urban dwellings. 2 HDB (Housing Development Board) refers to government public housing in Singapore.

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Fig. 2 Mirror of Water (2018). (Image courtesy of Zen Teh)

help from freshwater biologists, because it was something that was out of... her discipline to be able to fully understand and unpack that. I also found myself kind of like, being- as a visual artist, quite lured by…the colours and the oil spill. And it created this almost aesthetic experience, which is quite ironic, because of the danger... the problem at hand - it’s actually rather severe, you know. So the irony, I think, in that experience is brought into the exhibition... Well, some people say that it looks almost like planets, and... this imagination and this aesthetic experience that happens... I then took advantage of using that into the work to almost like…lure people in to be interested in the issue at hand. And then as they walk in closer, then they realise, it is something rather devastating. Because we did find out that very likely the bubbles that were forming on the surface of this oil-like residue, were actually marine life trying to breathe underneath... Yeah, so... we then brought in as well, then the larger issues surrounding canalisation of our waterways, our water treatment, and, you know, the health of related ecosystems like the mangrove forests (Lum and Teh 2021). Garden State Palimpsest [series of sculptures made from ink on found luxury stones] explores Singapore’s constantly changing landscape and its residents’ relationship with the land. I carried out interviews with previous kampong dwellers that become a starting point to reconstruct memories as images. These imaginings of nature in their various modes of presentation—as sculptural photographic images, videos and narratives—are complex layers of encounters that probe at ideals, nostalgia and desires with regard to our lived environments. (https://www.thetigermothreview.com/blog/garden-state-palimpsest) (Fig.3) Teh: The inspiration actually first came when I was having this conversation with my mother. So she was just sharing about…the kampong days…how she and her brothers, would…jump into the river stream that is just behind their house. And they would catch small fishes, they would catch prawns in the stream, and then they would take the prawns and then they will just do this... [cups hands together] Cup, you know. And... and until they are kind of almost red from the heat of the hand. And they will say, "oh, it’s cooked," and then they will eat it. In today’s context, you should cook everything and so on…we have a very, very kind of different way of engaging with the environment. And also…like climbing trees, and sitting

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Fig. 3 Garden State Palimpsest (2018). (Image courtesy Zen Teh)

on top of rambutan trees and the tree trunks... branches, and... just pluck, and eat to [our] heart’s content, and then just throw the seeds anywhere - that will be littering, you’ll be fined today, right? …Their kind of lifestyle was like... What? Oh my god, I can’t imagine that. But the truth is, it wasn’t too far away. It was…between the 1970s and the 1990s. When she [Teh’s mother] was talking about these memories, it was still really vivid and she described in such rich details that it’s almost as though it happened yesterday…I cannot imagine how that lifestyle was and I was in almost envy. And also, you know, it triggered as well the imagination to want to... relate to these experiences of my mother. It got me interested into then this whole idea of an alternative lifestyle of a different time- of a different period of time in history - in the same context, where we are in Singapore… I started interviewing... quite a number of people from various different kampongs in Singapore, between 1970s and 1990s, to try to get the very rich accounts or descriptive accounts of how the natural environment used to be like, because it was a very different way of living, where... our housing, our environment is nestled within this natural space. Whereas now, you know, there’s a very clear segregation I mentioned previously as well - about how, you know, nature and where we stay... is very much compartmentalised. I sought to reach out to these people through social media. Calling out on Facebook, Instagram, and so on, asking for anyone who knows anyone who has lived in a kampong before and to come forward to actually join and participate in this conversation. These interviews are... semi-structured…So about the way they lived, about how they interact with the environment, and how they thought about the development and how they think about their life today, and how looking back what they felt about it… capturing their thoughts and their interaction with the natural environment across time. I wanted that kind of comparison between how I felt about the environment and how they might have felt differently because of their experiences in kampong. The work actually came out from... their descriptive accounts…I get them to really describe in very rich details about how these places used to look like. For example, we were just

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talking about the river stream, jumping in the river and catching the small fishes. Then I would ask to the extent where...how wide is this river stream, how deep was the water. And give a rather specific measurement to it. And then, in addition to that, to help me visualise it, is to... use Google image search...we’ll look at this river stream. So we’ll start searching on river stream. And they will find images that kind of like resonates with that space that they remembered to be. And interestingly…the search- Google image search outcome, what they selected... outside of Singapore... You know, to even to the US and you know, in Australia and so on... Which was really interesting in thinking about the idea of development as well, right? Then what I did was to search for places in Singapore that still exist, that resonates with some of these descriptive accounts, and then photograph them…In trying to do so, I had to also interpret and understand... their accounts based- filtered through my experiences, what I could imagine and relate to. In searching for these images in Singapore, I had to also then use camera angles, because the river streams are just not going to be wide enough because our waterways have been canalised …using camera angle to create this almost sense of depth by going really low, then becomes such- sort of almost like a representation of some of their memories that they spoke about…In doing that, I also wanted to... comment on that state of change. The changes in the environment that we have been- ongoing or experiencing. It is about this mass consumption, you know, that is driving and fuelling these rapid changes…cause people staying in this land to kind of feel disconnected, because the... landmarks that you’re familiar with are constantly changing, you know, so you feel that sense of disorientation and that affects the sense of belonging as well to the city or to the nation. In representing this mass consumption, I had to think about then, the strategy…what visual representation would I use to talk about that. And then I found... factory offcuts of luxury stones. And I felt that yes, I mean…we are always having this demand about... this luxury and this lifestyle. So this was mass consumption or... this kind of lifestyle that we are driving towards, as we ‘progress’, right, becomes manifest in these luxury stones. So I embedded, then, the images that are representing the memories of this kampong and the natural environment in this kampong through- on top of these luxury stone. They become a juxtaposition and almost an object of tension, but at the same time becomes almost like artefacts of those memories…In the exhibition itself. I presented these works alongside with the recordings of these interviews, to provide then these contexts for people ofmay or may not be in Singapore, right, to actually then start to understand a little bit about... the kind of changes we’re talking about, the kind of issues that we are raising pertaining to our identities, pertaining to the environment as well, and the nuances of all that… I also invited these kampong residents to the exhibition... And then those works as almost like artefacts then becomes the point of dialogue and conversations between people who never met because they stayed in different kampongs. And then... and then those memories were revived again, it’s almost cyclical. It’s building relationship [through the work] ...and reviving those memories again…memories that are in the back of their heads, and then to also start considering what kind of lifestyle they want going forward (Lum & Teh, 2021).

From the three works described above, Teh’s creative ideas often begin with some personal observations and experiences that she has had in her immediate environment. This would then arouse her curiosity to find out more about what might have caused the environmental phenomenon observed as she documents through photographs,

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videos, speaking with people, reading relevant literature and connecting with experts from various fields that would help to resolve or further her understanding of the issue at hand. This inquiry would subsequently lead into her creative making process where the art works are often blended with contextualized information about the environmental issue at hand to spark awareness in the audience and to encourage dialogue and conversation. Key to the inquiry process is collaboration with other disciplinary experts as environmental issues are often complex and involve knowledge from multiple domains. The section below illustrates the collaborative process through Teh’s work with Dr Ching Jianhong in A Familiar Forest.

5.4 Collaboration Teh: When you deal with complex…real world issues... responses that are triggered by everyday experiences…It is beyond a single discipline, beyond just myself as an artist, as somebody who is observing to be able to answer or understand some of these phenomena…I find it very necessary to collaborate with relevant disciplines. In A Familiar Forest…the understanding of the forest, the understanding what are the healing abilities of... being in proximity with the forest, how the sciences actually work with plants, with the forest, or in terms of... physiological, psychological, and also how that affects the environment. And what are their [experts] takes on the conservation, the environmental issues as we look at the... degradation of forest… [and] the loss of these natural environments. I was triggered by my experiences of trekking while being in the forest or, you know, in parks, but I don’t understand really, I think without that disciplinary grounding in the sciences, to know the complexity of how nature works…that knowledge then becomes really important to help me understand why is it that is of value to actually conserve this natural environment. The necessity to have a partnership in other disciplines that can help to explain this phenomena in more concrete ways… Dr Ching here is able to provide his understanding of what plants and how plants and the forest are able to help to heal our bodies or you know, in ways of like physically, how that affects our brain activity and how as well psychologically, in terms of our mental well- mental health. So combatting like, say, depression, anxiety and things like that, they are all very pertinent to this... natural environment, this forest. I think it [collaboration] has to first begin from having common interests...So if we’re just looking at strategies of how you collaborate, I mean, we’re both as well... apart from being professionals in our own fields…educators. So coming in with that intention that this is a work where we really want to raise awareness of the environment… to help to open up conversations through the arts. To remind us in terms of values, in terms of cultural and societal changes that we observe. And the relevant disciplines sort of come in and contribute...in the process of actually working on that…sometimes we have to also trek out of our disciplines, where I have to know a little bit more about science, and not only in pertaining to environmental, medical science, you know, where he is familiar with, but you know, also in terms of ecology, and starting to read up on say, the shifting baseline syndrome…Then even questioning together, I think, the notion of what is nature... what is pure, what is natural... So all that becomes almost like philosophical

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questions that really question, I think, our own beliefs and our own understanding, and that then bring about, I think, a closer integration and insights between the two disciplines, bringing together then the experience here in the exhibition (Lum & Teh, 2021).

The collaboration with experts for Teh extends beyond the initial inquiry or gaining more knowledge about the specific environmental issue. It is often worked through to the presentation of the artwork where the collaborators are being constantly consulted throughout the creative process, “coming to understanding…to clarify the work, the idea…and the actual messaging, the nuances…through the work” (Teh, personal interview, Oct 16, 2020).

5.5 Sustainability and Advocating for Living Inquiry Being an environmental artist for Teh is very much intertwined with her lifestyle choices. Through her consistent living inquiry which feeds into her creative process and art works, Teh is further informed about her lifestyle choices which essentially feedbacks as a cyclical process. Teh clarifies and encourages her living inquiry process: Teh: As I continue my practice...into environmental issues, I become more aware…of the impact and the implications that we might have as individuals in the choices that we make, in the kind of materials that we use, in the way we kind of live. As much as possible to use materials from sustainable sources... to repurpose…upcycling of... Like Garden State Palimpsest is from found luxury, like factory offcuts they were going to throw away or they’re going to crush into and then create resin tops and so on…I’ve also worked with second-hand furniture quite a fair bit, found rocks... that are just by the streets or at construction site and so on… Apart from it being sort of environmentally... conscious, it’s also one that adds to... the meaning and the visual language of the work. How the lifestyle sort of feedbacks into the work, because I become more aware of some of these issues, because of the lifestyle. I suppose it’s called a living inquiry, right?...if we are conscious about...how we are feeling, how we are relating always within ourselves, to the larger context, the implications of our actions, to the environment, to... people around us, to communities, right, and you’re constantly kind of reflecting upon that, then I think that is where the learning takes place…regardless of the roles that we are in (Lum & Teh, 2021).

6 Pedagogical Implications As a visual arts educator for almost a decade, Teh is naturally keen in finding ways for her students to approach the subject of environmental art with genuine concern and enthusiasm, and expanding their knowledge in the necessary fields of engagement. Teh advocates beginning with broad themes like ‘Man and Nature’, getting them to

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question the theme and begin some initial observations with careful facilitation and guidance: Teh: Start to get students to question then why should it always be man versus nature, right?...how do we activate students’ observation…Because I think observation is one in which you kind of have to train…to be in that frame of mind, to be inquisitive…I will bring students out on field trips... getting them to really just observe what is in the surrounding...Bringing them to the space and then asking them what is it that intrigues them…so asking questions to get them to begin the observations. So, if you actually get them to for example... be engaging in drawing, right? Drawing is a very, very slow medium, right? And in drawing…they begin to then- apart from honing the skills... of drawing, but also in forcing them to kind of observe certain thing…and sometimes that can lead to you know, them looking even more closely into even the structures that then goes into- How do these structures kind of form, right? Naturally, organically. That can then track into biology, right? Or even chemistry and so on…And then allowing these students to take it in different trajectories. Guide them in a sense that…they start to be interested in the patterns, right? That may exist on the surface... of, say, a tree bark…Then... getting them to think about how that kind of form and then what are the possible relevant disciplines that may come and that is something where student as they continue to research it through your questioning, to... then find their own paths. The art making and the curiosity towards wanting to understand certain things that is in front of you becomes then the motivation to guide the steps that goes forward. Discipline... being self-aware…being reflexive. And- and that is where I think the role of the teacher is being able to cultivate this... with consistency as well (Lum & Teh, 2021).

Thus, cultivating in students the attitude of ‘living inquiry’ is thus at the top of Teh’s mind, being consistently observant, being curious to find out, document and examine issues that may arise from one’s immediate environment and being consciously aware of the implications of one’s own actions on the environment and extending this consciousness to the wider community. Returning to Kastner’s (1998) survey of land and environmental art, where works were grouped in terms of: (i) Integration; (ii) Interruption; (iii) Involvement; (iv) Implementation; and (v) Imaginings, one can interpret Teh’s creative works described in this chapter within Implementation, illustrating human relations with the natural environment due to urbanization and consumption such as in A Familiar Forest, Garden State Palimpsest and Mirror of Water. The educator in the Singapore visual arts classroom can consider expanding students’ knowledge of the field of possibilities within land and environmental art utilizing Kastner’s survey alongside works by other local artists. For instance, the visual arts teacher might ask students to consider where Tang Da Wu’s Earth Work (1979) would sit within Kastner’s survey or under Integration and Interruption (Kastner, 1998), the teacher could examine the three land art works of Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, namely, Real Estate (2014), Lifeblood (2009) and Unearthed (2009) together with students to explore the environmental issues being surfaced by the artist (details on the impetus of Lifeblood are described in Chap. 3). The visual arts teacher could also engage students with the works of Ong Kian Peng who fuses technology with art in hopes of connecting urban dwellers

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with the natural environment by immersing them in the awe and sublime of nature through his video-sound works (Ong’s thinking behind his works have been detailed in Chap. 5). In Ong’s opinion, creating the “experience of being there” through his creative works would hopefully trigger the audience in deeper ways to ponder further about larger issues of climate change and sea-level rise (key themes in Ong’s works) to provoke them into further conversations, thinking and eventually a call to action. In a way, Ong perhaps takes on the notion of the sublime as political thinker and philosopher, Edmund Burke (1757) articulated: The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment: and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by them it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force (as cited in Kastner, 1998, p.193).

It would seem that there are no shortage of land and environmental works by Singapore contemporary artists for visual arts teachers to engage and interest their students in and in inspiring and facilitating students’ creative work through a deep dive into the creative processes of these artists. As a parting quote from Zen Teh to visual arts educators and artist practitioners: Continue…to stay curious as individuals…thinking of ourselves as learners as well…Continuing that practice, continuing [to have] that inquisitive mind, so that as we are continuing to guide our students…in context to the real world today…continuing to stay relevant. And then our students can be critical thinkers that can be helpful to crafting our future (Lum & Teh, 2021).

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Afterword by Zen Teh From an Environmental Artist to Another: A Critical Reflection of Contemporary Environmental Art Artistic practices are often concerned with pushing boundaries, and works of art help us make sense of the world. Consequently, environmental art has undergone folds of changes, evolving alongside environmental discourses, technological advancement and rapid globalisation in recent decades. Early iteration of environmental art emerged in the 1960s in the form of land art or earth art as a response to the postwar sentiments and the constraints of the gallery system (Kastner, 1998), setting the trajectory of its evolutionary discourse. Rooting from Euro-American origins, land art artists such as Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long create works using natural materials found in the environment and their works were often large-scale, sculptural and ephemeral, set within remote picturesque locations, a stark departure from traditional art forms such as paintings or sculptures. Nature is celebrated as fleeting, beautiful and pristine, the backdrop of grandeur nature seemingly untouched by men. Since then, post-war industrial revolution and nation building has brought about massive degradation of natural environments, with a 437Mha of tree cover loss globally, and 176Gt of carbon dioxide emissions since the year 2000. In light of this rapid degradation of natural environments, some nature reserves or remote natural environs become spaces of artist residency programmes. For instance, the Yellowstone National Park in the United States (eg., Ark Project International), Namadgi National Park in Australia (eg., Craft ACT residency) and Kjerringøy in Bodø, above the polar circle in Northern Norway (Eg. AiR kjerringøy) function as a protected bubble of the grandeur of nature, providing contemporary artists the avenue to continue the approach of the picturesque, the sublime and appreciation of pristine nature. In the context of rapid urbanisation that does not seem to slow down, on one hand one might question how realistic is this approach, and on the other, the popularity of such residencies is evident of how artists continue to seek inspiration from larger nature. In the face of rapid globalisation, artists in contemporary art have taken the ideas of the sublime and appreciation of nature in different trajectories. This is also evident in the pluralistic responses in Asia and Southeast Asia, where the Euro-American art movement in its environmental and political ideologies manifested in different ways; albeit not always using the same term Land Art. In Southeast Asia, artists create works as a reaction to the circumstances of the environment, works such as Earth Works (1979) by Tang Da Wu, Trimurti (1988) by Goh Ee Choo, Salleh Japar and S.Chandrasekaran, Fire Sculpture (1979) by Tan Teng Kee, The Land Project (now known as Land Foundation) by Thai Artists Karmin Lertchaiprasert and Rirkrit Tiravanija (1998), and Eceng Gondok Berbungan Emas (Water Hyacinth with Golden Roses) (1979) by Siti Adiyati Subangun, embodies political and environmental notions similar to land art. Although commonly exploring themes of human-nature

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relationships and the environment, their works encompass wide-ranging approaches and art practices, with differing beliefs and intent. These trajectories continue to diversify in tandem with technological advancement, expanding art making approaches, processes and outcome in contemporary art practices, and bring about added layers of complexities. Necessarily, environmental art lands itself into heated discussions and inconclusive ideas of what constitutes environmental art, its functions and value in our society (Humphrey, 1985; Tolstoy, 1996; Spaid, 2002; Lintott, 2007; Boetzkes, 2010; Marks et al., 2016, 2017). As an environmental artist, researcher and educator based in Singapore, this afterword serves as my critical reflection on the conception, function and value of environmental art in contemporary art practices. The afterword ruminates upon a few thematic preoccupations that is symptomatic of our changing relationships with nature and as such it is not intended to be an extensive survey of global environmental art practices available today. Selected works by Singaporean and international environmental artists will be examined to illuminate the complexities and tensions in contemporary environmental art practices attributed to aesthetics and environmental intent, and contextual factors of technological advancement, globalisation and commerce. To examine the complexities of contemporary environmental art, the next section will first examine what constitutes environmental art in contemporary art context and the contiguous aesthetic concerns arising from digital media. Environmental art or aestheticized nature? Environmental art is a diverse field of creative practice that includes works that aim to engender an appreciation of nature, as well as works that employ nature as a medium (Marks et al. 2017; p.1308)

Referencing the definition of environmental art by prominent environmental art and creative practice researchers, Marks, Chandler & Baldwin (2017), most environmental artworks or art practices that explore nature or human-nature relationship would qualify as environmental art. This definition provides a broad conception of environmental art but it may be overly general to be useful in examining what constitutes environmental art, its function, and value in today’s society. This is especially so in contemporary art, where artists have expanded their art making approaches, methods and medium beyond traditional mediums and disciplinary perspectives (traditional mediums here refers to painting, sculptures, and land art as large sculptural forms) and venturing into multidisciplinary3 or interdisciplinary4 collaborations 3

Multidisciplinary refers to “research that involves more than a single discipline in which each discipline makes a separate contribution. Investigators may share facilities and research approaches while working separately on distinct aspects of a problem” (National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, 2005, p. 27). 4 Interdisciplinary refers to “a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance a fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline” (Boix Mansilla et al. 2016, p. 573). Both terms are included to articulate a distinction between the two in terms of type of collaboration and level of disciplinary integration.

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and digital media (digital media includes photography, digital projections, mixed media installations and augmented reality or virtual reality). Their practices continue to challenge traditional categorisation and understanding of art, blurring disciplinary boundaries, and creating works that are not neatly confined within existing taxonomies. In view of this development, it is necessary for us to equally advance our discussions and evaluation of what constitutes environmental art, its aims, functions and value, in contemporary art practices. Clark (2010) shed some light on how we may interpret environmental art, framing the dichotomy between aesthetics and environmental intent as non-cognitive and cognitive approaches. Cognitive approach refers to the play of contextual knowledge such as scientific or ecological knowledge when one interprets environmental art, while non-cognitive approach refers to the play of “perceptual experience” (Clark, 2010, p.355) involving individual imagination or personal connections from past experiences derived from the aesthetic experience of the artwork. Although cognitive and non-cognitive approaches are not mutually exclusive, for they both affect our aesthetic experience and interpretation of environmental art, we would examine them separately for the clarity purposes of our discussion. Thus in this section, we will draw on cognitive and non-cognitive approaches to examine what may constitute environmental art and the role of aesthetics in the face of technological advancement and availability of new mediums. By critically thinking about the way we interpret environmental art and nature, we may gain more clarity in the evolving functions and value of environmental art today. Digital media characterises contemporary art and technological advancement, thus digital media works by Singaporean artists, Robert Zhao Renhui and Ernest Goh, and international artist collective, teamLab, are selected as case studies. The selection of both local and international examples also points towards globalisation and its implications on environmental art. If we consider aesthetics as a non-cognitive approach to interpreting environmental art, then the role of visual appreciation of environmental art as ‘beautiful, the sublime and the picturesque in nature’ (Clark, 2010, p. 352), a conception of art since the eighteenth century must be reviewed in today’s context. The debate of aestheticising nature has been a tangent debate of environmental art since the emergence of land art in the 1960s (Carlson 2018; Clark, 2010; Nannicelli, 2018). The notion of aestheticizing in itself is a tricky one if we consider how artists endeavour in their craft of art making as they may develop their conceptual understanding or agenda towards environmental issues. Hepburn highlighted the underdeveloped understanding of aesthetic enjoyment of nature (Hepburn, 1963; Clark, 2010) and that art objects when ‘privileges art over nature…reduces nature to cultural construct’ (Clark, 2010, p.354). This blurs the line between appreciation of art (of nature or landscapes) and the appreciation of nature. A sounding example of aestheticizing nature may be the works of teamLab (Japan), i.e. Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries (2017), and Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together, Transcending Boundaries (2017). Nature is used as a medium in the form of landscape, flora and fauna motifs such as the waterfall, flowers, butterflies, corals, birds. These nature motifs are digitally constructed and manipulated to create immersive landscapes projected onto the walls, floors and ceilings of museum or

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gallery spaces. The projections are also coupled with digitally rendered sounds that resembles waterfall and other sound effects to accompany the visual spectacle; even when some of the presented natural phenomenon such as the dispersal of dandelions which do not actually have any obvious sounds in the real-world. Colours used in these nature motifs are also often saturated, more vibrant and larger than how these elements in nature may have been in real-life. These overly-aestheticised natural motifs of Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries (2017) are further exaggerated by the use of “interactivity” created by digital means, allowing visitors to “interact” with the projection of the waterfall by standing on it and “obstruct the flow of water like a rock and the flow of water changes…the flow of water continues to transform due to the interaction of people. Previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur” (Art Science Museum, Singapore, 2017). What the experience presents is a human-centric perspective of the environment that emphases and amplifies or perhaps even exaggerates human power to shape nature, underrepresenting and devaluing the prowess of nature. Moreover, these projections are held within enclosed spaces (in order to allow the projections to retain its vibrancy and visual effects), and thus could be seen as detached imageries of nature, away from the actual scenes of nature. The approach of teamLab to simplify and overtly aestheticize nature can also be seen as a form of “reducing nature to (a) cultural construct” (Clark, 2010, p.354). These projections are heavily aestheticized and culturally constructed to present only the ‘beautiful, the sublime and the picturesque in nature’ (Clark, 2010, p. 352) via digital technology. One might thus argue that these works focus on the appreciation of the aesthetics of natural motifs rather than the appreciation of nature itself, for none of these works are from real-world data of nature. Along the lines of aestheticizing nature, we might consider the works by Singaporean artists Ernest Goh and Robert Zhao Renhui. Referring to Ernest Goh’s biography on his website (Goh, 2021), Ernest Goh describes his practice as focusing on ecological relationships, and is fascinated with the natural world. He is probably most known for his photographs of chickens (Cocks, 2015) and fishes (The Fish Book, 2011), where the animals are photographed against a solid black or white background that is almost entirely void of context. The animals are presented isolated in the void background and are seemingly lit by artificial lighting of some sort. It is uncertain if the lighting were studio lighting or natural light conditions that are digitally manipulated to achieve high contrast, texture and sharpness to accentuate the animal subject. Ernest Goh’s Cocks (2015) and The Fish Book (2011) narrates the memory of his childhood days living in siglap kampong (rural settlement in Singapore from the 1970s to 1990s) and visually articulates the phenomenon of pets and commerce in urban cities in Asia. Without the contextual knowledge of natural history or impact of human consumption patterns in animal trading on the environment, a viewer encountering the works may not realise the environmental intent (if any, as it is not articulated clearly in the artwork description) and interpret the works more aesthetically, relating the aesthetic experience to a sense of nostalgia (if the viewer has similar cultural background or living experiences). This aesthetic experience and sense of nostalgia may become a superficial interpretation of environmental art.

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Although different in narrative, Robert Zhao’s Mynas (2016) are visually alike to Ernest Goh’s Cocks (2015) and The Fishes Book (2011) where Mynas are photographed with harsh lighting and against a solid background possibly created by the use of in-camera flashes. Robert Zhao Renhui’s Mynas (2016) in some ways explains a little bit more of the environmental implication by stating the invasive nature of mynas and their presence in shopping district, Orchard, in Singapore has been seen as a “bane of retailers and shoppers for the past few years” (Zhao, 2016). However, beyond observations, the extent of environmental impact of mynas population boost in Singapore and its implications on ecology were not clearly articulated. Not all environmental artists are knowledgeable about ecology or environmental studies; even if some of them do, would it be fair for us to expect the level of ecological understanding and meaning to be manifested within their works? And to what levels of depth would it be sufficient? Yet if we do not expect a certain level of ecological meaning to be communicated, what functions would these works serve, and what do we then make out of the value of environmental art? Land art artist Robert Smithson articulated this tension of environmental expectation and aesthetics of environmental art in the book compilation, The Sublime, stating, “any discussion concerning nature and art is bound to be shot through with moral implications” (Morley & Smithson, 2010, p.115). In there, he cited Thass-thienemann in the criticism of land art artists intervening into nature and taking natural materials from the environment to create works of art and his suggestion of replacing the approach of appropriating from the land to the use of lyrical poetry or pictorial representations such as paintings as the means of art making—“they should stop digging (now shouting petulantly in rage) down inside the earth to draw metals out of it. That’s digging down into Mother Nature and taking things that shouldn’t be taken” (Morley & Smithson, 2010, p.116). In response to Thass-thienemann’s criticism of land art, Robert Smithson highlighted the polarity of views on human-nature relationship and argued for alternative ways to consider man and human cultivation of land as part of nature. Moving beyond the polarities of human-nature relationship is definitely an important trajectory to consider, especially since global forces of urbanisation have been rapid and inevitably shaped the way we relate and perceive nature to be. However, Robert Smithson’s essay has also articulated the inevitable assessment of environmental obligations that environmental art is subjected to. Unlike land art artists whose works derive directly from the natural environment (such as digging soil or taking leaves from natural environment), digital-based artists such as Teamlab, Ernest Goh or Robert Zhao Renhui may not take directly from the earth but their art works (selected works as discussed above) still consumes energy, which in a way could equate to taking resources from the earth. Whilst it is difficult to measure the extent of energy consumption of environmental art, teamLab’s projection of videos and soundscape all around, from ceiling to wall to the floor, the energy consumption of the artworks is likely to be quite massive. In that light, we cannot help but to consider the question on the value of art from an ethical point of view—“is it worth it”? (Fisher, 2007, p.279).

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The question of worth To the question, what is this art to which are offered in sacrifice the labours of millions of people, the very lives of people, and even morality… (Tolstoy, 1996, p.36).

On the premise of ‘is it worth it?’, early author of aesthetic theory, Leo Tolstoy (1996) questioned the value of art, and if it is morally justified for art to consume large amounts of effort and resources. Whilst Tolstoy was referring to art in general, environmental art is a form of art; and in fact, with its perceived environmental obligations, it may be subjected to even more scrutiny. In that regard, Lintott (2007) revisited the critical questioning on the value of art by Leo Tolstoy in the context of land art: For the production of land art, nature is infringed upon and turned into art. The defender of land art argues that the final work of art is very important and that the ends therefore justify the means. But is it true that the resulting land art really is that important? This question is especially urgent because there are prima facie reasons not to infringe on nature…it therefore is necessary for our society, a society in which works of land art arise and are supported, to find out whether it really is important and worth those sacrifices it initiates (p. 265-266).

Perhaps a poignant case worth discussing the environmental obligations of environment art is the artwork entitled, Ice Watch, by internationally renowned environmental artist, Olafur Eliasson. Ice Watch is a public art installation which held twelve ten-ton blocks of glacial ice from Greenland to Paris, Place du Panthéon, during the week of United Nations Climate Summit (COP21) in December 2015. This work made in collaboration with geologist, Minik Rosing, was arranged in a formation of a clock, with a narrative of “raises awareness of climate change by providing a direct and tangible experience of the reality of melting arctic ice”, according to Olafur Eliasson’s website (olafureliasson.net). Visitors are able to physically interact and touch the work (the blocks of ice) and witness them melting away in the urban space. If we consider Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch work to land art in 1960s and its notion of nature as ephemeral, ‘beautiful, sublime or picturesque” (Clark, 2010, p. 352), the approach to environmental art has expanded alongside urbanity, urban development and human capabilities in extracting from nature. Unlike land art like those of Andy Goldsworthy or Richard Long, natural materials appropriated as art are juxtaposed against urban settings or human-altered environments. In that regard, Carlson posited that a human-created and human influenced environment produces more meaning, compared to parks or sites of pristine nature (2018). Thus in a way, the urban setting where the ice blocks were held, generates the attention to the materiality of the ice block, the natural process of melting which alludes to the phenomenon of global warming and climate change, and may produce more meaning and environmental narratives. The harvesting of the blocks of glacial ice from Greenland by Olafur Eliasson may seem similar to the approach of Andy Goldsworthy gathering leaves or ice from the natural environment, but its processes and methods of art making generate a vastly different amount of carbon footprint between the two. The process of harvesting tons of ice blocks and bringing them thousands of kilometres to its exhibiting site not only contributes to the depletion of glacial ice but also inevitably generates

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significant energy consumption and its by-product–greenhouse gases, the main cause of our climate crisis today. In that light, Ice Watch also raises the ethical question of ownership and if we (Olafur Eliasson included) are entitled to take a natural resource of such critical status. Worst still, the process of artistic creation of Ice Watch also encourages the behaviour of exploitation of nature, and seemingly, in the name of art, legitimises this exploitation. Olafur Eliasson defended his work, saying that “seeing chunks of the Greenland ice sheet in our city is just the experience we need to force change… by enabling people to experience and actually touch the blocks of ice, I hope we will connect people to their surroundings in a deeper way and inspire radical change” (Phaidon.com, 2018). In a way, Olafur Eliasson’s approach to environmental advocacy is through delivering immediate sensory experience to people to evoke emotional responses that would affect decision making. In the same vein, Eisner (2002) articulates the function of the arts as “not only a way of creating performances and products; it is a way of creating our lives by expanding our consciousness, shaping our dispositions, satisfying our quest for meaning, establishing contact with others, and sharing a culture” (p.3). This resonates with the notion of contemporary environmental art as a place making and communal building mechanism (Marks et al., 2017), where the sharing of physical space and sensory experience of touching the ice blocks encourages social engagement of local communities with the pressing issue of global warming. The outdoor and prime central location of Ice Watch also meant that environmental art became widely accessible to the public, which was vastly different from the limited audience that land art in remote locations were able to do. From the perspective of impact based on footfall and public engagement, Ice Watch certainly has achieved a wider reach. Yet how do we measure if the impact of Ice Watch is sufficient to compensate for its extent of energy consumption and carbon footprint? Lintott (2007) reviews the question of worth in art and its moral implications, and argues for the worth of some land art on the basis of its ability to “command our attention on environmental matters… and shape the appreciator in a profound manner” (p. 274). And to others, considering the value of land art also points to its perceived functions, Bullot (2014) posited that environmental art beyond a study of natural phenomena and environment, function as “tracking, broadcasting, emotions manipulation, cooperation, and critical reflections”(p. 511). To explain succinctly, to “track and broadcast” refers to environmental monitoring and providing public information gathered through artistic presentation. Works of art that sought to elicit emotional responses or feelings from audiences in order to evoke empathy and motivate action is thought as “emotions manipulation” while critical reflection refers to environmental art that aims at eliciting critical thinking in audiences, questioning existing perspectives on human-nature relations. Finally “collaboration” points to the art-science collaborative nature present in many environmental art, to provide scientific grounding of the targeted environmental issue to the public. If we consider Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch with the list of functions of environmental art (Lintott, 2007; Marks, et al. 2017; Bullot, 2014), the artwork certainly checks many boxes. A quick surf over the net on reviews of Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch revealed about 30,000 results, clearly displaying its popularity. However, these reviews held

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mixed responses by academics, media and art critics. On one end, Ice Watch is revered as able to “evoke human impact on climate change “ (LeBourdais, 2015), and making “the reality of climate change tangible and intimate” (Street, 2018). On the other opposing end, Ice Watch triggered the question of worth, “Ice Watch’s reported thirty-ton carbon footprint is significant, and one might justifiably wonder about whether sending an expedition crew to “harvest” ice blocks in Greenland was an ethically justified means by which to attempt this artistic statement” (Nannicelli, 2018, p. 497), and genuineness of environmental intent “are the creative industries the world’s most hypocritical polluters?”(Balzer, 2017). As though there is a feeling of moral obligation to justify, Michael Bloomberg who supported the project exclaimed that, “the awareness raising aspect of the project more than justifies the small carbon footprint of the project’s transportation” (Robinson, 2018); a view similarly shared on prominent art site, Phaidon.com, “if enough of Ice Watch’s London visitors mend their ways, then, a few flights to Greenland and back might be a small price to pay (Phaidon.com, 2018)”. Yet, it is estimated that Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch generates as much as 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide, just for the 2015 version at Paris alone.5 Surprisingly, the work continues to be funded and even made on a larger scale in London in 2018, which held thirty blocks of glacial ice from Greenland. The ice blocks were scattered across the outside areas of Tate Modern and the Bloomberg Headquarters. Such a phenomenon in art raises the question of genuineness behind the environmental intent, and if the artist and the funding organisations were prudent in considering the environmental implications of artistic practices. Could there be reasons beyond the study or advocacy of the environment for the perpetuation of environmental art? As an art form, environmental art can be seen as a unique composite of aesthetics, medium and its intimate relationship with environmental message. As such, it would be necessary to consider environmental art beyond its environmental message, and to evaluate its value and functions as works of art. Lintott (2007) argues for a distinction between the moral assessment of the artwork content and the value of the environmental art as a work of art —“an artwork can be judged for its message, that is, for what it conveys upon or after its creation. Whether and to what extent the outcome of this evaluation is relevant to its value as a work of art is a matter of debate” (Lintott, 2007, p.268). From that end, Lintott cited the example of a cathedral and if it should be judged as ugly because it was constructed in slavery conditions (2007). Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch (2014, 2018) and teamLab’s Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries (2017) are beautiful as objects of art and attract huge amounts of public attention, despite their massive energy consumption. However it would be dangerous to isolate either aesthetics or morals in the evaluation of works of art, for they are not mutually exclusive in relation but rather exist within a spectrum of aesthetics and environmental compatibility. If we focus solely on aesthetics where 5

According to environmental site, Julie’s Bicycle, a non-profit organization and registered charity in the UK, the carbon footprint resulting for Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch at Paris in 2015 is estimated at 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to 30 people flying to and fro from Paris to Greenland.

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the value of the work is regarded from the end of beauty, then the pragmatic approach could lean environmental artworks overly subjugated to forces of commerce. In the case of many environmental art (including the works of Olafur Eliasson, teamLab, Robert Zhao Renhui and Ernest Goh), these works are open to commissions and sales in the art market. On the other hand, it would not depict the true value of an environmental art work if the only evaluation of its value is on its fulfilment of morals and environmental intent. Otherwise, jarring and gory images of deforestation or animal cruelty in news and social media would have served that function of environmental advocacy. The perpetuation of environmental art that costs massive energy consumption and carbon footprint in the examples of Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch and teamLab’s immersive multimedia installations may be seen as extreme cases, but they reveal the complexities of evaluating contemporary environmental art. Although environmental works are often available for commissioning or commercial sales within the gallery or art commerce system, it would be naïve to simply regard environmental art as commercially driven or to completely exclude the influence of commerce in environmental art. After all, environmental artists like any other artist need to be financially sustainable to continue their art practice. Adding to that complexity are the countless of environmental artworks that threads in-between the grey areas of aesthetics, environmental consciousness, and commerce, which further complicates the evaluation of worth (the works of Robert Zhao and Ernest Goh for instance do not consume massive amount of energy but are available in the sales of edition prints and artwork commissioning). Conclusion From discussion on the role of aesthetics to the ethical obligations of environmental art and its potential function and value, what this afterword sought to do was not so much to ascertain which environmental art is good or bad; but rather it illuminates the layers of complexities between technological advancement, ethics, aesthetics and the perceived value of environmental art in today’s globalised world. In many ways, the advancement of technology can be seen as a double-edged sword. It has allowed contemporary artists to develop human-nature discourses of environmental art in urbanity, expand the repertoire of artistic expression for environmental concerns and a means to weave environmental advocacy into social and cultural dimensions by allowing greater public accessibility to these works of art. As a consequence of globalisation and increased accessibility to works of art, influence of commerce may have driven the arts in more ways (environmental art included), making it more challenging than before to assess and evaluate the genuine motivations and intentions behind some environmental art. Technological advancement has also brought about an increase in human capacity to exploit nature, and opened avenues for artists to expand their access to materials for artistic expression. In spite of these tensions and challenges in differentiating and evaluating contemporary environmental art, we exist in an age of immense possibility for shaping both art and environmental discourses. From the voice of an environmental artist to another, it is of utmost importance that we consider critically the power relations between aesthetics, environmental intent and other contextual forces such as the effect of commerce to guide our art practices

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and consumption of environmental art. Whilst we may be able to justify our works from the perspective of potential function and value of environmental art, I believe that the moral obligation to be environmentally responsible should remain in the consciousness of all artists, even if that effort may not always be visible to others.

References Interviews Cited Ong Kian Peng, 30th September 2020 Chor Leng Twardzik Ching, 10th September 2020 Zen Teh, 16th October 2020

Other References Han, H. (2017). Singapore, a garden city: Authoritarian environmentalism in a developmental state. Journal of Environment & Development, 26(1), 3–24. Hinchcliffe, K. L. (2017). From land art to social practice: Environmental art projects by Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Mel Chin, Fritz Haeg, and Fallen Fruit. Master Thesis, University of Southern California. Kastner, J. (Ed.). (1998). Land and environmental art. Phaidon. Kong, L. (2000). Value conflict, identity construction, and urban change. In G. Bridge & S. Watson (Eds.), A companion to the city (pp. 354–366). Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Lum, C. H., & Teh, Z. (2021). Environmental artist, Zen Teh: Exploring creative processes and pedagogical possibilities. https://www.care.nie.edu.sg/projects/environmental-artist-zen-teh-explor ing-creative-processes-and-pedagogical-possibilities Seoul Agenda (2010). Seoul Agenda: Goals for the development of arts education. http://www.une sco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/CLT/pdf/Seoul_Agenda_EN.pdf Thorne, J. E. (2008). A rough guide to environmental art. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 33, 391–412. Usha (2016). The Majulah series: Unearthing Tang Da Wu’s Earth Work. Plural. https://pluralart mag.com/2016/08/18/the-majulah-series-unearthing-tang-da-wus-earth-work/ Wallis, B. (1998). Survey. In J. Kastner (Ed.), Land and environmental art (pp. 18–43). Phaidon. Yusof, H. (2016). Uncovering Earth Work and other lost art. The Business Times. https://www.bus inesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/uncovering-earth-work-and-other-lost-art

Afterword References Art Science Museum, Singapore. (2017). Future world: Where art meets science. Singapore: ArtScience Museum. teamLab. https://www.teamlab.art/e/artsciencemuseum/ Balzer, D. (2017, February 20). The carbon footprint of art. Canadian Art. https://canadianart.ca/ features/thecarbon-footprint-of-art/ Boetzkes, A. (2010). The ethics of Earth art [electronic resource]. University of Minnesota Press.

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Boix Mansilla, V., Lamont, M., & Sato, K. (2016). Shared cognitive–emotional–interactional platforms: Markers and conditions for successful interdisciplinary collaborations. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(4), 571–612. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243915614103 Bullot. (2014). The functions of environmental art. Leonardo (Oxford), 47(5), 511–512. https://doi. org/10.1162/LEON_a_00828 Clark, S. (2010). Contemporary art and environmental aesthetics. Environmental Values, 19(3), 351–371. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25764255 Carlson, A. (2017). The relationship between Eastern Ecoaesthetics and Western environmental aesthetics. Philosophy East & West, 67(1), 117–139. https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.2017.0009 Carlson, A. (2018). Environmental aesthetics, ethics, and ecoaesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 76(4), 399–410. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12586 Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. Yale University Press. Eliasson, O. (n.d.). Ice watch • artwork • studio Olafur Eliasson. Studio Olafur Eliasson. https://ola fureliasson.net/archive/artwork/WEK109190/ice-watch Fisher, J. (2007). Is it worth it? Lintott and ethically evaluating environmental art. Ethics, Place & Environment, 10, 279–286. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668790701567333 Goh, E. (2021). About The Animal Book Co. Ernest Goh Art Photography. https://theanimalbook. com/about/ Hepburn, R. W. (1963). Aesthetic appreciation of nature. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 3(3), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/3.3.19 Humphrey, P. B. (1985). The ethics of earthworks. Environmental Ethics, 7, 5–21. Kastner, J. (1998) Land and environmental art: themes and movements. Phaidon. LeBourdais, G. P. (2015, December 8). In wake of Paris attacks, Olafur Eliasson’s ice blocks evoke the human impact of climate change. Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-in-wake-of-paris-attacks-eliasson-s-iceblocksevoke-the-human-impact-of-rising-temperatures Lintott, S. (2007). Ethically evaluating land art: Is it worth it? Ethics, Place & Environment, 10(3), 263–277. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668790701567002 Morley, S., & Smithson, R. (2010). Frederick Law olmstead and the dialectical landscape. In The sublime (pp. 113–118). Whitechapel Gallery. Marks, M., Chandler, L., & Baldwin, C. (2016). Re-imagining the environment: using an environmental art festival to encourage pro-environmental behaviour and a sense of place. Local Environment, 21(3), 310–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2014.958984 Marks, M., Chandler, L., & Baldwin, C. (2017). Environmental art as an innovative medium for environmental education in biosphere reserves. Environmental Education Research, 23(9), 1307–1321. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2016.1214864 Nannicelli. (2018). The interaction of ethics and aesthetics in environmental art: Nannicelli aesthetics in environmental art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 76(4), 497–506. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12601 National Academy of Sciences. (2005). National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. Facilitating interdisciplinary research. The National Academies Press. https://doi. org/10.17226/11153 Phaidon. (2018, December 11). Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch will give you a climate change chill. PHAIDON. https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2018/december/11/olafur-eliassonsice-watch-will-give-you-a-climatechange-chill/ Robinson, P. C. (2018, December 11). Olafur Eliasson: Melting ice blocks herald impending climate change catastrophe. Artlyst. https://artlyst.com/news/olafur-eliasson-melting-ice-blocks-heraldimpending-climate-changecatastrophe/ Spaid, S. (2002). Ecovention: Current art to transform ecologies. Contemporary Arts Center. Street, B. (2018, December 20). Olafur Eliasson’s “ice watch” at Tate Modern. Rise Art. https:// www.riseart.com/guide/2280/art-exhibitions-olafur-eliasson-s-ice-watch-at-tate-modern-riseart-review Tolstoy, L. (1996). What is art? (A. Maude, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

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World Resource Institute. (n.d.). Global deforestation rates & statistics by country: GFW. Global Forest Watch. Global Forest Watch. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from https://www.globalforest watch.org/dashboards/global/ Zhao, R. R. (2016). Mynas. Institute of Critical Zoologists. http://www.criticalzoologists.org/mynas/

Chapter 9

Giving Voice to Queer Feelings: Creative Choices of Singapore Contemporary Artists Chee-Hoo Lum

1 Setting the Context For LGBTQ Singaporeans, the state’s unwillingness to repeal 377A is discriminatory and it also legitimates homophobia in society. LGBTQ groups and activists have argued that the state’s failure to repeal the legislation functions as a social cue that influences how Singaporeans view homosexuality in Singapore and how they treat homosexual students, employees and family members (Ramdas, 2021, p. 1450).

In 2007, in a parliamentary speech on the issue of the repeal of Section 377A of the penal code,1 Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong emphasized that: Singapore is basically a conservative society. The family is the basic building block of this society. It has been so and by policy, we have reinforced this, and we want to keep it so. And by family in Singapore we mean one man, one woman marrying, having children and bringing up children within that framework of a stable family unit. I acknowledge that not everybody fits into this mould. Some are single, some have more colourful lifestyles, some are gay. But a heterosexual, stable family is a social norm. It’s what we teach in schools. It’s what parents want to see, want their children to see as their children grow up…And I think the vast majority of Singaporeans want to keep it this way, want to keep our society like this, and so does the Government. But at the same time, we should recognize that homosexuals are part of our society. They are our kith and kin… They too must have a place in this society and they too are entitled to their private lives. We shouldn’t make it harder than it already is for them to grow up and to live in a society where they are different from most Singaporeans…So we should strive to maintain a balance: to uphold a stable society with traditional heterosexual family values, but with space for homosexuals to live their lives and to contribute to the society (Lee, 2007).

1

377A of the penal code states that “Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years” (https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PC1871?ProvIds=pr377A-).

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It is made clear from the Prime Minister’s speech that while the LGBTQ2 community is acknowledged as ‘kith and kin’ and ‘entitled to their private lives’, the stance of the government remains that “policies and laws that govern everyday life in Singapore are premised largely on the assumption that the heterosexual family is the basic unit of society…values where the rights and needs of the individual are secondary to those of the many (e.g. family, community and the nation)” (Ramdas, 2021, p. 1449). Fast forward fifteen years, in March 2022, the Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law, Mr Shanmugam, spoke during the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) Committee of Supply debate, following the Court of Appeal dismissing challenges to Section 377A of the Penal Code. Mr Shanmugam acknowledged that “One of the things that upsets the LGBTQ community is that many feel that their experience of being hurt or rejected by their families, friends, schools, companies— is not recognized, indeed often denied” while again reiterating that the Singapore majority community want to “preserve the overall tone of our society…In particular, the traditional view of marriage as being between a man and a woman, and that children should be raised within such a family structure” (Yeoh, 2022). Mr Shanmugam said that the government takes a “live and let live approach” seeking to be “an inclusive society, where mutual respect and tolerance for different views and practices are paramount”, where “LGBT+ individuals are entitled to live peacefully, without being attacked or threatened” and that the government had “expressly included” within the MRHA (Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act) that any attack on LGBTQ groups, or on persons because they are LGBTQ, will be an offence, and won’t be tolerated (Yeoh, 2022). It is important to note however, that Mr Shanmugam also said in an earlier 2021 speech at the Committee of Supply Debate, responding to questions on incidents in Singapore of hate speech towards LGBTQ communities, that “LGBTQ persons, non-LGBTQ persons, we are all equal. We are not any lesser by reason of our sexual preferences…Equally, if a religious group or its member is attacked by nonreligious persons or group, say LGBT, action can also be taken. Law is even-handed in this context” (Ang, 2021). To reiterate, the heteronormative stance or ‘heteronormative logic’ (Oswin, 2012, p. 1624; Tang & Quah, 2018, p. 657) of the Singapore government remains loud and clear and has not shifted between 2007 to 2022. There is however, an acknowledgement by the government of the hurt and rejection by “families, friends, schools, companies” of the local LGBTQ community that is “not recognized, indeed often denied” and the current response of the government to this is that any hate speech or action targeted at particular groups (LGBTQ community being one) will be an offence and not tolerated under the MRHA. The government’s stance reminds one of Low’s (2020) articulation through Obendorf (2012) that “Singapore’s embrace of queer lives and politics remains at best strategic in nature and partial in extent” (p. 283). The queer community is ‘tolerated’ and only ‘tacitly accepted’ (Radics, 2022, p. 148) and that “perhaps it is not queerness or sexuality…that is the problem

2

LGBTQ is the acronym for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer. Queer groups in Singapore like Pelangi, Pride Centre, Oogachaga and Pink Dot use the LGBTQ acronym.

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necessarily, but its visibility and how this visibility implicates the national narrative” (Low, 2020, p. 284). As an explicit example of the government’s concern regarding the “(im)morality of homosex and…its discursive circulation in the public sphere”, the R21 (age restriction) certificate governed by the Media Development Authority (MDA) states, “Films that depict a homosexual lifestyle should be sensitive to community values. They should not promote or justify a homosexual lifestyle” (Ross, 2015). Who is included in the ‘community’ and how are ‘community values’ defined? In line with the continued narrative of the heteronormative ideal guiding and guarding policies and law in Singapore, this chapter turns to Sara Ahmed’s (2004/2013) proposition of ‘queer feelings’ as a possible theoretical lens to ponder upon, arguing for how queer lives negotiate within the heteronormative space of this city-state and how queer feelings arise and what purposes these feelings might serve. It should also be noted that within a Southeast-Asian space, like Singapore, the context of queerness in terms of resistance to heteronormative norms cannot just be understood from American and Euro-centric models but “seen as doubly relative in a part of the world where religious syncretism, vestiges of animism, and gender-play remain part of the social fabric” (Lenzi, 2015).

2 Queer Feelings Sara Ahmed (2004/2013) argues that if one situates the repetitive narrative of heterosexuality (which can include the coupling of man and woman, reproduction and family) as the ideal social normative, the existence of others (immigrants, queers, other others) can then be construed as a threat towards the social ordering of life and the family portrayed as being vulnerable and needs to be defended against others who might threaten its reproduction (p. 423). The idealized “narrative of coupling as a condition for the reproduction of life, culture and value” can arguably explain “the slide in racist narratives between the fear of strangers and immigrants (xenophobia), the fear of queer (homophobia) and the fear of miscegenation (as well as other illegitimate couplings)” (p. 423). Queer feelings thus emerge out of these narratives as individuals shape their bodies and lives as they “follow and depart from such narratives in the ways in which they love and live, in the decisions that they make and take within the intimate spheres of home and work” (p. 423). Queer, in this chapter, takes on Ahmed’s (2006) description of what is considered ‘oblique’ or ‘off line’, as well as “those who practice nonnormative sexualities (Jagose, 1996)” which “involves a personal and social commitment to living in an oblique world, or in a world that has an oblique angle in relation to that which is given” (p. 161). Warner (2000) offers a similar definition in suggesting queer as “how many ways people can find themselves at odds with straight culture” (p. 38). Because queer lives do not follow heteronormative conventions, they create disorientation and “makes things oblique” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 178). In maintaining “a discomfort with the scripts of heteronormative existence” (Ahmed, 2004/2013, p. 427), queer lives

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can “shape what gets reproduced: in the very failure to reproduce the norms through how they inhabit them” (p. 428), allowing for a reimagination of the heteronormative. Living with discomfort is thus “not about assimilation or resistance, but about inhabiting norms differently” (p. 430). Queer feelings thus “embrace a sense of discomfort, a lack of ease with the available scripts for living and loving, along with an excitement in the face of the uncertainty of where the discomfort may take us” (p. 430). As a possible future, when one is attuned and able to orientate towards queer, one can then embrace “a way of inhabiting the world by giving ‘support’ to those whose lives and loves make them appear oblique, strange, and out of place” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 179).

3 Expressing Queer Lives and Queer Feelings Artists who identify their practices as queer today call forth utopian and dystopian alternatives to the ordinary, adopt outlaw stances, embrace criminality and opacity, and forge unprecedented kinships, relationships, loves and communities. Much of the energy of these practices derives from the experience of oppression and prejudice against those whose sexualities or genders do not fit. In response, strategies for surviving and flourishing have emerged as the primary character of queer cultural production in the twenty-first century, and this unapologetic demand for self-definition is a reason that queer artistic practices have re-emerged so forcefully in the past few years (Getsy, 2019, p. 16).

This chapter examines the intentions and creative processes of four Singapore contemporary artists (Ezzam Rahman, nor, Masuri Mazlan, and Loo Zihan) captured through the qualitative interviews of our research study, in voicing queer feelings through their works within the context of the heteronormative ideal guiding and guarding policies and law in Singapore, or what Ooi (2006) has termed working and negotiating within creativity that is “bounded by the social and political circumstances of the soft authoritarian state” (p. 14).

3.1 Untold Queer Lives The multi-disciplinary installation and performance artist, Ezzam Rahman, emphasizes that one of the key responsibilities of an artist is to inform and challenge the audience on issues usually not discussed in both comfortable and uncomfortable situations. The artist can position narratives on topics “people do not want to talk about…to address certain issues that maybe the government refuses to talk about, maybe an institution refuses to address”. This can include articulating queer lives and feelings, like in Ezzam’s creative works, subtly inserting “my queer identity into my works…I don’t want to scream and shout…I don’t want to point fingers, but I would want to leave clues and hints definitely in my artwork”. As an example, Ezzam utilizes the titles of his artworks (e.g. “I should have kissed you when I had a chance”

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or “How can I give you all of me when I’m not even half a man?”) to hint at hidden and unspoken narratives for the audience to ponder upon: In your ghosts from yesteryears visit me once in a while (2018), a ‘coming-of-age’ performance at the Expression Gallery at the Art Science Museum that presented an autobiographical account of love and desire in Ezzam’s life which ‘speaks out, speaks back and speaks otherwise about marginalized identities and personal narratives’ (ArtScience Museum, 2018), Ezzam invited a number of male participants, paired and closely facing each other during the poignant performance to remove pieces of clothing from each other while the pianist, Nabillah Jalal, played a series of classical (piano pieces of Mozart, Chopin, Satie, etc.) and popular pieces (e.g. I want to hold your hand by The Beatles) on a grand piano akin to a concert recital accompanying these intimate disclosures. In the performance, after the many articles of clothing have been removed by the male participants and strewn on the floor, Ezzam laboriously picked each one up, tidied them and hung them up nicely onto a clothes rack before placing the rack carefully next to the grand piano (like how a violinist might stand next to the grand piano in a recital). Ezzam moved to sit silently in contemplation in front of Nabillah as she played the closing piece (also the starting piece to the performance) for the performance.

Other untold queer lives that Ezzam hopes to explore include the articulation of queer bodies in their late 30 s and early 40 s, sharing about their experiences of being homeowners and caregivers in Singapore, “because we are not married…forced to buy a house to take care of their elderly parents…because they are single and they are in the closet”. As queer bodies, “we have to work 10 times harder, almost to force ourselves or prove that we are worthy of society”. Ezzam feels that these are the kind of narratives that people within the Singaporean context do not want to talk about and he wants to position himself as an artist to bring out these hidden lives in respectful ways. Another example of hidden queer lives that Ezzam hopes to speak to, are young LGBTQ individuals who are being trapped in hostile environments at home particularly because of the Covid pandemic: Singapore is so small…we share like 1 house with a lot of people and they are in abusive environments, and I’m very worried for these people…sadly its not highlighted in the news and Singapore is too conservative…sometimes I position myself to tell these stories.

In working with collaborators for his artworks, like your ghosts from yesteryears visit me once in a while (2018), that hints at gender identity, Ezzam, in respectful ways would first state clearly his intentions to seek out mutual understanding and consent from the participants (Fig. 1). As Ezzam articulated, “I have to tell them [participants in his performance], this work there’s a bit of homoeroticism because I need you guys to remove articles of clothing of each other…are you guys open? If you are not open, please tell me…mutual understanding and consent is very important in my works. You cannot take someone’s narrative and claim it’s yours.” Ultimately, Ezzam hopes that “important issues and not mediocre storylines” are being articulated in the works of Singapore contemporary artists. Ezzam wants “to see political works in our museums…queer works being collected by our institutions”, to allow the Singapore art scene to be more inclusive. Ezzam also hopes that the general public and governmental authorities would stop policing artworks, if “you don’t like to go to the show, you don’t’ like certain things, then don’t go”, people should have

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Fig. 1 your ghosts from yesteryears visit me once in a while (2018). (Image courtesy of Ezzam Rahman)

the choice to decide for themselves as “Art is suppose to be confrontational and let our audience decide”.

3.2 Self-portraiture If my work is rooted in self portraiture… I’m asking Singaporeans, are you seeing yourselves enough?… maybe not a lot of us… make space and time to really get to know ourselves? And the thing is, we change all the time. Like our identities are always changing, but even within moments of our changing identities… do you… have time to… sit back and… really think about… who you are and who are the people… who are also you?

Multi-disciplinary artist, nor’s creative works are situated in self-portraiture, looking at gender performance, ethnographic portraits and regional histories, portraying “people who are like me, or the community” situated within Singapore and the parameters of Southeast and East Asia. As nor articulates, “I am a lot of things…Singaporean and Malay, Southeast Asian. I’m also queer, I’m also trans…in that trans spectrum, there’s also like trans feminine and nonbinary”. nor thinks deeply about “which community would want to claim me…I never make work just thinking of me, but also thinking of who else can have access to the work”. In the text-based work Wedding 2020, nor uses flash fiction (New York Bound, Time Goes by So Slowly, Justify My Love, Cheating, Holy Terrain, Stay Ready, The

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Fig. 2 Wedding 2020 by nor. (Images courtesy of nor)

Thing about Spaghetti, Lemon Tree, The Wedding) to project slices of life of what it would be like for them to lead the life of a married woman, an exercise in “imagining that possibility” (Fig. 2). Wedding 2020 is “a love letter to her own queer experience, the narratives surrounding people like herself and playfully making sense of the aspirational fantasies we are told to have” (https://www.objectifs.com.sg/objectifssupports/) Self-portrait ‘live-streamed’ images of nor putting on their make-up and transforming into their trans-gendered self were scattered alongside the flash fiction. Two of the text excerpts from Wedding 2020 are presented here to give a sense of the flavour of the creative work: New York Bound During my transit at Incheon, I had visions of my husband and I on a ferry to Ellis Island. We were sloppily eating each other’s faces at the stern of the boat. Occasionally, passengers

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looked at us with disapproval. Fucking Asians. It didn’t matter because our kisses were hushed by the boat’s engines. His whispers were drowned out by the waves crashing upon the transom. His face was also lightly tanned from the afternoon glow of the New York sun. Stay Ready I asked my girlfriends and the they/thems what positions would be great for beginner tops. I know what you’re thinking: ‘let trans girls be tops too’…yeah yeah, but I’m not exactly into gender subversion all the time okay. Some of us do enjoy traditional notions of gender and sex despite being quite the deviant expressions of the two. My friends and I agreed that a couple’s first time together needed to be a slow burn. Also, that I should take control.

In a future iteration of the work, nor would like to explore utilizing the photographic medium “to craft the scenes that I’ve written without the body”, projecting how “a world without me (would) look like…a world where I can still be without being seen, necessarily”. nor had met with incidents of feeling unsafe working as a “self-portrait artist in Singapore”. These incidents made them reflect and think about “other modes of representation beyond the lens-based media” and the significance of visual representation. Thus, in the conversational work, @MESSAGES2HER (2019), between the lens-based artist Charmaine Poh and nor, they explored the identification of “the essence of our being” through self-portraiture, performance, letter-writing and Instagram, “What are the things that keep popping up? And what are the things that are important to us, or the communities that are important to us?”. nor is of the view that it is important to establish a community that acknowledges and encounters who they are, people “who weren’t identifying with the gender that they were assigned at birth”, to come together as artists and/or activists that are concerned with these issues of social justice. nor feels it is “important to have a community that not only have my support but also I am able to contribute. And I think that really informs my art practice when I work with like bigger groups”. nor is thus more interested to have conversations with allies with the community: Why are we still talking to…look for…the approval or validation of the people who are not interested to have the conversation with us, versus…just having a conversation with people who want to do the work, people who are already doing the work.

It is also about strategizing on “censorship and not getting into trouble with the government…choosing to create works or fantasy sequences where we’re still talking about these things, but we’re talking among us.” nor embraces being tersirat (hidden in plain sight) and subtle in their works, “telling one’s story without giving too much of themselves away”. As an example, in the work Sekali Lagi! (2020) exhibited in the National Gallery, Singapore, the audience in looking at the opening image (Fig. 3): wouldn’t immediately think that I am a transgender woman, you just see me as me. Like, a lot of people know it’s a girl. And then the moment you see me with a moustache and then you hear me talk and then they’re like, “Wait, what?” Having people understand queerness without necessarily being loud about it, where ‘this person is demanding rights or something like that…it’s more of like, okay, this person exists.

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Fig. 3 Sekali Lagi! by nor. (Photos by Ken Cheong, courtesy of National Gallery Singapore)

nor wants the audience to have artistic encounters to make them realize that “these people exist”, even though it might take a longer time for some to come to terms with it. For a detailed examination of nor’s performative practice on identities and the enabling of tersirat through the transnational history of women in the Nusantara, please refer to Chap. 2 of this book. nor projects that in her future work, different ways of representing queer bodies, like the work of Isola Rosa, where plants are utilized to represent queerness, or Victoria Sin, where physicality is utilized on purpose in doing hyper drag with white foundation or adding huge breasts, can be explored to allow their work to evolve.

3.3 Queerness in Abstraction Abstraction’s queer appeal, for some is that it models a resistance to the daily experience of surveillance and scrutiny…Abstraction, as a mode of visual poiesis, both conjures new visualizations and rebuffs viewers’ impulses to recognize and categorize (Getsy, 2019, p. 66).

Cultural worker and object maker, Masuri Mazlan likes to experiment and explore industrial materials to create his artworks. But “over time, I realised that…instead of just approaching this material in a very formalistic approach, I was looking at like, identity.” Masuri elaborates: Because my name is Masuri and in Japanese, matsuri means ‘festival’. So I think they (audience) had this idea that I was a Japanese girl, who was very inspired by Harajuku…So they make those references, because there were no wall tags (in his exhibitions)…Makes me realise that they associate the characteristic and the aesthetic of the work- that is something that is feminine…because of the colours and whatnot… That became like, a point of departure in me to actually explore identity in my work.

Masuri makes art “using industrial material in the canon of abstraction, because I look at queerness as a form of disruption, and abstraction as a form of ambiguity”. Masuri deliberately chooses abstraction in his artistic expression, “to stay away from the queer iconography of like, what makes something that is queer. I think that also allows me to have that kind of like safety net, and allows me to have my art, you know,

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in the same place as my contemporaries”. Masuri admits that he is strongly influenced by the works of Felix Torres-González where his works speak to issues of queer identity but are presented in ways that are “palatable for the viewers”. Getsy (2019) would challenge Masuri’s take on ambiguity in abstraction as a convenient excuse in not “confronting the particularities and complexities proposed by an abstract form and others’ investments in it” (p. 71). Feeling vulnerable about his personal identity, Masuri chooses strategies in his art making like Queer Abstraction and Minimalism, “to manoeuvre this…bureaucratic, conservative…Singapore society”. So: instead of my queer identity being the central theme of my work, I let it be the characteristic of the work. So if, let’s say people come and take a look at my work, and they’re like, “Oh my god, your work is so queer”…I’ll be like, “it’s okay,” you know, that is their interpretation…I will still stick to looking at transforming material as my central theme.

The ball is left with the audience if they are curious enough about the artworks to ask Masuri what the subject matter might be about. Otherwise, Masuri is perfectly happy for the audience to just experience the work on their own. As Masuri declares, “having it (his artworks) being, looking abstracted, it is a form of self-censorship…that works for me on my terms… So instead of somebody censoring me…I reclaim their power by censoring myself…what I am comfortable sharing, with what I’m comfortable in showing.” Masuri wants the audience to be able to appreciate his artworks “purely for the aesthetics” as well. As he reiterates, “My value doesn’t align with this kind of (activism) work about queer identity…I could see like the mainstream audiences, they’re perfectly fine with my work.” And that is how Masuri subverts the expectations of what the local art industry and audience view queer/queering artists and what they are suppose to produce (Figs. 4 and 5). Masuri’s views on the difficulty faced in presenting Queer Art in Singapore were informed by his personal observations of queer artists in Singapore who are “having a hard time to actually show their work” due to the subject matter which can present licensing issues or curators not selecting the works particularly if they were for “shows supported by government institutions”. Masuri attributes his initial thinking about doing art in more abstracted ways after directly observing what happened to Loo Zihan’s artwork3 being censored and replaced with “vinyl stickers” causing controversies between the artist and the institution involved. Queer artists can thus be side-lined and marginalized and Masuri does not want to go down the same route. He thus advises fellow queer peers that “there are other ways for you to express…in a way that is safe…that is comfortable… and you can still reap the opportunities (of exhibiting)…You don’t have to make work that is so provocative”, while still finding alternative ways to take up space. Masuri is thus

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Loo Zihan’s work, Queer Objects: An Archive for the Future (2016) shown as part of a group exhibition, Fault- Lines: Disparate and Desperate Intimates curated by Wong Binghao. For a detailed description of the work and issues surrounding its censorship, please refer to: Loo, Z. (2019). Queer Object: An archive for the future. In J. D. Luther, & J. Ung Loh (Eds.), ‘Queer’ Asia: Decolonising and reimagining sexuality and gender (pp. 147–164). London: Zed Books Ltd.

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Fig. 4 Shades of cool (2019). (Image courtesy of Masuri Mazlan)

Fig. 5 Halcyon No.1 & Pastures New No.3 (2019). (Image courtesy of Masuri Mazlan)

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more keen in exploring queerness through his writing (about Queer Abstraction and Minimalism) rather than having it projected directly in his artworks. Masuri combines industrial materials to create artworks that are “soft, likeable, interesting, and with a personality” (Teo, 2019), which often suggests domesticity and hints at aspects of femininity, utilizing “the piping, the baking…chandelier pieces to give that…impression of a home” (see Softstrong: Pastel Dream Series (2018)4 or It’s Just The Way It Changes, Like The Shoreline And The Sea (2021).5 In Masuri’s words: For my work, even though it’s like very decorative, and it has chandelier pieces, it doesn’t hold any function…it’s just an object of aesthetic…I wanted to blur that kind of like, distinction between what’s art, decoration, and craft… Every single time, people say, oh, “your work is not art, it’s just craft”…it brings me back to the fact that how craft is traditionally relegated to the feminine, you know, and that’s how like, I always keep on like, reflecting upon like, the feminine, the craft, the domestic, my personal identity. And it keeps on shifting in that sense, and it became like the work itself. That’s why now if people say that my work is decorative or craft, I’ll say it is not functional.

The artworks also subvert what might be “expected of Malay male artists (who) talk about Malay culture.” Masuri does not want to be “limited by my sexual identity because I am more than just that…If I say I’m a queer artist, every single time when I show I have to be part of a queer exhibition… I want to always have a seat at the table instead of feeling side-lined and marginalised.” Masuri relishes the idea of being an artist that remains ‘mysterious’, that does not want to reveal too much about his artworks and do not want the audience “to make up their mind of who is Masuri”. He imagines that his work “could speak for itself at the end of the day”.

3.4 Passive Resistance Loo Zihan situates himself as “an artist and academic from Singapore working at the intersections of critical theory, performance, and the moving image…His work emphasises the malleability of memory through various representational strategies that include performance re-enactments and essay films” (http://www.loozihan.com/ biobiblio). On Loo’s personal webpage, he delineates his creative works into five distinct sections, namely: (i) Langenbach & Cane; (ii) Queer Lives; (iii) Bodies of Knowledge; (iv) Autology; and (v) Moving Image (http://www.loozihan.com/). Loo is upfront about the subjectivity of his lens towards questioning specific injustices and how he encounters society: Being queer changes your worldview and the way you understand what it means to be Singaporean. When you make the decision to be openly queer or gay in your practice, you foreclose certain possibilities. It places you in a position of exposed vulnerability, but 4

Softstrong: Pastel Dream Series (2018) (https://masurimazlan.com/softstrong-foil-series-1). It’s Just The Way It Changes, Like The Shoreline And The Sea (2021) (https://masurimazlan.com/ its-just-the-way-it-changes-like-the-shoreline-and-the-sea). 5

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also sharpens your awareness of certain injustices, and how opportunities are unevenly distributed across various sectors according to heteronormative biases and withheld from certain groups because of their gender or sexuality. Through this awareness you start to notice how restrictions are installed to prevent other groups in society, socially determined as abject, marginalized, and ‘othered’, from attaining certain resources. For example, the constant reminder that certain acts I do in private are considered illegal by the State throws your faith in the entire legal apparatus into question. If I am performing an act that I think is personally necessary to sustain my desire for intimacy and life, but the law proclaims as illegal, then what about all the other legalities and illegalities? You realize the aleatory nature of the law, and how they have been constructed specific to particular historical moments, and you research into the origins of these laws. You note how they were drafted under certain conditions, like that of coloniality, to discipline bodies into submission. Your process of questioning begins here. Compare this to someone who moves through the world without having their private acts of pleasure being called into question, this creates a difference in the way we engage with the world.

Through his words, Loo has articulated how a queer individual feels and is positioned within the Singapore society and legal system at present. Loo spoke to how conversations surrounding queerness in Singapore often foregrounds acceptance, liberation and rights that are inherited from Western liberal democracies. In Loo’s critical view and in the creative work on queer lives that he pursues, he tends to “steer away from this” but rather examines “queerness that does not foreground this need for emancipation and autonomy”. For instance, Loo spoke about considerations and consequences of ‘coming out’ within a more co-dependent society like Singapore: In western liberal democracies that foreground individualism and have a more fragmented understanding of family and piety, the first act of publicly performing your queerness is to come out and “claim” your “authentic self”. There is, however, very little conversation around what is the impact of your “authentic self” on the person you are coming out to, and how you prepare the person for the information that you are about to deliver. Importantly, there is also very little social infrastructural support for the person after you come out, and solutions on how to navigate sensitive cultural differences. There might be situations where the individual you are delivering the information to might be in a better position not to know about your sexuality yet, but this does not prevent you from being “authentic” in other ways, especially to someone you care deeply about. It raises questions about who you are coming out for, and what is the root of this desire? Is this based on some selfish form of agency and autonomy or an illusory idea of authenticity and liberty? I think about Saba Mahmood’s writings on the politics of piety. You might unintentionally be creating more trauma and pain for someone you love. We often think about queerness in opposition to the family unit, but I believe that they are not mutually exclusive, and can in fact co-exist. Within the exceptional context of Singapore, where queer folks are often saddled with care-giving duties, and space is limited and at a premium, most queer folks have to contend with co-habiting with their parents and are unable to move away after coming out. In light of these circumstances, how do we attend to all the complications of coming out and being “authentic”? We have to understand that it does not end or begin with taking off a “mask.” It requires a deeper understanding of why we think the “mask” exists in the first place, who is this “mask” for, and who you are protecting, and why. This is a concrete example of a different method of approaching “queer liberation”, one that does not privilege coming out as an event, but understands it as part of a process and an ongoing durational practice.

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Fig. 6 Autopsy (2008). (Image courtesy of Loo Zihan)

A good example of Loo’s perspective on these queer feelings would be his 7-min documentary, Autopsy (2008), where Loo documented a conversation between himself and his mother about his sexual leanings (http://www.loozihan.com/movingimage) (Fig. 6). The poignant conversation in Mandarin, in the film, between Loo and his mother is interlaced throughout with intimate images of Loo’s family life, video footages of Loo’s mother working as a teacher in a secondary school and at home doing household chores, alongside television images of heterosexual love. There were moments in the film where the viewer can feel the sadness or perhaps a resignation to fate in the mother’s demeanour. The following are excerpts extracted from the conversation between mother and son in the film (Autopsy, 2008): M: A son shouldn’t hide any information from his mother. If people watch your movie, they will all know that you are gay. You should avoid letting others know about it. Why didn’t you try to change [your homosexual tendencies]? ZH: I did, at that time, in the beginning I hope I wasn’t gay. I struggled with it for some time. M: What do you mean you don’t look at girls? Or not interested in girls? I still do not understand what you mean. I didn’t know that guys would be homosexual, to the extent of not marrying a woman. I didn’t know that guys would really live together or even the idea of men having sex. All these are inconceivable to me. Till now, I still feel that it is unnatural. The construct of a human body dictates the necessity of a male-female relationship. I still feel that my son isn’t like that. Which mom will admit to her son being gay? I always hoped my guess was wrong.

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He (Dad) never talks about it. He avoids it. He gets upset talking about it. ZH: Are you upset? M: Of course I was shocked. When you first told me I felt like fainting. I had to put on a front and be composed. Till now, it doesn’t seem like any Asian society accepts them. As a mom, I always feel that such things won’t happen to my son. You see unfortunate things happening to others, and you always hope these things don’t happen to yourself. And I’m worried for you, knowing that gays lead promiscuous lives and it’s easy to get STDs, worried about you having causal sex. You are my son, how can I despise you? My son will always be my son As long as you are happy. As long as you are certain of what you are doing.

Another creative approach Loo utilizes to speak about queer lives and its relation with the state is what he considers ‘passive resistance’ or in Foucauldian terms, counter-conduct (Foucault, 2007). It is about: Reframing this notion of resistance. How do we challenge certain State narratives? We do this by writing alongside the State, producing contiguous and alternative accounts of queer presence instead of taking the State’s narrative and erasing it entirely. We need to hold the State accountable for what they have scripted. We provide counter-evidence of our obdurate and duplicitous existence.

Loo in his creative work, does extensive research and creates detailed archives of queer lives which he “cares about very deeply, personally”, like in the lectureperformance Catamite (2019) (http://www.loozihan.com/catamite-2019), to highlight “individual, hidden, or obscured narratives” to create alternative accounts and perspectives for the audience to encounter and come to their own reading of these narratives (Fig. 7). The work then serves as passive resistance or: Like a dance or a tango with bureaucracy. It is never a Manichean black or white, which often reduces the conversations to binaries, e.g. painting the artist as “good” and administrative bureaucracy or censorship as “evil.” It is about a more nuanced engagement with these divisions, and co-writing, co-produce the script and in the process, going about transforming it slowly but surely.

Beyond the use of historical materials, Loo’s creative works go beyond and asks of the live body in performance to embody the archival materials, a re-performing or “fabulation” to create an “affect that the archival material themselves cannot contain”. In fabulation of the archival material, Loo contends that new possibilities can emerge, especially to: address gaps in the archive. For example, what figures are excised or censored or remain in the margins of history? It is usually the subaltern, the people who cannot be represented, or deemed unimportant, or contradicting the logic of the archive. How do we negotiate with the aporia? The institution refuses to acknowledge their presence, but another way is to use embodied gestures to revive or reconstitute their presence, or gesture to their absence. The most important thing is not to try to ignore that they are not there.

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Fig. 7 Catamite (2019). (Photo credit Samantha Tio. Image courtesy of Loo Zihan)

The critically reflective strategies that Loo utilizes in the creative works discussed to narrate queer lives and queer feelings, of providing care and creating safe spaces for conversations with audiences, is worthy of consideration in terms of educating for diversity and examining issues of injustice that takes on a gentler yet powerful approach that does not always have to be loud, proud and explosive in nature.

4 Returning to Queer Feelings We can certainly consider that when queer bodies do ‘join’ the family table, then the table does not stay in place. Queer bodies are out of place in certain family gatherings, which is what produces, in the first place, a queer effect. The table might even be wonky (Ahmed, 2006, p. 174).

There are some commonalities shared between the four Singaporean artists’ intentions and creative processes. Firstly, they have all chosen subtle ways or in Loo’s words, ‘like a dance or a tango with bureaucracy’ in articulating queerness in their creative works. Ezzam would leave clues and hints of his queer feelings in the title of his performance artworks and chooses to create quiet works in respectful ways about hidden queer lives that does not “scream and shout” nor “point fingers”. nor embraces being tersirat through their self-portraiture practice in reclaiming who they are and who would choose to claim them. nor wants to have conversations with allies of their community and for the uninformed audience to encounter their artworks and

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realize “these people exist” allowing acknowledgement to take its required trajectory. Masuri explores with abstraction utilizing industrial materials that hints at domesticity and femininity. Abstraction is Masuri’s way of self-censoring and avoiding being categorized, allowing him to show what he is comfortable showing in his own terms. Loo utilizes passive resistance through extensive research and performing archival materials to allow the audience a chance to embody, reimagine, rethink and converse about historical queer narratives. It is important for artists to feel safe and to be cared for in the environment they thrive in. It has been noted in this chapter that there are vulnerabilities that artists feel in framing themselves or being framed as queer artists as this can result in their creative works being side-lined and marginalized because of the local censorship environment. Artists like nor and Masuri also spoke to the significance of having a community that they can support and would also be supportive of the work they do, which will help in growing their artistic practice as a larger community group. There is thus significance in building like-minded communities to enable gatherings and connections so that “collective performance and support” become possible arising from the “networks of collaboration to the spaces and times that have enabled community to be visualized, enjoyed, and nourished” (Getsy & Gossett, 2021, p. 114). As Ahmed (2006) aptly advises: The queer picture on the table shows…the potential of such supportive proximities to challenge the lines that are followed as matters of course. In refocussing our attention to proximity, on arms that are crossed with other arms, we are reminded of how queer engenders moments of contact; how we come into contact with other bodies to support the action of following paths that have not been cleared. We still have to follow others in making such paths. The queer body is not alone; queer does not reside in a body or an object, and is dependent on the mutuality of support. (p. 170).

4.1 A Turn Towards Public Education The heteronormative stance extends into education as emphasized in the earlier quote by Singapore’s Prime Minister (2007), “It’s what we teach in schools. It’s what parents want to see”. The push towards a heteronormative ideal in education as Woolley et al. (2015) argue, can lead to, “Fear of the queer or all the meanings and associations attached to non-heteronormativity…leads schools to suppress teachers and creates cultures that facilitate harm toward gender-nonconforming and nonheteronormative youth” (p. 353). There is an assumption that children and youths can be “recruited into becoming queer. Education becomes an imagined cause of queerness where one “learns” to be queer and this becomes a reason for avoiding its presence as part of school” (Greteman, 2017, p. 196). Education has primarily addressed queers and queerness in the form of “violence (physical, epistemological, and ontological), feelings of disgust, or feigned acceptance (Check & Ballard, 2014)” (Greteman, 2017, p. 201). And as Sedgwick (1991) argued, “the scope of institutions whose programmatic undertaking is to prevent the development of gay people is imaginably large” (p. 23, cited in Greteman, 2017, p. 201). This is accented within the

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Singaporean context as Low (2020) painfully points out, “From physical demolition of queer spaces, to the censorship of media to the criminalization of individuals, the suppression of non-normative subjectivities was aimed fundamentally at keeping the audience from partaking in the queer gaze” (p. 293). However, if the intention of education is for the active citizen to be concerned, empathetic and be genuinely interested in opening up and engaging in critical conversations and discussions about difference surrounding diversity and creating inclusive environments, then “the term queer challenges educators to attend to the ongoing processes of normalization and the continued violence enacted against bodies deemed different. Additionally, the word queer challenges educators to seek ways to invent, create, and make space and time for queer students to come into presence (Biesta, 2006)” (Greteman, 2017, p. 197). Ultimately, it is about larger social and ethical implications of “helping students become active and participatory agents in learning about and challenging homophobia and heteronormativity in (and out of) the classroom…and aiding queer students particularly with the tools to challenge these systems” (Manchester, 2017, p. 3). A public mural such as the visual artist, Sam Lo’s, OUR FUTURE IS IN(CON)CLUSIVE (2021), was exhibited across the scaffold board walls in front of the currently redeveloping Singapore Art Museum buildings, where the artist inserted motifs that symbolized diverse communities in Singapore and boldly declared for the museum of the future and the community to be a “more socially conscious and inclusive society, stemming from and acknowledging lived experiences of the LGBTQIA+ community”. The artist encouraged viewers of the mural “to obliterate the “CON” in the statement with stickers, and in doing so presents a thought-provoking and empowering revelation: the future may be uncertain, but the power to shape it lies in each of our hands.” (https://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/art-events/exhibitions/ our-future-is-inconclusive). What might an educator or parent do if their students or children encounter Sam Lo’s public artwork or works like those of Ezzam Rahman, Loo Zihan, nor or Masuri Mazlan exhibited at national or private art galleries? Do educators and parents just shun the subject altogether and move their students and children away from these artworks? Or perhaps take on an inquiry-based stance and suggest to students to find out more on what they are curious or confused about and encounter the queer feelings in these artworks in critical and dialogic ways. The educator or parent may choose to remain neutral and allow students to come to their own views and perspectives about these artworks. For instance, if students encountered and watched Loo’s 7-min documentary, Autopsy (2008), educators or parents could ask them what they understood from the documentary, what possible feelings Loo’s mother might have as a result of finding out about Loo’s sexuality leanings or what might students’ reactions be if they were in the shoes of Loo’s mother. This can then lead to meaningful conversations in approaching queer feelings in gentle and subtle ways.

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Through an open mind towards embracing diversity and inclusion, when the ‘community table’ in Singapore starts to orientate towards queer, we may be more aptly prepared to dialogue about this paradigm shift. As Ahmed (2006) reiterates: It is certainly the case that tables can support queer gatherings: the times that we might gather around, eating, talking, loving, living, and creating the spaces and times for our attachments. Queers have their tables for sure…This does not necessarily mean that the table itself becomes a queer object, or that the table necessarily has a different ‘function’ in queer gatherings. And yet, the table might still be the site upon which queer points can be made (p. 167).

A few months after the completion of this chapter, on 29th November 2022, the Parliament of Singapore voted “to repeal a decades-old law criminalizing gay sex, while endorsing changes to the Constitution to protect the current definition of marriage from legal challenge. The repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code, following a 10-hour debate over two days, saw 93 MPs [out of 103] voting in favour of the move” (Goh, 2022). The bill was passed and Section 377A was struck off the books. Indeed, ‘Queers have their tables for sure’ (Ahmed, 2006, p.167) and the open dialogue about family, diversity and inclusion continues.

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Afterword by Regina De Rozario Necessary Prisms: An Artist-Educator’s Perspective on Encountering, Speaking to, and Learning about ‘Difference’ Introduction As a mid-career artist, I have come to learn and appreciate the many facets of my professional practice. Apart from the production of artistic works, I have engaged in research, writing, curating and educating, both as a solo practitioner and in partnership with others. The following commentary is drawn from a personal reflection of my time spent— some 11 years to date; in the studios and classrooms of Singapore’s tertiary institutions, playing the role of guest lecturer, examiner, or adjunct faculty member for a range of arts and cultural education programmes. During this time I have also had the opportunity to develop ‘learning programmes’ for the general public, through museums and libraries commissioning these programmes as part of their respective initiatives to improve the public’s literacy in the arts. Across these different learning spaces I teach a range of theoretical and practical courses—from arts-based research methods, to collective art-making, to artistic practices in public space. What I have described above is par for course for many arts practitioners in Singapore who may consider the work of teaching a requirement to remain visible and valid; and to have a legible and legitimate way to stay afloat in its competitive arts ecosystem. Then there are others—a small but growing number of practitioners who seek to do this work because it enables them to experiment in different learning spaces, to engage in arts-based teaching that is centred on fostering a sense of selfagency and collective care, and to meet people who may come from different interest groups, socio-economic spheres or cultural backgrounds. In other words, to meet with ‘publics’ who may not already participate in the ecosystem’s regular array of exhibitions, performances, and spectacle-driven activities. My own teaching practice transitioned from being one of financial necessity to an interest in public pedagogy, a “theoretical concept [that focuses] on forms, processes, and sites of education and learning […] beyond formal schooling and practices” (O’Malley et al., 2020, p. 1). In particular, I am interested in its focus on “educative interruptions of public space, on popular yet disqualified knowledges, and on communal engagement that organises around shared dissent from marginalisation and alliances across difference” (ibid.). I am also interested in its openness toward artistic and aesthetic approaches for learning, and as such, what this form of pedagogy could bring to learning about difference and diversity in Singapore through the arts.

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I have my peers and colleagues to thank for our discussions in this area. Although they may not necessarily conceptualise their work as public pedagogy, their approaches in problematising and expanding how established subjects could be ‘taught’ and learned, and by whom, have been helpful. As an artist who stumbled, pedagogically untrained, into the work of education, these discussions have shaped my own perspectives about teaching and learning. That said, what I have shared here is not meant to be representative of a collective view. Nor is it meant to serve as empirical evidence, nor a ready framework for application. Rather, it is a rumination on my how my own experiences in the art classroom taught me to speak about my own sense of ‘being different’; and the prismatic view that art can provide in facilitating conversations about ‘difference’. What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Difference? Before we delve further into the ways in which artists might approach the subject of difference, it would be helpful to reflect upon its definitions and notions, as well as how we may have been taught or conditioned to understand it. A basic dictionary definition refers to difference as a “way in which two people or things are not like each other” or “the way in which somebody [or] something has changed” (Oxford University Press, n.d.). As a noun, ‘difference’ points to “the amount that something is greater or smaller than something else” and can be used synonymously as “a disagreement between people” (ibid.). The word’s origins are rooted in the Latin different-, with the verb differe meaning to bring or carry (ferre) from or away (dis-) (ibid.). In philosophy and biology, differentia refers to a mark, attribute or characteristic trait that distinguishes one species from others in the same genus (Oxford University Press, n.d.; Merriam Webster, n.d.). In the social sciences, particularly fields such as sociology, politics, management, education, and cultural studies, the notion of difference can be understood by examining the ways we are different alongside the various systems (i.e., institutions, networks, policies) that bring shape and order to our social worlds. In sum, our ability to differentiate allows us to tell apart, separate, categorise, assign value, prioritise, and put into place. Our awareness of difference and our ability to differentiate and develop preferences and prejudices comes to us in early childhood and this is nurtured throughout our lives (Souto-Manning, 2013). How we might find purpose, order and safety in our lives depends on the environments we are situated in, the resources we have access to, the communities we are a part of, and the rituals of family, community, work, play and study that we engage in. For some, difference is an enabling factor, where to be able to distinguish oneself is a means to separate from and stand apart; to gain recognition, access and control. For others, difference might pose certain disadvantages, in particular where one’s differences fall outside the register of what attributes or traits are prioritised, valued or considered ‘normal’. It has been my experience that to operate within such an environment is not impossible, but it comes with a different weight to carry, and a different set of tensions to wrestle with.

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My own sense-making about difference began at childhood. Growing up and attending school in Singapore in the 1970s and 80 s, I became acutely aware of the ways in which I was different from my peers, of how I was treated differently at times, and of the challenges of speaking up about these differences. For instance, as a child of Eurasian and Chinese-Peranakan parents, this awareness arose from everyday undertakings, like having to correct the spelling or mispronunciation of my name or having to tick the ‘Others’ box when asked about my race, to fielding questions about myself and my familial origins. These would range from the curious ‘Is your father from Singapore?’ to the presumptuous ‘Your mother is Chinese; why can’t you speak Mandarin properly?’ to the blunt ‘What are you?’. As a child, I did not conceive that there was anything wrong with these questions, even when they felt more like interrogations than inquiries. I sought ways to attend to them the best I could. That said, doing so was often challenging, as I did not have examples that I could point to, such as a picture in a social studies textbook or an ethnic costume or a teacher on staff—that would help me explain, even roughly, what I was, how I was not that different, and in what ways I could belong. I grew to recognise that I was the example. Even in situations that left me feeling singled out, excluded, or aggrieved, I did not have the language to describe my discomfort and anxiety. Even as I found my words, I struggled to find the ‘right’ place or time to make my discomfort known. Having watched how my parents and older siblings behaved in similar circumstances, I learned that such challenges were the norm; a part of ‘going along to get along’. Over time, I also learned that speaking up about these challenges was also a challenge in itself, even as other dimensions of my identity became apparent markers to me, such as my gender, my economic background, my sexual orientation. I was encouraged to stay silent lest speaking about my discomfort would make others uncomfortable. I listened to those who said that they simply ‘did not know better’. I found momentary comfort from those who said I should be grateful that my situation was ‘not that bad’; that there were others who were ‘not so lucky’. I learned that there was a ‘natural order’; a hierarchy when it came to advantages; a pecking order that I needed to follow and perpetuate. While these approaches provided me with a means of coping and fitting in, I have since grown to question and resist them. Finding Space to Examine, Question and Talk About Our Differences In demographically diverse Singapore, matters affecting the nation’s multicultural harmony are deemed sensitive. This is a stance that is concretised by the state’s dominant narratives, in particular, its accounts of the 1964 racial riots and of its vulnerability as a young nation. The “need to exercise vigilance [has] led to the state implementing various disciplinary legal measures such as tight control of press and public discourse to ensure that any form of excessive racial or religious sentiments which may be offensive to others are checked” (Mathews & Bin Khidzer, 2015, p. 77).

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On the one hand, existing in such an environment creates a consciousness around the care that is needed to address matters of race and religion, and the growing list of other palpably intersecting topics such as gender, sexual orientation, class, immigration, and housing. On the other, it inadvertently limits the space and direction that these conversations can take. It also leads one to construe that there is “an apparent mistrust of the citizen body to be able to engage in dialogue and discourse without the situation deteriorating as the state expects” (ibid., p. 81). Although one can point to social media, message boards and online community platforms as valid alternative spaces for public discourse, their features lean towards promoting convenient shareable bite-sized takeaways and stimulating “snap judgments” rather than nuanced criticality (Yeoh, 2021). Also, a position taken online may not necessarily extend into non-virtual spaces and face-to-face encounters where cooperation, conflict avoidance, and the impetus to ‘save face’ is emphasised (Lee, 2014). In my experience, the desire to go along, get along, and not cause offense has also fostered a sense of caution and reluctance around sharing one’s position, even when there are concerns about one’s discomfort and safety. As such, this produces a cycle of uncivil discourse where polarising or harmful viewpoints may be absorbed from online spaces, with little room or care for ‘real world’ examination and debate. Making Space to Encounter and Learn About ‘Difference’ Through Collective Art Practice In this light, where and how might conversations about differences take place? In my view, pedagogical spaces, i.e., spaces that hold learning at the centre of its function and purpose, are well-placed to provide room for meaningful exploration and discussion. Within the Ministry of Education (MOE) school system, students are provided with a scaffolded experiential approach to becoming “informed, concerned and participative citizens” through their Social Studies classes (Ministry of Education, 2022). Its current syllabus indicates opportunities to engage with concepts and questions about cultural diversity. While this is a move in a positive direction, one can surmise that learning here would depend largely on how the syllabus might be interpreted, how the school values diversity through its own praxis, as well as the preparedness of teachers to draw out questions and facilitate deeper conversations (Ang, 2020; Ho, 2017). For myself, attending art classes helped me to explore and make sense of the nuances of being different, and mitigated some of the discomfort and anxiety I was facing. For example, in a lesson on self-portraits, I was shown that I could choose from a wide array of browns that would reflect what I was seeing in the mirror, and in the process began appreciating my dark tones even though they had been called into comparison elsewhere. In practising our still life painting skills, my classmates and I were encouraged to swap our seats weekly, so that we could benefit from a different perspective each time; to see what the other was seeing, to find details in common. As a full-time art student, there were life drawing classes with adult

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models of different ages, genders, skin tones and body types, each one compelling and expressive in their own way. In critique sessions, I learned the difference between comments made in good and in bad faith. Through projects where I had to make art collectively with others, I found others who looked to artistic practice as a means of examining, questioning, making sense, finding language, fostering connections. While a “highly-scripted” teacher-dominated approach to classroom instruction has its benefits for some subjects, such as mathematics, where specific procedures need to be carried out and where there is little space to debate these procedures (Hogan, 2014), the lesson to be learned from the art classroom is not solely about persistent practice for the sake of mastery. Rather, that the intention to make art in turn makes space for us to pause, observe, and express ourselves in our respective, imperfect ways. Arguably, to make space is one of its crucial points. In 2021, I was invited by a Singapore arts institution to co-teach a module on collective art practice. The syllabus presented to me was broad enough for me to provide input so I saw this as an opportunity to propose a more conversational approach. From my observations, the institution’s faculty were already practising a form of dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2020) in their classes, and this was a way to see if we could encourage the students to conduct conversations amongst themselves about how they might work collectively. My co-teacher, who developed the module, agreed to this proposition and we worked together on some suitable prompts for the students’ reflection and conversation. We also agreed, as a principle, that we would take a more facilitative approach in guiding the students. The class comprised 15 students enrolled in the second year of their bachelor’s degree programme; some of them were already familiar with each other and the institutional culture, having graduated from the diploma programmes, while others were returning to after time spent with work or with military service. In all, the class was fairly diverse with a mix of genders, ages, areas of practice, and prior experiences. The premise of the module was for the students to work in groups that we would refer to as ‘collectives’, on a project for the duration of the semester. The key objectives were to expose students to the complexity of working collectively, to help them identify the “shared territories” (Shen, 2021) of artistic practices, as well as to hone their ability in artistic research and negotiation. The project requirements were broad: each collective would need to identify a site within the institution’s vicinity, conduct a series of site-based investigations, gather ‘data’ about their chosen site, build a narrative around their ‘findings’, and present them through a ‘showcase’ and brief research presentation. We also shared that the projects would not be assessed based on the artistic quality of their eventual showcase, but rather the extent to which the collectives could rationalise their approach to gather data; critically analyse this data; and synthesise a shared conceptual position and narrative with this data. In this way, the students were provided with a clear direction for what needed to be delivered, but left with a lot of room to decide how they might approach and design their respective projects. The first three weeks of the semester were focused on activities to prepare the students for collective work, and the remaining time was allocated for fieldwork,

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consultations and check-ins. We discussed case studies of collective artistic practice as well as artistic research methods that could be used for their site-based investigations. To help them find their potential work partners, ample time was also given for each student to talk about their own artistic practice, what drives their practice, what they hoped to learn through collective work, the possible challenges they might face, and how they might prepare for that. To guide their conversations, I referred the students to the Four Layers of Diversity model (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 2003) and the Diversity Wheel (YMCA, 2017) as frames for thinking and talking about the ways they are different and how these differences might have an impact on their choices, their priorities, or even the ways in which they might address conflicts. During the final reflection exercise at the end of the semester, some students commented that they found the various models, feedback, and opportunities for conversation helpful as it offered them space to build collective language, rapport, and trust as they learned together. While they shared that the process of working collectively was not without its issues, they felt less nervous about it, and were more willing to engage in similar work in the future. Conclusion In the time that I have spent encouraging conversations about difference, I have learned that there is no perfect space or time to do so, nor one ideal model to follow. Much of my own understanding of how to calibrate space, time, and content for questions—in order to surface notions of value, identity, beliefs, appearances, and all the ways we are different—stem from being questioned myself, in spaces where I have stood on the margins. By recognising how these questions were sometimes used to categorise, assign value, and put me into place, I learned to sharpen my language, to get at the heart of discomforting, complex topics, carefully and incisively. Although some degree of judgment and assessment also occurs in pedagogical art spaces, I have found that this is balanced by a willingness—or an expectation—to deal with ambiguities, change perspectives, and question hierarchies and conventions. Questions here are less a scrutinising lens, but rather, become necessary prisms that could transform our world view.

References Interviews Cited Ezzam Rahman, 19th September, 2020. Loo Zihan, 5th October, 2020. Masuri Mazlan, 13th November, 2020. nor, 1st October, 2020.

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Other References Ahmed, S. (2004/2013). Queer feelings. In D.H. Hall, A., Jagose, A. Bebell. & S.Potter (Eds.), The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pp. 422–442). Routledge. Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press. Ang, H.M. (2021, March 1). ‘Everyone will be protected here’ regardless of community and social, religious or sexual ‘beliefs’: Shanmugam. Channel NewsAsia. https://www.channelnewsasia. com/singapore/lgbtq-singapore-law-protected-religious-beliefs-shanmugam-249966 ArtScience Museum (2018, June 21). June 2018 Full performance: ArtScience Late: Ezzam Rahman featuring Nabillah Jalal [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL7 S8UMDhn8 Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond learning: Democratic education for a human future. Paradigm Publishers. Check, E., & Ballard, K. (2014). Navigating emotional, intellectual, and physical violence directed toward LGBTQ students and educators. Art Education, 67(3), 6–11. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78. Springer. Getsy, D. (2019). Ten queer theses on abstraction. In J. Ledesma (Ed.), Queer Abstraction Exhibition Catalogue (pp. 65–75). Des Moines Art Center. Getsy, D., & Gossett, C. (2021). A syllabus on transgender and nonbinary methods for art and art history. Art Journal, 80(4), 100–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2021.1947710 Goh, Y.H. (2022, November 22). Parliament repeals Section 377A, endorses amendments protecting definition of marriage. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/parlia ment-repeals-section-377a-endorses-amendmentsprotecting-marriage-definition Greteman, A. J. (2017). Helping kids turn out queer: Queer theory in art education. Studies in Art Education, 58(3), 195–205. Jagose, A. (1996). Queer theory. Melbourne University Press. Lee, H. L. (2007, October 24). Full parliamentary speech by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2007 on Section 377A. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/full-parliamentary-spe ech-by-pm-lee-hsien-loong-in-2007-on-section-377a Lenzi, I. (2015). Looking out: How queer translates in Southeast Asian contemporary art. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 38. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/iss ue38_contents.htm Low, Y. Y. (2020). Performing queerness: Singapore’s ‘Global City for the Arts’ and the politics of invisibility. World Art, 10(2–3), 279–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2020.1812114 Manchester, A. (2017). Teaching critical looking: Pedagogical approaches to using comics as queer theory. SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education, 2(2), Article 2. http://digitalco mmons.unl.edu/sane/vol2/iss2/2 Obendorf, S. (2012). Both contagion and cure: Queer politics in the global city-state. In A. Yue & J. Zubillaga-Pow (Eds.), Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures (pp. 97– 114). Hong Kong University Press. Ooi, C-S. (2006). The Creative Industries in Singapore: Freedom of Expression in a Soft Authoritarian Regime. Department of International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School. Working Paper / Department of International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School. Oswin, N. (2012). The queer time of creative urbanism: Family, futurity, and global city Singapore. Environmental and Planning, 44, 1624–1640. Radics, G. B. (2022). Being LGB in Singapore. In P. Gerber (Ed.), Worldwide perspectives on lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (pp. 138–153). Praeger. Ramdas, K. (2021). Negotiating LGBTQ rights in Singapore: The margin as a place of refusal. Urban Studies, 58(7), 1448–1462. Ross, O. (2015). Watching Solos in Singapore: Homosexuality, surrealism and queer politics. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asian and the Pacific, 38. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/iss ue38_contents.htm

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Tang, S., & Quah, S. E. L. (2018). Heteronormativity and sexuality politics in Singapore: The female-headed households of divorced and lesbian mothers. Journal of Sociology, 54(4), 647– 664. Teo, E. (2019). Interview with Masuri Mazlan. https://masurimazlan.com/softstrong-foil-series-1 Warner, M. (2000). The trouble with normal: Sex, politics, and the ethics of queer life. Harvard University Press. Washington, G. E. (2006). Performance art as a site for learning: Queer theory and performance studies in the art classroom. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, 26(1), 195–218. Woolley, S., Quinn, T., & Meiners, E. (2015). The gender, sexuality, and queer milieu. In M. Fang He, B.D. Schultz, & W.H. Schubert (Eds.), The SAGE guide to curriculum in education (pp. 351-357). SAGE. Yeoh, G. (2022, March 3). Government considering ‘best way forward’ on 377A, will respect different viewpoints: Shanmugam. Channel NewsAsia. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sin gapore/377a-gay-sex-law-government-considering-best-wayforward-shanmugam-2535441

Afterword References Alexander, R. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Ang, J. (2020). School conversations on race and religion should continue to evolve, says Education Minister Ong Ye Kung. The Straits Times. Difference. (n.d.). Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordlea rnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/difference Differentia. (n.d.). Lexico.com Oxford University Press. https://www.lexico.com/definition/differ entia Differentia. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/differentia Gardenswartz, L., & Rowe, A. (2003). Diverse teams at work: Capitalizing on the power of diversity. Society for Human Resource. Ho, L. C. (2017). Commentary: How should Singapore teachers manage issues of race in the classroom? Channelnewsasia.com. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/commentaryhow-should-singapore-teachers-manage-issues-race-classroom-1008271 Hogan, D. (2014). Why is Singapore’s school system so successful, and is it a model for the West? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/why-is-singapores-school-system-so-suc cessful-and-is-it-a-model-for-the-west-22917 Lee, P. (2014, April 5). Singaporeans ‘more doers than talkers’, says experts. The Straits Times. Mathews, M., & Bin Khidzer, M. K. (2015). Preserving racial and religious harmony in Singapore. In D. Chan (Ed.), 50 Years of Social Issues in Singapore (pp. 75–95). World Scientific. Ministry of Education. (2022). Social Studies Teaching and Learning Syllabus, Primary. https:// www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/primary/2020-social-studies-primary.ashx?la=en&hash=1C4 D8BA74B72E3ABFB91D409460572A4067C2DEF O’Malley, M. P., Sandlin, J. A., & Burdick, J. (2020). Public pedagogy theories, methodologies, and ethics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1131 Shen, K. (2021). Positions 2: Module Guide. Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Souto-Manning, M. (2013). Multicultural teaching in the early childhood classroom: Approaches, strategies, and tools, preschool-2nd grade. Teachers College Press. Yeoh, G. (2021). In Focus: ‘Boomer, snowflake, oppie, pappie’—unpacking the growing social media polarisation in Singapore. Channelnewsasia.com. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sin gapore/in-focus-social-media-polarisation-singapore-online-discourse-2085511 YMCA. (2017). All Together Better: The Many Dimensions of Diversity. YMCA of the USA. https://www.ymcayag.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Diversity-Wheel-The-ManyDimensions-of-Diversity.pdf

Chapter 10

Hopes for Our Contemporary Art Scene: How to Improve Singapore’s Arts Ecosystem, According to Artists Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray

We interviewed artists at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic from September to December 2020. The loss of lives and livelihoods, cancellations of shows and exhibitions and public debates about the essential nature of the arts had, by then, turbocharged a soul-searching questioning of the status quo in the arts (and beyond). The pandemic and its effects starkly revealed inequities, assumptions and dependencies within the arts and magnified discontent. We asked artists about what they hoped for the Singapore contemporary arts ecosystem, as well as what grievances they had, and what changes they believed were most urgently needed. While it is unlikely that the pandemic will provoke a revolutionary overhaul of the arts ecosystem and its power structure, hope is intrinsically radical in charting a way forward, breathing purpose into the incremental and dogged work necessary to create change in complex democratic systems. The goal of this chapter is to share artists’ views and provide a direct platform for their opinions regarding some key areas that need change, and what forms or directions that change could take. A few themes and threads emerged out of the range of responses. The chapter is divided into four parts, corresponding to the four main themes emerging from artists’ responses. The first relates to the question of space(s)—physical space (independently run) and mental space (fomented through fluid collaborations and experimentation). The second is the wish for less elitism (such as more inclusion of the general public, and less focus on scholastic achievement and merit). The third is the widely shared hope for greater inclusion of artists from underrepresented and marginalized groups. The fourth is the resounding yearning for Singaporean society as a whole to value the arts more, with artists underscoring the vital importance of improving arts education.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_10

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The chapter draws heavily on artists’ voices, quoting verbatim1 and at length from transcribed interviews. The points made reflect at times broad aspirations, at others, more practical recommendations. Some deal with personal or interpersonal realms, while others refer to systemic change and redressing power imbalances in society. Understood to be a snapshot in time of the perceptions of our (relatively small) group of respondents, this chapter does not claim to represent the viewpoints of all artists in Singapore on this complex question. Nonetheless, it is our hope that it may help shed light on some of the diverse perspectives and experiences of contemporary artists, with a focus on the younger generations and emerging artists. Choosing to work as a practicing artist in Singapore is a journey filled with tremendous challenges and surprises which formal art school training may not adequately prepare people for. Speaking candidly with passion and heartfelt sincerity, artists generously shared their personal experiences, grievances and dreams. Their voices deserve to be heard, listened to and taken seriously.

1 Space 1.1 Independent Spaces In terms of physical spaces, artists pointed out that independent artist-run art spaces in Singapore often face problems sustaining themselves in the long term and hoped that more can be done to support them to remain open and autonomous. “Independent” art spaces are generally taken to mean physical spaces operating with autonomy (within the bounds of the law) at the very least in terms of curatorial/creative direction and programmatic substance. In Singapore, such spaces may be financially independent from the state (i.e. not relying on government funding2 ) or they may occupy government allocated spaces rented out under the National Arts Council’s subsidized Arts Housing Scheme, while funding their programming with a mix of state funding, private donations and retail sales. The latter scenario has been the case for a number of prominent local art centres since the implementation of the Scheme in 1985; for example, The Substation (the first tenant under the scheme in 1990), Centre 42, Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film and DECK. However, as Hoe Su Fern 1

All quotes were taken from our interview transcripts (transcription was carried out by a professional transcriber) and were sent to each artist for verification; some artists edited their quotes. The edits were generally minor, correcting grammar and aiding the flow of the sentence. 2 It should be noted that even art spaces that do not directly depend on the state may still receive funding or commissions from parastatal art bodies who are beneficiaries of government funding, and who in turn disburse those funds. Operating entirely outside of government funding is rare for arts and cultural institutions in this expensive and highly managed city-state. Those that are able to be entirely independent would tend to be more established commercial art galleries.

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explained, arts centre tenants are generally given relatively short leases (one to three years), at the end of which they are at the mercy of the state’s reexamined priorities and often have to adapt to new tenancy terms (2021, n.p.). As with all tenancies, the end of a lease can mean the renegotiation of a contract or non-renewal of the lease (if the landlord/the state) wants to reclaim the space for other uses. In situations where tenants have few options on the unsubsidized/open market, they have less leverage in negotiating with the government over the terms of their lease renewal.3 In a balanced art ecosystem, independent artist-run spaces are vital counterpoints to larger state-backed institutions which fall under more direct control of the state, such as the Esplanade or National Gallery Singapore. These larger establishments receive vast amounts of government funds, and their programmatic imperatives align with dominant paradigms, whereas independent art spaces, including tenants under the Arts Housing Scheme benefit from relatively more leeway (though they still must follow the same arts and entertainment licensing regulations, and state intervention in programming decisions can and does sometimes occur). Independent art spaces are also fundamental in creating a sense of place and community, by building relationships, memories and meaning over time. The artists we spoke to expressed the need for more independent ground-up art spaces which embrace and nurture greater freedom of artistic expression. An example of this was Coda Culture founded by Singaporean artist Seelan Palay in 2018. Learning from artist-run initiatives during his travels overseas, Seelan was inspired to open a space that embodied the same spirit of DIY experimentation he had observed: I’ve travelled quite a bit in the region and beyond. And I’ve seen alternative spaces or artistrun spaces, grassroots projects, quite a lot of those. I’ve also seen a few local projects that had a similar vibe and spirit, for example, Post-Museum, Your MOTHER gallery, Plastique Kinetic Worms. At around the time I was starting out Coda Culture, they were not operating with physical spaces or not as active anymore. So I decided to fill that gap and set up an artist-run space.

Seelan wanted Coda Culture to be programmatically independent and as financially independent as possible. It did not partake in the Arts Housing Scheme. Rent and other expenses were paid for through proceeds from the sale of works,4 Seelan’s other part-time job, and the occasional commission from parastatal art institutions.5 Due to his own high profile as an artist, Seelan was able to mobilize collectors who 3

The Arts Housing Scheme came under recent scrutiny when The Substation’s lease on Armenian Street neared its end and negotiations with the government were underway— in the end, the space was transitioned into an arts company (Ke & Said, 2021; The Substation, 2021; Elangovan, 2021; Toh, 2021). To many members of the arts community, the change felt like truncating rather than leveraging what had been built, and they mourned the end of an era and the spirit of openness, experimentation and collaboration the space had fostered over the decades (see Hoe, 2021). 4 Coda Culture took 30% of all sales, with 70% going to the artist. 5 e.g. National Gallery Singapore for the 2020 exhibition Precious Things which was part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being (2020–21).

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believed in his vision. Coda Culture also functioned with the ethos of horizontalism, influenced by his early roots in the punk scene. The space closed at the end of 2020 but in its two years of operation, it provided an ebullient, fertile and welcoming place for many emerging artists (several of whom had their first solo exhibitions there). Coda Culture often exhibited works that would likely not have been shown elsewhere due to their subversive nature. As Seelan explained, freedom of expression was a core underlying tenet: It was really just to do the best that I could to show art that I think needs to be seen more. And also to provide a space where artists have almost no kind of restrictions, in a sense. So they’re free to express themselves, given the kind of autonomy and space that there wouldn’t be in other institutions or commercial galleries.

Artist-run spaces like Coda Culture tend to follow less capitalistic modes and allow for a wider diversity of artistic and ideological viewpoints to be expressed (Fig. 1). Even though Coda Culture aimed to have the “dynamics of a white cube gallery” (in Seelan’s words) in terms of selling works to pay artists and the rent, he described selecting “more experimental” artworks that “push boundaries in terms of aesthetics, concepts and presentation.” Seelan envisioned Coda Culture as a platform that catalysed ground-up capabilities, allowing budding artists to find their footing and seasoned artists to try new things, and for all to dare to experiment: One of the things I’ve told the artists that show at my place is that when you do this show— especially when it’s a solo exhibition, I say, “You don’t have to think about selling. Just create the best work that you can for yourself at this point of time. And be as sincere as you can. If you are, then I believe some of this sincerity will show in the work and translate to the audience. Out of that, maybe someone might be interested to buy it and keep a part of that sincerity with them.” I also say that if they want to thank me, one of the ways they can really thank me is to make sure that the show that they do after this has to be better than the one they did at my gallery. So it’s more about process and progression, rather than anything else.

The yearning for independent spaces has fueled some artists to rethink the question of artists’ dependence on state funding. Moving image and performance artist ila shared how heartened she was that many younger artists are creating their own opportunities to showcase their work: I’m glad that right now, especially with the kids, the younger artists, the emerging artists, they’re creating their own spaces, they’re creating their own collectives, they’re creating their own opportunities, and they are not really so dependent on, “Oh, if I don’t get my NAC grant I cannot make this project.” Last time… when I started, that was the kind of mentality that a lot of us had. But now it’s like “I’m going to self-organise, I’m going to put something up online, I’m going to have a collective, I’m going to do whatever I want”… Some of them don’t even want to be state-funded because they want to put up all the more alternative content or content that can be challenging right? So that’s really great.

Divyalakshmi Suressh, whose art practice explores diasporic and queer identities through performance, hoped for a continued trend towards independently-organised initiatives by individual artists and collectives:

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Fig. 1 Singaporean artist Marla Bendini’s solo exhibition IMHO at Coda Culture (2019). (Image courtesy of Coda Culture) I would love to see more and more independent spaces, and that’s one thing that’s definitely going to increase, because a lot of people are doing independent spaces. And now with the digital art boom… people are already doing digital spaces.

The pivoting of exhibitions online due to the COVID-19 pandemic has instigated artists to independently produce their own digital shows, and reclaim power from institutions that traditionally gatekeep the showing and selling of artworks. However, further research should be done about how the trend towards digitization may have unequally affected some artists.6 6

Research into social inclusion by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs shows how the pandemic has widened the digital gap, exacerbating inequities in access and usage of technology, and digital skills (van Dijk, 2020).

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1.2 Spaces to Work and Learn Artists mentioned the need for more affordable studio spaces. For Shayne Phua Shi Ying, a contemporary sculptor and ceramicist, studio space is vital, yet renting a space is a huge financial burden that can outweigh possible future returns, especially for young sculptors starting their practice: I think [what’s needed] is really studio space. But it has always been that problem right? Studio and money… that’s why I feel like being an artist is really quite a privilege. Because everybody works very hard but not everybody gets a chance, right? Because there’s only that many spots for exhibiting and… you got to have that money to throw in to make works beforehand, so that part is a bit hard for emerging artists who need studio space.

Social practice artist Alecia Neo proposed the creation of spaces integrated within a range of institutions, such as those of higher learning, where artists could play hybrid roles—focusing on their practice and artistic research, while also giving back to the institution in creative ways: There are not enough spaces that support artistic research. I think that is something that is a bit of a pity. You know, they have these writing residencies sometimes, which I think is great... and I wish they would have more for other artists, visual artists (…) to participate, because then they can get a stipend to really work on their projects, and maybe even contribute back to the institution or university in some way… I think there are a lot of very meaningful ways they can do so. So, I’m just hoping that there might be more such opportunities.

1.3 Mental Space Artists articulated the need for mental space which would come about from a mindset shift regarding how things are done and how artists create and collaborate. Environmental artist Zen Teh described how her residency in Thailand and her travels across Southeast Asia opened her eyes to alternative ways of gathering and working, whereby artists spend a lot more time together, not necessarily producing, but sharing, connecting, experimenting and letting ideas flow. Zen hopes for more instances such as these in Singapore: This energy of these ground-up initiatives and this almost organic way of letting the arts flourish on their own… I think as people continue to create and have conversations… not shaped particularly by any national agenda, you may get more variations, people can be more open in that sense, maybe then from an outsider’s point of view, you can see something more creative.

Holding space for art to “flourish on [its] own” as Zen put it, requires a different relationship to time and social constructs of productivity. It also recognizes the social context of creativity in which affective bonds inform collaboration, and experimentation is born from the intermeshing of different ideas and capabilities. In this regard,

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an example of a Singapore art collective that grew from out of the casual collaboration between friends is PURE EVER. Placing no expectations on themselves to show work to the public, the artists’ experimentations and explorations gradually developed into works and the stylised, post-contemporary aesthetics that now characterize PURE EVER. One of its founding artists, Zhiyi Cao, whose own work explores creative labor and relationality (see Chap. 2), shared that: Collectives and alternative spaces don’t have to be like physical space. They can be mental spaces— a mental space that exists for itself , instead of out of a need to produce products for a show. Yeah, not chasing some sort of end result, basically.

She continued: Control is a great thing sometimes—planning, like having a 5-year plan, 10-year master plans. But I think the art scene in particular needs time to grow and brew and ferment into its own skin, into its own shape and form. That would be ideal.

The need to let things “grow,” “brew” and “ferment” as Zhiyi mentioned is in stark contrast to the expected pace of work for artists in Singapore today. Zen also described the fast pace and goal-driven Singapore mentality: For me, living and growing up here, we’re so used to a certain kind of pace: quick, everything is like chop chop, you know. (Laughs) And where you do something for a particular outcome in a very objective-driven way.

Many artists noted the ways in which Singapore’s neoliberal productivity-driven paradigm informs expectations and norms of behavior in art-making. For Zhiyi, this is a huge challenge: The turnover rate for a piece of work is so fast. You often get like, maybe two months in between - you being asked to join a project, to delivering. At least based on my little experiences here. Unless you apply for the grant yourself and you set a timeline for yourself— you rarely get that opportunity to sit on a subject matter—let it ferment and decay to whatever state you feel good with and do a showcase about it. It’s often like, okay, now I need to go to my notebook, pick out that thing that I took some notes on and kind of deliver from there. So I think burning out and fatigue is a very real thing amongst young artists. Because every two months, you’re doing something new, you’re churning out a new project with a new person, that kind of thing. So, to me, that’s the biggest challenge.

Artists hoped for a slower pace arguing that art takes time, and often requires delving deeply into a subject matter before producing. Cultivating a more balanced and healthier paradigm necessitates escaping (or at least being able to hit the pause button when needed on) the neoliberal cult of productivity and competitive overachievement, or at the very least, rethinking social constructs of productivity when it comes to art and creative labour. Doing so would lead to better quality art and improve the health of those who cannot sustain the pace of work and struggle with burn-out. Artist and educator Zarina Muhammad, who has been teaching at LASALLE College of the Arts since 2006, described how she tries to reassure her students by telling them to strive for balance over constant production:

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I think even for most practising artists, it’s perfectly fine to take a break. Because I do think that in Singapore, we are functioning on this high productivity... Constantly needing to produce, constantly needing to like, show work, do things. So I... Just because you’re taking a break, doesn’t mean that you’re not an artist. I mean, sometimes, you know, I feel like these are the sort of assurance that these students also need to hear or we need to discuss this openly.

2 Less Elitism 2.1 More Open to All Many artists expressed their dismay at the elitism of the contemporary art ecosystem. Eliciting feelings ranging from outrage to disappointment, elitism was most frequently perceived to be linked to institutions that act as, or are deemed to be, gatekeepers. Artist, writer and desktop engineer by trade, Fairuz Jaafar said he hopes the local art ecosystem can be less nepotistic, and decried how artists’ social networks and personal connections play too big a role in securing opportunities to show work. This is a major hurdle for self-taught artists (like himself) who have not gone through formal training, have come to art via different life routes and may not know as many people in the arts scene. He explained: Galleries in Singapore are pretty elitist. It’s like, if you know someone, you’ll probably get in. If you don’t have any connections within the art world, you’ll probably just be stuck within your own social spaces. And what I want, what I hope for the art community itself is for it to be more open to seeing works by different people from different backgrounds, not necessarily from a formal art background, but people like me who don’t come from an art background and can still present my work coherently.

He continued: “I would hope for the art community as a whole to be more open and inclusive, not just to people in the art community or people of different orientations, but to the general public itself.” For that, Fairuz said it’s important to engage the public by raising awareness about existing art spaces and letting people know anyone can go there: If you would say to a normal uncle, “eh Uncle, go to DECK (an art space in the centre of town).” … [he would answer,] “What’s DECK?” I had to take a cab there and the uncle wasn’t all too familiar with what DECK was… What I hope is for art not to be limited to just pieces in National Galleries, but also to many different spaces and for it to not be very elitist in a way where the people with the most connections or the best connections get their work presented and people who don’t necessarily come from an art background don’t.

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2.2 Rethink Grants Several artists pointed to the need to change aspects of some public grants because these privilege applicants who can write in English in a specific way, e.g. ability to deploy analytic exposition and other discursive practices. Visual and performance artist Kray Chen explained: The grant system privileges those who can write well, are able to frame their projects in accordance to what the administrators are looking for. But there are many good artists or projects that are not funded simply because they can’t do that, they don’t know how to make their ideas appeal in that specific way of writing.

Expecting and rewarding the ability to write in English in these specific ways poses linguistic and class barriers on applicants. According to performance and social practice artist anGie seah, that puts some artists at a disadvantage: The first thing you must be able to do in order to get an art project or commission in Singapore is to be able to write. First and foremost, that is how the commissioning body will evaluate you. It’s not because they first look at your portfolio. It’s not because they look at your credentials and work; in fact, I’m not sure they know how to judge at all. They only look at what your proposal is, the first thing is your proposal... blah, blah, blah, and then they’ll - numbers. (Laughter) That’s the reality (…) Okay, I have a lot of friends who are talented artists, in my opinion. But, because they can’t articulate or conceptualize their work or vision in words, they can’t get the support they deserve. And I’m sure there are a lot of artists out there who aren’t fluent in languages, for example... but are very solid artists.

2.3 Less Emphasis on Scholastic Achievement and Academic Research-Based Practices Considering which kinds of work have received government funding in recent years, Kray noted the turn towards more “knowledge-based, research-based kind of practices.” He explained: I do sense that the art here has been shifting more and more towards a very knowledge-based, research-based kind of practices. I think given that knowledge is more quantifiable, more tangible, compared to the artistic, material or process research. It is important to have such practices as part of the diversity and ecosystem, but it shouldn’t be the only thing, or worse, held out as the standard of what art should be. And so, it rolls into bigger problems in the scene, such as the potential decoupling of the art market with the academic or institutional support, or that it simply alienates the general audience in another, different way.

If practices with a higher degree of conceptuality (abstraction through intellectual consideration) and those that are primarily based on intellectual knowledge (or that render things intelligible through intellectual faculty) are favored, then what of more material practices? Will this trend alter the landscape of artistic practices in Singapore? Because many artists in Singapore depend a great deal on government

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funding, grant selection criteria could potentially influence the kinds of practices artists engage in, as artists try to frame and align their work accordingly. Kray for one believes this trend “can be very dangerous” as it may lead to a whittling down of the kinds of practices that are supported and allowed to thrive in Singapore. Social practice artist Salty Xi Jie Ng also harkened back to the need to break from what she called “hyper-interllectualization” in Singapore contemporary art, a trend she connected to the Singapore education system: With the contemporary art world in Singapore, I sometimes encounter work that is hyperintellectualized to the point where it doesn’t really touch you. I think that is a result of the scholastic culture of excellence—and I note that can mean different things to different people— that our education system engenders here, which pervasively bleeds into the art world, where there is a culture of achieving a very critical framing of one’s work. But to what end? Does this work move you? Is it just fashionably clever? How do your body or heart feel when you encounter a work? I think that’s very important, and we cannot forget rawness or outsider-ness.

Salty was not alone in querying what is lost in the wake of such “scholastic culture of excellence”; for instance, anGie shared her concerns about the prestigious School of the Arts, Singapore7 (SOTA): The government’s concept of art, and how they view it, is exactly the same as SOTA’s model: ‘you do art, but you also have to be smart. You must excel in all subjects, including maths, English, and everything else...’ That is something I do not believe. (…) Imagine a kid from a neighbourhood school who is super creative... bad at maths, bad at everything else but really good at art. If he doesn’t get into SOTA, he’ll probably think he’s a loser. Because that’s what the art teacher will probably tell the student: ‘SOTA is the school for you.’ How sad would the student be? It’s suffocating the passion! It shouldn’t pick people based on a standardized format like that. If I have one wish, I hope Singapore would discontinue the use of any standardized templates for assessing quality in art. Art should be accessible in this manner.

3 Better Representation and Inclusion 3.1 Express, Listen to and Hold Space for Historically Marginalized and Under-Represented Perspectives Improving the representation and inclusion of artists from underrepresented and marginalised social groups was one of the most commonly voiced concerns. Most artists we interviewed expressed the desire to see an expansion of conversations about the experiences of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual and other minorities in society out 7

The country’s first arts school for students between the ages of 13 and 18, conceived as “a dedicated development path for those who have interest and show early talent in the arts, providing a learning environment where both the artistic and academic potential can best be realized” (SOTA, n.d.).

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of, as Kray put it, “a sincere sort of desire of wanting to see a bigger scope of practices and voices.” Comparatively more artists spoke up against systemic racial inequities, followed by gender inequities (articulated with race) within the local art ecosystem. Priyageetha Dia, whose practice centers on the Tamizh experience in Singapore and Southeast Asia, hopes for more “diversity and inclusion and to see more conversations that are encouragingly open and instrumental in allowing other voices to be heard.” In her view, issues relating to race and gender should not be ignored and need to be openly discussed: We need to actively participate in discussions that make us uncomfortable. I feel that sort of responsibility should come through how we actively engage in these discussions, regarding sensitivities around race and gender politics.

Due to the complexity of these issues, Priyageetha underscored the importance of sparking and sustaining these important conversations through long-term engagement and commitment that go beyond performative or gestural activism: There is a need to be consistent with these discussions, not just be nonchalant about certain social causes that become temporal trends. There is surface-level slacktivism taking place, but it’s not enough to sift out the rot that has harmed minorities for years. So if we consistently have that responsibility to keep the conversation going, I think that’s important as an artist.

Several artists pointed out that subjects such as race and religion in particular are often deemed politically “sensitive” and this may deter artists from making art that explores and foregrounds these topics. Artist-curator Zulkhairi Zulkiflee, whose work contextually explores notions of Malayness, observed a certain reticence among Malay Singaporean artists of earlier generations to directly engage with issues of race out of fear of being pigeonholed (e.g. as only able to make work about this facet of their identity). In contrast, he noted younger artists’ greater openness to explore the racial dimension of their identities. Concerns still remain among younger generations with regards to potentially being pigeonholed (and pigeonholing oneself) as an artist only making works about minority perspectives. Farizi Noorfauzi, whose practice examines his Malay heritage and identity (see Chap. 2), shared concerns over the artistic and material repercussions of centering one’s art on questions of identity politics: At this stage, I want to be a full-time artist. And to kind of stick with the similar aesthetics that I have been doing, I think it would narrow down a lot of the possibilities of where I can go with my practice. And the larger question is also... talking about my Malay identity for the rest of my life—in the same way that I have been—might not pay my bills.

For his part, Zulkhairi expressed hope that artists will continue to delve into these important issues, without being overly preoccupied with appealing to audiences and the art market: I do hope and wish that there were more minority artists who are comfortable with foregrounding their lived experiences in their works. I’m not suggesting that Malay artists don’t discuss their lived experiences in their works at all, but I hope we can be more comfortable

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speaking about it without feeling like “Oh, if I speak about my race, it won’t be appealing to the art market.

Despite his reservations, Farizi described feeling a certain responsibility to continue examining the question of his Malay identity, in the hopes that sharing his story can make a difference. However, he emphasized that sustaining these conversations can have a significant psychological and emotional toll: It’s hard to navigate the politics of my practice currently. Because it’s dealing with such a sensitive topic that, you know, I guess... It begs the question: can I ever make art about anything else? And what if my practice is only about Malay identity? And I think that can get kind of suffocating at times. Yeah, it’s also very exhausting to have to sustain this kind of labour in talking about this sort of identity politics.

Though he continues to contest racial stereotypes and open spaces for conversation through his work, Farizi hopes that, one day, discourses on minority identity will no longer be necessary: For me, specifically, I hope that in the future, we don’t have to talk about Malay issues ever again. Because I’ve realised that if I didn’t have to talk about my Malay identity, I would probably never do so. And I think if I wasn’t into art making at all, and if I didn’t make the works that I did, I wouldn’t have been making art at all. I think, if there weren’t any Malay issues, I wouldn’t be making art at all as well. And I’m completely fine with that. Yeah. I see art making as a necessity, because I feel like it is one of the best representations of expression. Creatively, but also like, kind of theoretically, because art is able to express a lot of possibilities and generate various situations of what things could look like. And so... I think my answer in short form would be that one day, I hope there will never have to be a discourse on minority identity.

When it comes to improving the inclusion of artists from minority backgrounds in exhibitions, Priyageetha noted that artistic gatekeepers such as curators play a crucial role in potentially perpetuating (or helping to redress) the underrepresentation of certain artists: Curators are specific in who they choose to work with. And that selection process definitely has a certain bias in it. The curators that I have worked with in the past are from minority backgrounds and there’s only a handful in Singapore. I have yet to unravel this working dynamic with someone from the majority who is able to take on the labour of dissecting the power relations and privileges that they embody especially coming from positions in art institutions.

Priyageetha’s experience suggests that the curatorial ecosystem in Singapore might also benefit from greater diversification among its curators, and removal of bias in selection criteria. After all, it is one thing to increase representation of artists from more marginalized communities and backgrounds and quite another to hire them into leadership roles (provided that person has real decision-making power). Unpacking this would be a worthy subject of future research, and it would be especially significant to look into the curatorial hires and practices of large institutions

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which, thanks to vast budgets/state funding, employ a large proportion of curators on the island. In line with Priyageetha’s earlier cautioning against “slacktivism,” several other artists warned against performative Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives on the part of institutions. For example, Zhiyi described: It’s a general feeling that institutions and organisations still follow trends and hot topics. New threads of conversation around say, inclusivity— I fear that it’s them following a trend. How will we know if they’ve actually become more progressive and inclusive, in trying to dole out these opportunities? You don’t know, until maybe this becomes a less fashionable buzzword. And then you’ll see, do opportunities get vastly reduced, and things go back to how they’re done usually? That’s what I mean by it’s less transparent now because we can’t tell whether or not they are following signs of trends.

3.2 Inclusion at the Intersections of Race and Gender ila evoked the history of racial-gendered inequities in the field of contemporary art in Singapore, noting how the legacy of such inequities continues to permeate and structure the power dynamics, hierarchies and questions of access/opportunity in the local arts ecosystem: The Singapore art scene started out being very dominated by male Chinese straight men and it’s been like that for very long and so the power is always accorded to them. (…) I feel like it’s really a generational thing that we are trying to move away from. And it’s not an age thing. There are senior artists that are really great and very nurturing. It’s just that how it started was that it was dominated by a group of Chinese males and they held on to that for very long. At least in the visual arts.

Maisarah Kamal, who explores questions of identity and existentialism through her kinetic sculptures and installations, discussed inequities at the intersection of race and gender. She spoke about her desire for greater representation and visibility of Malay female artists in Singapore, and talked about how the absence of role models during her formative years studying at LASALLE College of the Arts affected her. At that time, Maisarah had been grappling with the decision of whether or not to wear a hijab to art school. She wanted to wear a hijab but feared she wouldn’t be perceived to be an artist, that these two parts of her identity (being Muslim and being an artist) would somehow be erroneously viewed as mutually exclusive. She shared how life-changing it would have been for her to have seen and learnt about other hijabi artists whom she could have identifed with. Maisarah said: Previously, I had never worn it. So I felt that it was really... emotionally I felt like I’m not sure whether I should or I shouldn’t, because of society pressure and everything. And especially because... I’m in the arts... I’m not sure how accepting [people are]... Because there are not a lot of hijabi women represented (…), not many hijabi artists. So it was a struggle.

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Though Maisarah noticed many other Malay female art students at LASALLE, she was hard-pressed to hear of visible and well-established Malay female artists, which led her to wonder about this discrepancy, and if there is a glass ceiling for women artists from minority backgrounds. She explained: I always asked my lecturers how come there aren’t a lot of successful Muslim - not Muslim, but Malay artists. Female Malay artists. Because there aren’t a lot, you know… I mean as a student then, I did want to have a role model. Like even all my lecturers are all, you know, Chinese. So I was wondering... Because there are so many Malay students. Malay, female students. So what happened to all these people? Where did they go? I always asked my lecturers that. But they never really gave me an answer la... Some of them just said that, “you know, they got married, they got pregnant, then after that they never practiced.” But I’m not sure. I don’t think family might be the biggest reason. Because I think if you are really passionate, you will always make time.

Priyageetha also noted this discrepancy, and expressed the need to mitigate it by decolonising and striving for greater inclusion in art pedadogy, so that students can see themselves represented in terms of race, gender or sexual orientation: There is still an idolisation of artists from the West or art-making that fits in a western canon of production. What does it mean to even uphold colonial structures in art pedagogy? In Singapore’s art history, the Nanyang art movement holds a great foundation that has established many cishet8 Chinese artists, but what does it mean for someone who is Malay, Tamizh or queer? This dissonance in trying to find something accessible or identifiable makes it even more alienating and isolating. It’s quite ironic when the demography of students practising art when I was an undergraduate was mainly made up of women and queer, nonbinary people. But in the scene, it continuously gives space to straight Chinese men. The lack of visibility is extremely concerning. Neither does any minority artist like to be the token representation.

Diverse representation and visibility of empowered individuals from minority backgrounds must start in school—in curricula, class discussions and among the teacher and student populations. As Maisarah’s personal experience makes clear, representation plays a crucial role in young students’ sense of belonging and inclusion, and their development of positive self-image. Not learning about artists she could identify with was extremely isolating and led to her sense of insecurity and feeling out of place. Maisarah described her process of overcoming these difficulties: I think the insecurity came because I felt like... sometimes when I send in a proposal to certain independent galleries and all... sometimes I get rejected and then when I see like, all the artists line up, it’s usually not Malay or Indians, it’s just mostly Chinese, you know. So I feel like sometimes, I’m already a woman, I’m already Malay. Then now, if I wear a hijab, people will definitely identify me as a Muslim already, you know. So yeah... It’s difficult in the sense… But after that, I felt that, you know what? I don’t really care, la! Because if my work is really good, people will actually come and find me. Yeah, I think it’s okay. Like right now, I do have opportunities still.

8

Refers to a person who identifies as both cisgender and heterosexual.

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Though she was able to overcome this challenge thanks to her personal strength, had her curricula and environment been more inclusive, it would have made a significant impact. The positive effect of representation would not only have helped Maisarah’s journey as an individual seeking to express her identity freely, but it also would have benefitted all students. Inclusion matters and benefits everyone.

3.3 Representation of Local Artists and Countering Trend-Seeking Commercialism Artists also spoke of representation in terms of providing more platforms for local artists. Some called out larger art institutions for seeking to market themselves as global, by showcasing ‘big name’ foreign artists. For instance, visual artist Loi Cai Xiang argued that institutions’ commercial orientation often overshadows their efforts at showcasing and supporting local artists: I think right now even in museums and galleries, it can get very exclusive and curated. The consideration will always be, for example, a commercial gallery wants to make sales and then museums want to attract visitors because, you know, it’s government-funded and there are priorities. And then even the curators that are hired, they’ll curate their one-off show or special shows, for example, the minimalist show9 (…) there were so many foreign artists and little representation of local artists right? And there are so many more artists that they can put in the show but they didn’t because the museum goers will not be interested. And then when you consider from that point of view, you lose your curatorial merit. It becomes a commercial entity, a spectacle for attraction.

Cai Xiang hopes for a more balanced local art ecology, one that places less emphasis on branding and status. He wants less elitism and more “diversity and inclusiveness” so that all artists “have an opportunity for show regardless of your status as an artist, your brand, or how well-known you are.” He feels strongly that local museums should showcase works by senior artists who have been contributing to the art scene for decades, but face challenges showing their work and having a platform (e.g. by building a social media presence). He shared: I thought, okay, local museums can just put a group show together for the senior artists in Singapore, but, no, they keep holding shows for overseas artists right? I feel regardless of age or who you are, as long as you are an art practitioner who has made a contribution to the arts and cultural scene, you should have a voice in Singapore, so that people can know about you, can learn about you, you know, and take more national pride that we do have good artists here, and I feel this is fundamentally important to nurture a healthy local arts scene. Also, the government has a part to play in representing this national pride. People who have worked quietly in the arts and cultural sector for years and years and people who 9

Referring to the Minimalism show held at National Gallery Singapore in 2019.

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have made some contribution to the local arts scene – they all deserve a space, a voice, a platform in Singapore.

Beyond art museums, commercial galleries are another outlet to showcase artists’ work. However, in those spaces, the market and saleability influence the kinds of art that are shown. Zen noted certain trends towards specific kinds of aesthetics in the gallery scene in Singapore: predominantly wall-mounted works with clean aesthetics, which are easy-to-consume (at risk of being tame and formulaic). She explained: If you look into a gallery, right, gallery shows, then you see certain types of works that may be more prominent. They may be shown in more places, also because they are more sellable… So those are one trend, in terms of certain aesthetic style or certain types of works that would be easier to understand for the public. And easy to put in any space, easy to collect, easy to put at home… It’s like, frankly, you don’t have to think so hard about what this [is].

Zen’s comment connects back to the vital role that independent artist-run spaces play in promoting and nurturing more experimental and risk-taking work, while tapping into and helping to build different (possibly more grassroots) networks of art collectors. Left to its own devices, the market risks encouraging a factory farm of bland aesthetics (e.g. the recent Zombie formalism moment brought on by financial speculators turned art flippers), making artists mere derivative contenders in one big capitalist competition. That said, trend-seeking commercialism among practicing artists in Singapore needs to be put in context of the high cost of living in the country. In Cai Xiang’s words: I think sales will always be an important factor for consideration. Whether a work sells. Because livelihood comes first. Otherwise there’s really no point talking about, you know, pompous things like art and integrity and passion, right? We have to feed ourselves first.

While acknowledging the tensions, and the need to balance between idealistic versus pragmatic views of art and artistic pursuit, Farizi said he hopes for: A lot more honesty from every artist. Which is, I think, very optimistic because how do you separate art making from something you have to do to survive, and something that you do genuinely. And is there a separation between like, doing genuine things and doing things to survive? (…) I guess honesty in art for me is… One is transparency. But two, it’s also like, coming from a very real place with yourself. Yeah. And it’s something that when you ask yourself, “Are you happy with this?” Or “Are you genuine?” Or “Are you content?” And for the answer to always be positive.

Farizi’s point harkens to the importance of not losing sight of why one makes art, and of remembering to value process even as one seeks an outcome, which is especially important to keep in mind in an environment so calibrated towards commercialism.

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4 Valuing the Arts 4.1 Changing Mindsets Divyalakshmi highlighted the need to change people’s mindsets about contemporary art as a profession, and described the disheartening vicious cycle that perpetuates social perceptions of artists as not having a “real job”: I want artists’ labour to be taken more seriously so that’s number one… By everyone. By the government, governing bodies, by society in general, yeah, by everybody really. Because we still have a struggle when a child wants to pursue something artistically, even if the parents are okay with it, people ask like, “How are your parents okay with you doing art?” It’s like, I’m doing art, not cocaine. (Laughs) And of course a lot of the concern is, if you do art, it’s not respected, right. So why are you doing art? And then it’s not respected because it’s institutionally not valued, and it’s not seen as a ‘real’ job. And you don’t make money because it’s not valued. And because you don’t make money, your parents get worried, because they worry you can’t survive. So it’s all linked. So if institutionally art started being taken more seriously, if artists could more easily make a living, if it was a more sustainable scene… Slowly people would realise that it is a respectable profession. And you know those weird questions like, ‘Okay, so when are you going to get a real job?’ will stop. (Laughs)

Also critiquing the pervasive pragmatism in Singapore society, Cai Xiang said more needs to be done to redress negative perceptions: Because otherwise anyone who wants to get into the arts will feel that this… like my parents, you know, this is unviable, that, “I will rather go into corporate,” “It’s impractical,” “Nobody wants to be an artist.” You know, this is the common sentiment that people share.

Divyalakshmi described the causal relationship between one’s relatively modest earnings and one’s low social valuation. In Singapore, hegemonic norms equate “success” with having a job with financial stability, and these norms play into social constructs of merit, respectability and worthiness, negatively impacting those who do not fit the mold. Moreover, Divyalakshmi highlighted how institutions have the power to set standards and help change negative social perceptions about artists and art as a profession, by remunerating artists more for their labour. Cai Xiang too argued that the state and its museums should take more “national pride” in local artists, which would send a signal to society that art is a worthy, respectable and viable field to pursue. He also alluded to the roots of pragmatism in the national education system: Because that’s how we’re brought up right? Our education system tells us that, you know, it’s merit-based, and then when something doesn’t give back proportionate to the amount of effort that you put into then it isn’t worth your time, and we move on to better things.

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4.2 Compensation and Labour Rights Only a small percentage of fine arts graduates will make a living just from their art practice. As Divyalakshmi already mentioned, the lack of financial security that pervades this profession is a huge concern. Alecia wishes artists can have more sustainable livelihoods and shared how dedicating herself full-time to her art practice led to a big income drop: I feel like maybe this part is a bit more of the practical side of me speaking. I really, really wish that people would see value in the work that we do. Because I see that there’s a huge income disparity. (…) I would say, ever since I started to focus on doing more of my work, my own personal work, which means I have to give up time doing more bread and butter things, it really is a steep decline in terms of income. (…) I feel like if we were actually paid the right amount of money to do the work that we do, and instead of everything always going into production... maybe artists could have more sustainable livelihoods. Yeah. So that is one practical wish that I have. I guess in terms of alignment of values, or what people might think is worth paying for... because I think this extends to everything, right? Like what people might want to pay for a performance, what people might want to pay for as a patron, or what people might want to pay for to support creative activities, right?

Other artists noted the lack of systems in place to ensure basic labour rights, compounding their conditions of precarity. Sculptor and installation artist Masuri Mazlan noted that freelance artists often have little to no legal (or other) recourse when contracts are not honoured: When artists sign contracts, and let’s say an institution… or commercial gallery doesn’t fulfil the contract, what can artists like me do? We can’t sue them – we have no money. If we complain to our peers, our peers can’t do anything.

He shared how, at the time of our interview, he had been waiting almost a year to receive payment for work completed: I have to just wait and wait and wait. The job is done. The job was conceptualised, it went to fruition, it’s already archived and I’ve yet to get paid. So I think these are the issues that, like I know that if I sign a certain contract, I know that... nobody will protect my interests as an artist.

Masuri also described a separate incident when a gallery even lost his artwork: I had a group show one time. Thirty minutes before the opening, I got a text from the assistant curator saying that they lost my artwork. Can you imagine me coming to my group show, and my artwork is not there?! Yeah, with no explanations. (…) If I am Tang Da Wu or Amanda Heng, they would probably scramble, looking for the artwork and probably they would postpone the show. What I’m saying is this – an artist like me, my peers, who are just starting out, emerging artists... I know this is something people say is a rite of passage that everybody goes through... But you know what, if the system is right, we don’t have to go through this. We don’t have to be treated like this.

Artists offered several ideas of how to improve things in this regard. Divyalakshmi hoped the art ecosystem can become more “sustainable” by developing and

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implementing “proper regulations, unions, support networks.” Zarina and Masuri expressed the need to better prepare art students to face the challenges of being a practicing artist. Zarina for instance makes it a point to discuss the real-world pitfalls and realities with her younger Diploma in Fine Arts students, whom she said have “quite naive but also very idealistic sort of ideas about what it means to be an artist, to be a practising artist.” According to Masuri, teaching art students about their legal rights and the resources available to them if conflicts arise would greatly benefit them, and better prepare them for the future: I think artists in Singapore, even when I did my BA in LASALLE, we are not taught about art laws. Sometimes artists are not aware of what their rights are, how to fight for their rights. Like when they are in a crisis, who they can look for to seek help. Because I think not all artists have access to lawyers. (…) And not everybody has that kind of social currency with people of power, you know, who can make things easier for you. So that’s why I always feel like this is an issue, because I always feel conflict arises when contracts are not fulfilled properly.

4.3 Investing in Arts Education In order for art to “be more valued by more Singaporeans at large,” Salty said that the education system should be more open to creativity and more nurturing of students inclined towards the arts: It starts in schools where children and teenagers are told they are bad at art and where we analyse literature texts but hardly engage in creative writing of our own. Fewer are choosing to take art or literature because subjects with more standardised answers maximise the potential of good examination scores. Singapore is a very rational society. At its core, when stripped of the systems and infrastructures in place, art is irrational, and essentially mysterious. Education needs to protect and nurture that precious space. Deeply valuing creativity —in ways that are generative and inspiring, not contrived— needs to be a core mission of the Singapore education system.

Maisarah said that art education should be reframed early on in a child’s education journey: I think for art education... especially in primary school, secondary school... I’m hoping that we can break this stigma… that art is meaningless or irrelevant. Really try to push it, to understand that art requires thinking and a lot of research. You know, there’s a lot of innovation as well to it. I think, we need more diversity as well in the education part.

Kray believes exposing students to aesthetics as early as Primary 4 (age 9 +) would help them develop curiosity, openness to the unfamiliar and critical thinking. Empowering young minds to interpret art for themselves is an important skill in art appreciation which would carry over to all aspects of their life, and lead to the long-term engagement of future generations in the arts. He explained:

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As for art appreciation in the general public, I don’t think we have veered very far from art as painting, art being a realistic painting or a cool looking graphic. Yeah, I don’t think we have come very far from that. So then, how can we reform the education in such a way that provides all rounded education on Aesthetics… to not turn away from things that you seemingly don’t understand or seemingly don’t recognize or are unfamiliar or something. I think it really has to start very, very fundamentally in everyone that way.

In Kray’s view, cultivating deeper arts appreciation among younger generations, would lead to local audiences that are more engaged in the arts, and, in his words, “if there is a more committed audience and more committed patrons, then it will help in all ways.” If education does not instil arts appreciation and the critical and conceptual thinking needed to appreciate art, Kray affirmed that the state’s efforts at engaging the public (by encouraging people to attend events) will remain ineffectual: There is a lot of effort in trying to reach out to the general public but these efforts are sometimes quite superficial and simply trying to boost numbers. It may be quite an innocuous intention on its own, to have the numbers be some kind of visible accountability, but by merely perpetuating this kind of mentality that, bigger numbers mean bigger engagement, it’s not helpful.

Other artists also expressed concern about the over-emphasis by funding bodies of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as attendance to measure success, and hoped these institutions will move towards more nuanced, qualitative ways of defining social impact. This ties into the importance of educating, in this case, decision-makers in the field of arts management about the intangible value of the arts and qualitative approaches that might be better suited.

5 Concluding Thoughts 5.1 Mind Map of Hopes The chapter highlighted i) space, ii) elitism, iii) inclusion and iv) valuing the arts, as the four key areas that emerged from our data, around which artists’ grievances and hopes coalesce. For lack of space, this chapter could not address every single issue and recommendation mentioned by the artists during our interviews, and focused on the more commonly voiced views/concerns. Nonetheless, the following mind map (Fig. 2) was made to include some of the other ideas, alongside the four major threads/themes, because even though these were not shared as widely and did not come up as frequently in our conversations, they are still worth noting. Briefly, some of the areas not covered in the chapter include the hope for greater freedom of expression as expressed by a few artists who shared their personal and professional experiences of censorship. Another was the desire to question and break down existing divisions and hierarchies within the field of contemporary art, e.g.

Fig. 2 Hopes expressed by artists

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between: i) institutional and commercial art worlds; ii) art practices labelled as “crafts” (as is sometimes the case with sculpture) versus contemporary art that is perceived to be more conceptual; iii) the nebulous labels of “emerging” artist and “established” artist; and iv) so-called “community art” versus contemporary art10 (with their associated “low-brow” versus “high-brow” labels). Some artists expressed their desire for change from within/among the members of the art community in Singapore: i) for artists to take themselves less seriously and have more fun—be outrageous, rebellious, flamboyant trickster spirits; ii) for artists to be more authentic and less derivative in their work; iii) and for all artists and art workers to exercise more care and compassion towards one another. Apparent in the data is the role of the state and its policies looming large in a number of the concerns voiced by the artists we interviewed. Discontent was aired in terms of the state doing too much (centralizing and micromanaging art-spaces, censorship, etc.) and the state doing too little (not providing enough support to local artists and artists belonging to minority and marginalized groups, inadequate arts education, etc.). There has similarly been a double movement in terms of artists’ relationship to state funding. As we have discussed in relation to grants, state funding is of great concern to contemporary artists as so many depend on it. Since the pandemic, there have been both an increase in independent showcases (as noted earlier in the chapter) and a rise in the number of arts organisations and freelancers receiving state funding through the Arts and Culture Resilience Package (ACRP).11 Also apparent are the links, overlaps and intersections between different areas. By visually representing the various themes and recommendations in a mind map, these links may become more clear (the dashed-line arrows in Fig. 2 are an attempt at representing these interconnections and processes of positive feedback). It’s important to recognize the intrinsic interdependence (and constant change) of all aspects of life. The Singapore arts ecosystem does not exist in a vacuum but is actively being shaped by wider processes, structures and dynamics of power. Like any social system and complex networks of interwoven relationships and interdependent processes, it can only be truly grasped in terms of how each aspect relates to one another, and to a larger whole. The term arts “ecosystem” is now commonly used to describe a community of interacting people, products, institutions and processes engaged in the art world. The term “ecology” in relation to the arts is employed to refer to the complex and interdependent relationships and flows that occur in the processes of creation and consumption of art. Both terms are useful; rather than seeing Singapore’s contemporary arts ecosystem as an “economy” or “industry,” embracing an ecosystemic and ecological approach acknowledges the dynamic interactional patterns (feedback processes and 10

Cf. Chap. 6 about this dichotomy. ACRP was created to offset the loss of income faced by those working in the sector of arts and culture during the pandemic. S$75 million was committed in 2021, with an additional S$12 million top-up in March 2022 (Ong, 2022). A number of grants are destined for registered arts organisations and a few are aimed at self-employed individuals.

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multiplier effects) between elements, and between these and their broader context. It also offers a holistic perspective that does not privilege economic value and considers other non-monetary, intangible and non-quantifiable values which attach to arts and culture—something artists in Singapore fight to emphasize. While recognising there is no clear cause and effect, and that life is shaped in no small part by the unintended consequences of actions, changes in specific areas are nevertheless more likely to directly engender changes in others. As numerous artists pointed out, investing in arts education would have a significant positive multiplier effect on other areas needing amelioration, such as audience engagement and social perceptions towards the value of the arts. Teaching a wider diversity of artistic practices and emphasizing greater critical thinking at school would instil creativity and openness to the unknown and the unfamiliar among the youth, thus fostering meaningful and long-lasting public engagement with art throughout their lives. Moreover, reigning in the narrow emphasis on scholastic achievement would give breathing space for neurodivergent individuals to thrive and provide opportunities for difference to emerge. Likewise, channelling state resources towards leveraging the autonomy and sustainability of independent artist-run spaces (rather than asserting control over them) would bolster community building and place-making, while allowing for a greater diversity of voices, artistic practices and ideological perspectives to be expressed. The state’s proclivity to micro-manage (and the effects of such control) are encapsulated in Kwok Kian-Woon’s famous metaphor of Singapore as a “bonsai garden” (2004) where the arts and culture are weeded, pruned and miniaturised. It follows that recalibrating the state’s “pruning” would allow the non-linear, messier and dynamic possibilities fostered by independent and artist-run spaces to take root and flourish (to continue the botanical metaphor!). Perhaps it is time to go beyond the clichéd environmental buzzwords used in policy discourse like “regeneration,” “symbiosis,” “positive feedback loops” and “sustainability,” and attempt a time-tested ecological approach—that of rewilding Singapore’s arts ecosystem by letting things blossom naturally. Of creating not life itself but the conditions for new life to bloom.

5.2 Limitations and Reflections Firstly, as previously mentioned, this chapter is not an exhaustive list of all improvements Singapore artists are hoping for due to the limited number of respondents. Secondly, as much as we tried our best to be as inclusive as possible, the selection of 25 individuals inevitably excludes others (see the Introduction for a discussion of our methodology and selection criteria). Thirdly, as with all research that is primarily based on interviewing as a means of data collection, there are issues when it comes to reliance on verbal communication and discourse. It is possible that respondents felt varying degrees of inhibition, distrust or discomfort in answering our questions. Moreover, while the question of how to improve the arts ecosystem may seem like an

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innocuous one, some concerns/issues may have been deemed too sensitive to raise. There are a number of areas which artists may not have felt they could speak at will about (with us, in context of our research project,12 or in general). I mention this so that readers can bear in mind the unspoken in this chapter. The centrality of state funding in numerous artists’ livelihoods may have made some feel less ‘free’ or at ease to level criticism at the government institutions that fund their practice now or in the future. Some people’s reservedness about revealing too much appeared only after we shared the transcript of our interview with them. A few respondents requested for parts of their transcript (especially comments critical of government organizations, agencies and policies) to be put off the record, for fear of loss of future opportunities. Additionally, comments pertaining to specific incidents of conflict or animosities within the art scene were retracted in order to maintain interpersonal harmony and out of reputational risk-aversion (fear of being perceived negatively by others).13 Social justice was a notable concern among artists, as it rightly should be. Many spoke of the need for greater equity, diversity in representation and genuine inclusion of artists from minority communities and historically marginalized populations. Racial and gender-based inequities were at the forefront of people’s concerns. Artists’ testimonies reflected a questioning of who is in the proverbial room and how the choice of who to let in makes a huge impact. Artists also pointed out how different forms of oppression intersect and work together. Intersectionality is an important framework to bear in mind when working towards inclusion. It means acknowledging every individual’s multiple and intersecting social identities, and understanding how these multiple intertwined identities articulate with discriminatory systems in society (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc.) to engender different degrees of privilege and oppression. It should be noted that diversity and inclusion are not interchangeable notions. Diversity is more closely linked to representing people with both more visible differences (possibly age or race, among others) and more invisible differences (possibly sexual orientation, neurodivergence, socioeconomic status, spiritual or religious identity, among others). The more diverse the representation, the likelier it is that a collective or organization develops inclusive practices and an inclusive culture (one that is open to different perspectives). But that is not automatic. Checklist diversity that manifests as insincere or surface-level efforts to promote diversity 12

As stated in the Acknowledgements, this research project was funded by the National Institute of Education (NIE), the organization that provides teacher education training to students who wish to teach in Singapore’s public schools. NIE’s close ties to the Ministry of Education may have given some respondents pause in sharing their views with us, even though our research team had autonomy in the conceptualisation and implementation of the project. 13 Given the relatively small and tight-knit art scene in Singapore, reputation management is a common concern due to the fear of “whisper networks” (ila, personal communication, March 18, 2021). Risk-aversion and concerns over preserving interpersonal harmony are perhaps more marked in Singapore relative to cities with larger art communities (where, for example, avoiding someone one dislikes is a much easier endeavour). This sensitivity towards cultivating one’s networks and one’s place within them was also noted to exist in the music scene in Singapore (see Lizeray & Lum, 2019).

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for the sake of appearances only leads to apparent diversity without actual inclusion (i.e. percentage without impact). Fostering real inclusion requires intentional efforts to seek out and value differences (both visible and invisible) and create spaces where heterogeneity of all kinds can emerge, and where people from minority and disenfranchized backgrounds are empowered to effect change. Just as this chapter is not an exhaustive list of every single improvement to be made in the Singapore arts scene, the section on diversity and representation also offers an incomplete picture of inclusion needs and hopes. I’d like to point out two of the gaps in this chapter with regards to this. The historical systemic oppression of LGBTQ+ artists and communities was mentioned infrequently and only in passing in response to the question of what could be done to improve the arts ecosystem, but was alluded to in much greater detail by several artists in context of discussions about their work.14 Another gap relates to the inclusion of disabled artists and the need for disabled leadership in the local arts ecosystem, both of which, as multidisciplinary artist Dawn-joy Leong mentions in her Afterword to this chapter, are often missing from discussions about diversity, equity and inclusion. Improving the inclusiveness of Singapore’s arts ecosystem means more than making accommodations and adjustments for accessibility, but amplifying the voices and choices of disabled people,15 including those with invisible or hidden disabilities. We hope this chapter has given our patient readers some insights into Singapore artists’ perspectives and yearnings for change at this moment in time. May conversations, critiques, disagreements and dialogue flourish and abound!

14

Chapter 9 is devoted to how artists explore/express queerness in their practice and how they often deploy strategies that rely on ambiguity and concealment (see also the analysis of the artist nor’s work in Chap. 2 and their creative Afterword to that chapter). 15 Disabled leadership is discussed in Chap. 6 in context of Alecia Neo’s Unseen: Constellations (now Unseen Art Initiatives), which has, over the years, increasingly made space for the creative decision-making and artistic leadership of blind and visually impaired collaborators/co-creators.

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Afterwords by Priyageetha Dia, Dawn-joy Leong, Loo Zihan, & anGie seah Priyageetha Dia Burn (Still)

Afterwords by Priyageetha Dia, Dawn-joy Leong, Loo Zihan, & anGie seah

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Dawn-joy Leong I am Autistic with multiple medical disabilities—in other words, I am disabled. I use Identity-First terminology to describe myself and I wear my identity as Autistic and disabled proudly, factually, without embellishment. I began my research journey in autism, neurodiversity and disabilities, and my artistic practice overseas, first in Hong Kong, where I premiered my signature multimedia multidisciplinary immersive autobiographical show, which bears the main title, Scheherazade’s Sea. From Hong Kong, I went to Australia to pursue my Ph.D, where my works were subsequently presented, and thereafter in the United Kingdom, South Korea, Singapore and most recently in Japan. Prior to my return to Singapore in 2016, my professional artistic practice has always been situated in the mainstream, and not in the ‘arts and disabilities’ sector or as ‘disability art’—I was known simply as a researcher and artist who happened to be disabled. My work has been shown in major festivals and galleries that were not disability specific, but I was nevertheless given appropriate disability support so that I could access the various physical and mental spaces to deliver my professional work accordingly. This same standard procedure applied to the other artists with disabilities who were practising within the same mainstream spaces. As a researcher and multidisciplinary artist, I read with interest the issues raised in this chapter on “hopes”. It was a quick and easy read, that is, there were no complex ideas being expounded, every conundrum highlighted herein is familiar to me: the need for mental and physical space, the wish for a less elitist and more egalitarian system, the call for greater inclusion of the marginalised and underrepresented, and the desire for the arts to be held in higher esteem and better valued by society. I sense a palpable weariness and perhaps even guarded fear in the voices of the artists being cited, embedded within an over-arching sincerity, conviction and passion for their work. What is disappointing, however, was that throughout the conversation about inequality, the cries against privileged establishment, the disappointment of unmet needs, and hopes for a better future, there is not one deliberate mention of disability or the challenges faced by disabled artists. Perhaps this is where I may step in and offer insights from this neglected paradigm. I reflect upon the four main categories in this chapter and the main topic of “Hope,” from the viewpoint of a practising artist, researcher and disabled person. Since returning to Singapore, I have noticed that in most mainstream publications about the arts and artists in Singapore, we—disabled artists—are seldom even mentioned at all, making us seem non-existent, without a voice of our own outside of the delegated ‘arts and disabilities’ space. Is this because disability is a taboo subject that nobody in wider society wants to acknowledge, and/or because the artistic community here in Singapore does not even think disabled persons can be professional artists in mainstream spaces? One cannot talk with any credibility about matters of equity or justice in any domain if the disabled among us are erased, ignored or relegated to silos away from wider society. There can be no sincerity in any call for inclusion or recognition of

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diversity if disability is not fully and equally included—the symphonic chorus of ‘diversity and inclusion’ rings empty, or dull and out of tune. To the non-disabled reader, you might wonder what I am talking about, you might even be a little affronted at this seemingly ‘unfair assertion’, because you are being made ‘aware’ about disabilities through the plethora of campaigns in public and social media, and there has been a great deal of talk around diversity and inclusion in recent years, so much so it even feels like a ‘trendy thing’ nowadays. That may be true from the perspective of the non-disabled. However, here is what I, a disabled artist with extensive mainstream experience outside of Singapore, have observed in my homeland since returning in late 2016. I notice a surge of ‘awareness’ campaigns, mostly about being kind and charitable towards disabled people. In the arts, there is a growing number of organisations and collectives mostly fronted by the non-disabled or together with a tokenised disabled person who may or may not be an established practising artist, all scrambling aboard the ‘disability bandwagon’. Some look to be sincere and well intentioned but ignorant or without depth of understanding about the disabled paradigm; others with obvious agenda emblazoned across their foreheads who deliberately ignore the voices of actual disabled artists when their ‘inclusive’ activities are called out and questioned. There is no disabled artist in a leadership position in any large disability-focused arts organisations or the Arts and Disability Forum held annually, the latter of which is jointly organised by the National Arts Council and ART:DIS (formerly known as Very Special Arts Singapore), with support from the British Council. Disabled artists know a great deal about disability, and the lack of Space in the arts. Disabled artists in Singapore do not enjoy much space, if any at all, for our creative development outside of the charity models that bind us to the bottom of the “non-essential” heap. We occupy precious little mental space in the grand realm of inequalities, in fact, we are not even mentioned much at all. The truthful realities about disability are obfuscated and seen as almost a bête noire unless they can be pulverised, re-shaped and transformed into a more palatable form for public consumption, presented by non-disabled actors, written by non-disabled playwrights, directed by non-disabled directors, produced by non-disabled producers—all without any professional advice or consultation with actual disabled persons, and of course devoid of disabled leadership (“What is that, is there such a thing as disabled leadership?” you may even ask). I shall relate a few true experiences to illustrate my point. Shortly after I returned to Singapore in late 2016, I was approached by an author to contribute a chapter to her book consisting of personal stories written by autistic adults in Singapore. She is a non-autistic mother to an autistic young person, has published several books about parenting an autistic child and gives talks as if she is an authority on autism. Having practised overseas and thus being accustomed to receiving fair payment for my expertise and time, I asked her about remuneration or a share in royalties, and she instantly said no, she could not afford to pay from her own pocket for the contents of her own book and she does not earn much at all from royalties anyway. I could sense a prickly tone to her curt reply, as if affronted. I told her that if she was willing to share even one dollar from her ten dollars of royalties

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with each of us, it would already stand out as reassurance of sincerity. Needless to say, I declined to participate. A number of autistic adults were nevertheless willing to share their stories, and one of them told me that he did so because he was quite desperate to have a voice in the wider scheme of things. This author offered ‘exposure’ and nothing more, and many autistic adults, after a lifetime of being silenced, were therefore eager to participate, even if it meant being taken advantage of. I have never heard of any occasion where this author actually invited any autistic adult to copresent and be paid in any of her paid speaking engagements where she was invited to speak about autism and promote her books. Then there was an arts group that claims to be socially conscious and community focused that approached me to speak at an event they were hosting. When I enquired about a speaker’s fee, I was once again faced with a bristly reaction. “No budget!” had, by then, become quite a buzzword among those who do not consider the disabled as worthy of being budgeted for from the very start of their projects but then have no qualms about exploiting a disabled person’s time and energies for their own ends, touted as “a good cause”. I point out time and time again, that they, the non-disabled, can survive because many either hold full time jobs or are able to work at many different jobs, whereas most disabled artists in Singapore are either unemployed or simply unable to manage several jobs simultaneously and thus can hardly make ends meet. However, they did not leave it there, but ventured further to chide me, saying that as an ‘experienced artist’ I should be giving talks for free, in order to ‘inspire’ young aspiring artists. My reply was this: If young aspiring artists see that experienced artists, their supposed role models, especially those with disabilities, are required to work entirely for free, and even dig into their own pockets and pay a heavy personal price16 to do unpaid work, why in the world would they even aspire to become artists in the future? I cannot think from any reasonable perspective how ‘inspiring’ poverty and exploitation can be. There was, of course, by now a familiar roaring silence, which spoke volumes to me. Later, I did hear that they had begun to pay other disabled artists to give talks after this miniature fiasco, and though I was never asked by them again, I feel that the insult and consequences I suffered over this fracas was well worth it, if it helped to bring the message across in some small way. On another occasion, I was contacted by a film company who told me they were producing a television series about some female autistic IT genius. Two young executives asked me if I would be their Autistic consultant to look out for accuracy of representation. They already had a non-autistic clinical psychologist in the team. I was delighted at first, but when I said my expertise comes with a fee, they baulked. Their producer said there was nothing in their budget for a consultant, but please, please, pretty please could I come on board anyway, and follow the actress around the 16

Disability support is expensive. In my case, I have to pay for hiring private transport for myself and my assistance dog at the time, because I am unable to travel by public transport. Other less obvious costs have to do with my medical disabilities that are triggered each time I venture outside for any effortful activity, which render me utterly exhausted, immunocompromised and in need of a few days of recuperation. These are costly expenses that the non-disabled are not mindful of, but which are part of a disabled person’s existence.

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set and give her educated, knowledgeable lived-experience advice for free? Please? As a ‘friend’? I was flabbergasted at the last plea. I had never met these two young persons before this, and now they want me to work for free as their ‘friend’! I told them that my real friends would never ask me to do work for free. The audacity was utterly confounding. I once performed in a show about disability at a well-known venue and arts company that likes to promote ‘accessibility and inclusivity’ as part of their branding. One of our cast was a wheelchair-user, but the artists’ dressing rooms were on the second floor. I myself was struggling with a painful arthritic flare. When I enquired about a lift, I was told, sorry this is a heritage building and no alterations can be done to the original structure. Our director ended up having to physically carry the wheelchair user up and down two flights of steep, narrow stairs to and from the artists’ dressing rooms—during rehearsal breaks and before and after the performance. I shall not elaborate further on the humiliating experience for both wheelchair user artist and director. Artists are supposed to be creative people, and if they were sincere about their claims to being inclusive, they would have created a small little space on the first (ground) floor at the foyer—it did not even need to be a permanent structure, a temporary space with curtains for privacy would have worked well enough. Nobody was using the foyer at the time anyway. Another recent experience that left a decidedly unpleasant after-taste was my brush with an advertising agency engaged to produce ‘awareness’ videos about disability. The international company, with a hefty and impressive portfolio that included famous Singapore brands, wanted to hear from disabled people their personal stories, and it sounded promising because I was told we would be given some creative control over how we wanted to shape the campaign. I was in for a rude shock, however, when I read the terms and conditions of the contract. In essence, we, the disabled people sharing our personal life stories, were asked to sign away our rights to our own words, image and life story completely, unquestioningly and in perpetuity without recourse, to the advertising agency to treat in any way they liked. We would also surrender all rights to disagree or protest any misrepresentation, and could not even withdraw from the project. Of course, I vehemently objected with my customary outspoken vim and vigour, and the advertising agency amended the contract into a less blatantly exploitative one, giving disabled volunteers a chance to withdraw from the project, but the agency still did not engage any disabled professional consultant, as far as I know. I have, of course, declined to be involved in this project. This shocking debacle underlined a pressing point: the stories of disabled people need to be told, but are best relayed by the disabled themselves. As for me, I have decided it is time to tell my story myself, in my own way—multi-media disability-friendly (universally accessible and inclusive) memoirs coming up, please watch for it—Scheherazade is stirring in her Sea again! Each time I am faced with such scenarios, two key issues stand out repeatedly. First and foremost, the people producing, participating in, and funding ‘artistic’ or ‘creative’ content featuring disability and disabled persons—be it film, advertisements, theatre, music concerts, art exhibitions, short videos, educational material, workshops or events etc.—are mostly non-disabled and seldom have on board a

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disabled professional consultant. In the case of theatre, television or film, the disabled characters or roles are almost always played by non-disabled artists. There is no thought at all for consultation with any actual disabled professional (although there are many competent advisors around the world and a very small handful in Singapore who offer such services), demonstrating complete disregard for accurate representation of disability and disrespect for disabled professionals. The non-disabled producers and directors think they know better how to present disability than actual disabled persons. Perhaps they assume their audiences would be mostly non-disabled and none the wiser anyway, and even if a disabled person or two may watch the show, the opinions of the minority do not matter at all, so long as ticket sales and ratings are not affected? Secondly, these non-disabled organisers, producers, directors and actors become extremely defensive when called out. The most common excuse I hear is, “Sorry no budget!”, or “Well, I’ve done a lot of research!” but they then proceed to use offensive or wrong terminology, all of which show they never thought about proper disability representation in the first place, since disability and the disabled community are merely token appendages and afterthoughts to their plan to benefit from the ‘grand disability circus’. More often than not, suggestions and advice voluntarily proffered by disabled professionals like myself are blatantly ignored because it doesn’t fit into their agendas. I have experienced consistently callous, even somewhat aggressive disregard for the opinions of the disabled in many such productions or even paid workshops about disability put up by non-disabled entities touting the “inclusive” branding. Inevitably, inaccuracies permeate the end-products, perpetuating urban myths about disability, and become nothing much more than glossy feel-good “inspirational porn.”17 Perhaps they get away with such preposterous attitudes because the majority of their clientele—their patrons, audiences and paying customers—are non-disabled, either ignorant or ableist, who will applaud them, and even cry at these slick, polished productions, saying how touchingly disability was represented. They may even win a few awards or accolades too, which they have no intention to share with any disabled people, not even those whose stories they’ve capitalised on (hence the preposterous terms and conditions in these contracts mentioned in a preceding paragraph). At this point, I must assert, in all fairness, that it is not an entirely hopeless situation. There are arts organisations and institutions who do pay attention to disabled artists and do their best to ensure proper representation of disability, hire and remunerate professional disabled artists, strive to provide adequate accessible and inclusive training to aspiring disabled artists, and even involve disabled arts professionals in creative decision-making. However, these tend to operate mostly within the ‘arts and disability’ silo and the work produced by their disabled artists are looked down upon as poor quality, sub-standard art by the mainstream arts community. These 17

“Inspirational porn” was coined by the late Stella Young, a well-known disabled disability advocate, referring to productions that objectify disabled persons as ‘inspiring’ in order to play on the emotions of the non-disabled. Stella Young, “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much!” TEDx Sydney, last accessed 18 July 2022. https://youtu.be/8K9Gg164Bsw.

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organisations battle the unspoken pervasive attitude that disability and disabled artists are not to be taken seriously, unless they can be exploited for the benefit of the nondisabled. In recent years, many major arts venues and institutions are also beginning to embrace the process of providing access and inclusion to the disabled community, and a number of them—like the Disabled People’s Association and Equal Dreams, are beginning to hire disability professionals as consultants to help design their fledgling access and inclusion programmes. Most of these ‘enlightened’ institutions, however, focus heavily on the disabled arts consumers, wanting (rightfully) to draw more of the disabled community into their premises and performances etc. However, not many have shown much willingness to break with ‘tradition’ to support actual disabled artists through commissions or staging events and running programmes. One exception, in my personal experience, is the National Gallery Singapore. In 2020, I became the first autistic artist to be commissioned by a major arts institution for a solo exhibition, a new iteration of my other signature immersive installation, Clement Space, about conducive space for mental wellbeing designed according to natural autistic self-coping mechanisms and shared with the wider community. Simultaneously, the National Gallery also commissioned Singapore’s first theatre promenade featuring a cast of six differently disabled artists, conceptualised and directed by theatre veteran, Peter Sau. The National Gallery Singapore also commissioned me as Community Consultant to coordinate a series of participatory research workshops with volunteers from the neurodivergent community (autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia, dementia etc.) and to lead the co-design of their recently launched Calm Room, again a first in Singapore that is open to the public and not reserved only for autistic children or the disabled or autistic. The National Gallery’s extensive access support facilities for visitors were also designed in consultation with the Disabled People’s Association. People sometimes ask me why I cite the National Gallery so favourably and not other organisations. My answer is straight-forward and truthful: I do not know of any other organisation in Singapore that has put the words “access and inclusion” into such extensive and concrete practice, walking the talk, being willing to forge ahead and boldly step into groundbreaking territory with such confidence and dedication, not only where arts consumers are concerned but additionally and more importantly where it comes to disabled professional artists too. It is my belief that support for the disabled arts consumer is only half of access and inclusion, there must be equal if not more robust support for disabled professional artists in order to activate true access and inclusion, justice and equity, and respect for diversity. Where it comes to public funding in Singapore, I am unaware of anything outside the arts and disabilities arena or beyond the charity model that specifically provides for professional disabled artists’ access needs. I once asked at a supposedly ‘high level’ meeting of well-known arts professionals in Singapore if there could be some kind of ‘top-up’ grant or fund for disabled artists who manage to get funding via mainstream channels, for the specific purpose of disability support. The reply was, “Thank you for your passion and caring for the disabled, but it’s too complicated, too difficult.” That was that. End of discussion—or rather, no discussion at all. The other non-disabled artists hurriedly moved along, nobody spoke up for or with me, everyone was too eager to grab their own piece of the already tiny pie. It is not

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widely understood or acknowledged that the mere existence of a disabled person is financially costlier than that of the non-disabled, and providing adequate access and true inclusivity involves willingness to reach beyond mere ‘awareness’ of our existence, to actively and vigorously support equity and intrinsic, autonomous development. Without dedicated funding, disabled artists are expected to compete with non-disabled artists for limited financial support inside a system focused solely on meeting the needs of only the non-disabled. Here is a simple analogy: The current public funding system for any disabled artist who wishes to practice in the mainstream arena is akin to a benevolent invitation to the disabled person, for example, a wheelchair user, to participate in a grand party, which is taking place on the second floor of a building with no lifts. However, the wheelchair user has to leave their wheelchair on the ground level and crawl up the stairs to the party, as nobody wants to build a ramp or provide a lift because it is too much a hassle and not worth the additional expenditure. If the disabled person does not wish to or is unable to crawl upstairs, they could get someone non-disabled to carry them upstairs to the party. Nobody cares how the disabled person is to find this someone, let alone the embarrassment and humiliation. The pervasive attitude is, “Well, we invited you to the party, didn’t we? Be grateful and stop complaining! Why are you always asking for special treatment?” The disabled person’s needs are ignored altogether; the charity model of disability is applied, where the disabled person is the recipient of altruism or benevolence but denied any self-determination; and an ableist attitude pervades society as a whole. Lack of disability support, and not disability itself, therefore presents a serious problem to disabled artists who want to develop their artistry beyond existing goodwill charitable models towards achieving competent professionalism. ‘Crawling up the stairs’ is not merely demeaning, but also extremely exhausting. How much can anyone enjoy the ‘party’ thereafter? And what kind of party is this, anyway? I was most fortunate to receive a Creative Grant from the National Arts Council for my experimental work, Scheherazade’s Sea: continuing journey 2021, an autobiographical mixed-medium, multidisciplinary digital fantasia featuring a cast of differently disabled artists at varying stages of their artistic journeys—from the complete novice, to emerging artist and professional. The grant does not have additional support for disability, so I, as Chief Artist and Creator, had to take money from my own artist’s fee, as well as ask for help from ART:DIS as creative collaborator, so that I could provide the most basic disability support in terms of transportation and personnel for preparatory workshops, rehearsals and filming days. Peter Sau was director of performance, courtesy of ART:DIS. I had no money left in the small grant to hire a post-production team apart from one sound engineer, so I took on all the visual elements in post-production—I learned from scratch about video editing, and specifically how to create special effects, and even paid out of my own pocket for a new computer powerful enough to run the required complex video editing software, because my own laptop was incapable of those tasks. Of course, I am incredibly proud of my achievement, especially because I managed to complete it all within just ten weeks, and I am thrilled to have gained many new skills, insights and knowledge in the process, all of which I am looking forward to improving and applying to future projects. However, the intensity and rigorous demands of this undertaking

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in this context and situation were extremely detrimental to my already fragile physical health. In other words, I am grateful to have been invited to the prestigious party, but since I could not afford any disability support for myself and the party host did not wish to provide that to me, I had to crawl all the way up to the party. Half a year later, I am still bearing the consequences where it comes to my medical disabilities. Yes, hardship does build a certain kind of resilience, and disabled artists are extremely determined and ‘tough’ for want of a better word, but at what cost? And is it really necessary? The energy and time spent on this battlefield could and should have instead been put into creating fuller, richer and more creative art work. Is it any wonder that disabled artists in Singapore appear to be less ‘competent’ or ‘professional’ than the non-disabled? The arts community in Singapore, as a collective whole, seriously needs to engage in some deep soul searching, especially those who like to claim accessibility and inclusivity as part of their vision and mission. This was not how I experienced my artistic practice outside of Singapore. When I was invited to present my first solo mixed media show, Scheherazade’s Sea, at the World Stage Design Festival in Cardiff, UK, in 2013, I was asked ahead of time if I needed any supports or accommodations for my disability. The organiser also provided me with one stagehand to help me with setting up the stage and managing equipment. In the same year, I presented a paper at an academic conference in Oxford University, UK. The first room allocated to me in the adjoining hostel did not have a lift, and there was a lot of sensory disturbance coming from other conference participants—noise in the late night, messy toilet habits etc.—which caused significant distress to my Autistic hypersenses. I requested for a change in room, citing my reasons, and I was promptly offered a room in the newer tower where there was a lift, and an ensuite bathroom. They even apologised profusely for the oversight. When I was commissioned to present two of my works at the Big Anxiety Festival, Sydney, in 2017, there was no additional funding for disability support, but the organiser assigned a personal assistant to help me with setting up and other small administrative matters so that I would not need to become overwhelmed and stressed trying to handle everything on my own, or scrape from the small grant to hire my own help. During my Ph.D. scholarship tenure at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, I was provided with all the supports that I requested for, without having to fight tooth and nail for any of it. I was allocated a slightly larger studio space within the shared common room for research postgraduates to accommodate Lucy, my sensory alert assistance dog, at the far end where it was the most quiet and there was the least human traffic, so that my hyper senses would not be unduly stressed. I brought Lucy everywhere I went—lectures, workshops, meetings, art galleries, museums etc.—we traveled as a team, just like a blind or vision impaired person with their guide dog. She helped me to regulate my sensory anxiety and prevent overload and meltdown. With Lucy, I was able to travel independently, I did not need any human to ‘carry me upstairs to the party’. My disability support needs were so well taken care of that I could focus intently on my Ph.D.—which was a practice-based piece of research on autism, neurodiversity and multi-art praxis—and the icing on the cake was being awarded the Dean’s Award at the end, which I neither knew about nor expected. All I wanted was to put all I had—my energies, time and creativity—into my Ph.D., and I

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was fortunate to have been well supported in my grand expedition. Disability support is not ‘special privilege’, it is necessary equity, to bring everyone into a level playing field. My work still had to speak for itself and be assessed according to the prevalent standards, alongside everyone else, but with disability supports, I could then give my all to the work at hand, unhindered by my disability. I did not have to crawl. I took the lift. Freelance artists in Singapore have to struggle for very little in the way of financial security, but what is not highlighted at all in this exhausting and discouraging situation is that disabled artists face an even more difficult set of circumstances—in fact, obliteration is too mild a description for the disabled artist’s predicament, yet the non-disabled world will no doubt judge this as a dramatic over reaction. It is all well and good, and even poignantly valid, for non-disabled artists to speak about hopes for a better and more supportive environment for the arts, but can or should this happen without including the disabled practitioner? How do we speak about our ‘hopes’ and ‘dreams’, if our most fundamental access to training and professional practice is lacking or deemed unimportant, and all our hard work is restricted to awkward trenches marked only for the disabled? As a disabled artist who has always practised in mainstream spaces outside of Singapore, where I never once had to fight for fair disability access support, here are my concluding questions directed at the arts world and its hierarchies in my homeland: Whose lenses is society looking through when disability is presented in the arts and media? Are diversity, fair access and inclusion really the motivation behind the splendid brouhaha of ‘disability awareness’? How many are willing to match their declarations of ‘diversity’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘inclusion’ with concrete, adequate action? Change is happening. At this point of time, the positive change is occurring because of the passionately determined and even sometimes simply “thick-skinned” hard work of disabled artists and our few non-disabled allies. The change may be slow, and I may not even get to enjoy the benefits in my own lifetime. Yet, I am an artist at heart, an optimistic dreamer, and so, it is my personal hope that there will someday no longer be a need to separate the arts into ‘mainstream’ and ‘arts and disability’, and all disabled persons aspiring to become artists will enjoy the fair and reasonable supports they need to realise their dreams, and all disabled professional artists will be given the same respect here in my homeland Singapore that I have enjoyed overseas throughout my decades long career as a researcher and practising artist. My hope for the arts in Singapore, in a nutshell? An arts scene that operates “based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation”.18

18

The Singapore National Pledge.

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Loo Zihan I begin with caveats, namely that I am writing this remotely while pursuing my Ph.D. in the United States. This provides a critical distance, but is also mired in the problems that have been gestured to by the selection of voices in this chapter itself. As structured by the writer, these voices have pointed to the intellectualism and elitism that have been introduced to artistic production in Singapore through its interface with the international art market. I find delicious irony in producing research about a seemingly coherent constituency that gestures reflexively to the trappings of intellectual discourse and language, and my invited response to the chapter on “hope” is itself an optimistic parsing out of inherent assumptions and contradictions that undergird this chapter, symptomatic of artistic thought not just in Singapore, but also in the rest of the world. I would like to pick up on a minor note in the conclusion of this chapter, namely the nature motif that we employ frequently and loosely when we talk about art, and spend some time hesitating over its uncritical employment. We have often referred to the scene in Singapore as an “arts ecology”, and the organic metaphor continues to rear its head through the ventriloquized edited voices in words like “ground up”, “fermentation”, “brewing” and its associations with the earth and the natural. There is an inherent uninterrogated bias towards nature as desired and good, and most importantly, something that can be easily differentiated from the artificial or manmade. This binaristic logic extends uninterrogated through association with values that have been pegged to artistic production, distinguishing worthy or good artistic production—as “sincere”, “authentic”, spontaneous and original—from those that are not. This binary, fed to us through the art education system, which is in turn influenced by the pragmatics of the international art market, is something that we have to be very cautious in citing and reproducing. The reason we have to be wary about the natural/artifice divide is because it is this same division that supports some of the other issues raised in this chapter, namely that of elitism and gatekeeping, but also the pressure for exposure, vulnerability and disclosure. The logic of an art market is structured around the scarcity of artistic genius and the commodifiable objects that the prodigal figure of the artist produces. The romanticized and untenable position that a “real” artist is a delinquent martyr figure that stands in opposition to the State—this produces the weary exhaustion that Farizi Noorfauzi speaks about, this “burden of representation” that a minority artist can often be saddled with. Three main contradictions that come to mind as I review the voices collected and edited in this chapter: How do we encourage a “ground-up” “arts community” that is independent of state funding, without defaulting to being beholden to the interests of private collectors and the art market? Can artistic practice be free from the anxiety of influence—be it creative or financial—and instead of the pursuit of uninhibited autonomy, is it not more effective to question the role of the art in exposing these structures of control? Finally, how can we both call for art to be instrumental and integral to daily existence without it becoming instrumentalized? By stepping outside of this nature/artifice binary, and recognizing how the natural is intertwined with the artificial, and vice-versa, we are able to conjure up more complex strategies to tackle these contradictions. In brief—there is nothing natural

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about Singapore, nature is always-already entangled and part of man-made construct, we are reminded constantly about this in our national garden/city narrative and our daily existence in this highly manicured environment. I suggest we take a third approach and consider the shades of gray that potentially exist between these binary categories, particularly when it comes to issues of independence, freedom, and rightsbased conversation. A nuanced and critical approach will permit us to be careful about anti-intellectualism, and interrogate what specific aspects of intellectualism and research-based practices enable elitism and gatekeeping, and what extends the critical limits of artistic possibilities—and be able to separate the chaff from the wheat (and other particles that are caught up in the mix) however painstaking or tedious this task may be. For example, anGie Seah speaks about scholastic culture at the School of the Arts. In full disclosure, I taught there as a part-time educator for several years in the mid-2010s. From an arts educator’s perspective, it is the type of scholastic culture that is being encouraged that should be interrogated, instead of a sweeping argument that the dislocated excerpt from Seah’s interview appears to be encouraging that conflates intellectualism with elitism. For me, the critical thinking that is enabled by the International Baccalaureate system that centers on understanding the “theory of knowledge”—or an epistemological investigation of knowledge systems and how they came to be—is key to scaffolding a curious artistic mind. These forms of critical intellectual practices should be encouraged over intellectualism that intends to promote a sense of differentiated elitism and reproduce uncritical contemporary art-speak. It will be these intellectual practices that will encourage an awareness around rights-based conversations that was also raised in this chapter. Without a critical understanding and conversation around rights, which lays a common foundation to build upon, it will be impossible for us to even begin to talk about labor and human rights within an artistic context. To return to an earlier observation about the artist as martyr, this criticality will also encourage the ability for an artist to understand how and why they are being instrumentalized by the state and its counterparts. This will equip an artist to handle questions of representation without being saddled with the burden of tokenism or the fear of ellison. The central paradox of the figure of the Singaporean artist is the logic of international art liberalism and the friction it produces when rubbing up against a Singaporean political regime intolerant of dissent. When credibility and legitimacy is earned by adopting and performing the role of the delinquent, this creates a crucible of antagonism that Singaporean artists have been negotiating with for generations. I, like Zarina Muhammad, would like us to to give ourselves the permission to pause, not just from the mindless drive of mechanistic productivity, but more importantly, taking time to understand the constituent forces that act upon the pressures of artistic production in Singapore, and the longer-term psychological toll that this might have on the psyche of the artist-pariah. In conclusion to this brief response, artistic production that thrives is a reflection of the desires and drives of society-at-large. The scholastic emphasis on research-based, immaterial practices that have emerged over recent years mirrors the infrastructure of labor and value in the Singaporean economy. Perhaps in this reflection we can question why this has evolved into an artistic tendency, and wield it as a way to demonstrate alternative ways to being and surviving.

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anGie seah

Research on the exemplification of written theories and collected histories is insufficient for me. Life and living experience, intuition as an artist, and keen observation and compassion for immediate society and communities are more important. My research adds layers to and deepens the purpose of all of my artistic endeavours. In other words, I live the research to breathe life into others through art connections. Here’s how I imagine an ideal art space where Art reflects life.

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References Interviews Cited Alecia Neo, 16th September 2020. anGie seah, 15th September 2020. Divyalakshmi Suressh, 9th October 2020. Fairuz Jaafar, 29th October 2020. Farizi Noorfauzi, 7th December 2020. ila, 19th September 2020. Kray Chen, 24th November 2020. Loi Cai Xiang, 28th November 2020. Maisarah Kamal, 20th November 2020. Masuri Mazlan, 13th November 2020. Priyageetha Dia, 11 November 2020. Salty Xi Jie Ng, 28th November 2020. Seelan Palay, 3rd December 2020. Shayne Phua Shi Ying, 11 December 2020. Zarina Muhammad, 21st December 2020. Zen Teh, 16th October 2020. Zhiyi Cao, 17th December 2020. Zulkhairi Zulkiflee, 24th October 2020.

Other References Elangovan, N. (2021, February 20). The Big Read: The Substation story—how a disused power station became an arts powerhouse that launched a generation of artists. Today Online. https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/big-read-substation-story-how-disused-powerstation-became-arts-powerhouse-launched Hoe, S. F. (2020, February 27). Can Singapore’s arts community build a sense of place amid shifting cultural policies? Today online. https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/building-senseplace-singapores-arts-community?cid=h3_referral_inarticlelinks_03092019_todayonline Hoe, S. F. (2021, February 20). The Substation: How many more canaries in the coal mine? Arts Equator. https://artsequator.com/the-substation-armenian-street/ Ke, W., & Said, N. (2021, November 12). The future of The Substation: A timeline of events (Updated). Arts Equator. https://artsequator.com/the-substation-timeline-armenian-street/ Kwok, K.-W. (2004). The bonsai and the rainforest: reflections on culture and cultural policy in Singapore. In C.-K. Tan & T. Ng (Eds.), Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre (pp. 1–25). Singapore: Times Editions. Lizeray, J. Y.-M., & Lum, C.-H. (2019). Semionauts of Tradition: Music, Culture and Identity in Contemporary Singapore. Singapore: Springer Nature. Ong, S. F. (2020, July 20). ITI, Necessary Stage losing their homes, while Substation may lose much of its space. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/iti-necessary-stagelosing-their-homes-while-substation-may-lose-much-of-its-space Ong, S. F. (2022, March 10). Budget debate: $12 million top-up for arts and culture support. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/budget-debate-12-million-top-upfor-arts-and-culture-support SOTA (n.d.). About SOTA. https://www.sota.edu.sg/about-us/about-sota

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The Substation. (2021), July 23). Media Release.https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56fcaa737 da24fa2afc22beb/t/60fa555662baaf070c898c1a/1627018587773/Substation+2.0+Press+Rel ease+Jul+2021.pdf Toh, W. L. (2021, March 8). Budget Debate: MPs question fate of arts spaces like The Substation. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/budget-debate-mpsquestion-fate-of-arts-spaces-like-the-substation Van Dijk, J. (2020). The Digital Divide and the Covid-19 Pandemic. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Social Inclusion) Working Paper.https://www.un.org/develo pment/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/08/The-Digital-Divide-and-the-Covid-19Pandemic-1.pdf

Correction to: Introduction

Correction to: Chapter 1 in: C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_1 The corresponding author has been changed from “Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray” to “Chee-Hoo Lum”. The correction chapter and the book have been upldated with changes.

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_1 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6_11

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Appendix

Interview Questions These are some of the interview questions we posed. The interview questions that were sent to artists include some of these in addition to others that were tailored to each individual and their work. The interview questions we prepared were not followed like a script during the actual interviews, but were spontaneously and intuitively adapted in context of each conversation. Artistic Work and Art-Making Journey 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

How did you become interested in contemporary art? When did you, and what made you choose to become an artist? What is your (educational and other) background in the arts? What are some things that you are currently exploring in your work? How has your work evolved through the years? How would you describe your art and the themes you’re interested in exploring? Could you describe your process of growth/change or journey/path as an artist from your earlier works to today? Could you highlight some of the milestone events that have driven the changes in your path or propelled you forward (whether internally or externally visible)? Could you share with us what has remained constant? Are there any works you wish to discuss which are of particular significance to your development as an artist? What were your early experiences with art? Did you have any artistic influences or role models within your family/during your childhood? Who/what are some of your key artistic influences (these do not have to be limited to the field of art)? What are your goals as an artist? What is the purpose of making art for you?

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-H. Lum et al., Reimagining Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0864-6

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[We also asked questions specific to each artist and their works. This part has been redacted] Identity Construction/Expression, and Personal Philosophies 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

What are some significant philosophical and/or theoretical frames that guide your creative process/work? What are some core values that underlie the art you make and who you are as an individual? Is there a spiritual, philosophical foundation or belief system that grounds, animates or guides your worldview and flows into the work you do? What is the deep purpose of making art for you? How do you understand the concept of “identity”? To what extent do you view “identity” as more constructed or more ascribed? What were some moments in your life that made you develop your sense of identity? Do you find identity fluid or inescapable or both and in what ways? Do you personally feel a strong sense of identity? How do you conceive of your artistic identity? Is it different from your personal identity? When you think of your own personal identity/s, what comes to mind? How would you characterize your identity at this given moment in time? Are there questions relating to your personal experience or aspects of your identity that you seek to engage with or draw on in your art? If so, what are these? How much of a distinction is there between your personal identity and how you present yourself as an artist to the world? Does the way in which you choose to present yourself to others change depending on the context you are in and/or in which you are showing your work?

The Nation, National Identity/s and Engagement with the State 1. What aspects of national identity does your work engage with or do you seek to rethink or reimagine? 2. Are there any national myths (commonly-held views about the nation and its history) or prevalent social beliefs that are commonly held by Singaporeans that you wish to unpack, question, contest or address in some way through your work? 3. What untold, omitted, forgotten, forsaken, marginalized or invisibilized stories, voices and ways of being in the world, and being with one another as a collective do you seek to explore in your work? 4. What are some of the biggest constraints/limits exerted by external forces or pressures – however you may interpret that - to your ability to create the work you want? 5. Have you ever experienced censorship, including self-censorship? 6. How has your experience been engaging/working with governmental cultural institutions such as the NAC or national museums like NGS?

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7. What’s your thoughts on state funding for the arts in Singapore? 8. Do you ever rely (or have you relied ever) on state funds for your practice? Engagement with and Views on the Singapore (Contemporary) Art Scene 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

How do you see your role (and/or responsibility if applicable) in the art scene and ecosystem in Singapore? What are the current challenges or prospects for emerging artists in Singapore? How have you seen the local art ecosystem evolve over the last few decades? What is the role of contemporary art in Singapore society today? Are you a part of any artistic community/s, scene(s) or network(s) locally, regionally and internationally? Do you perceive any societal/social expectations and assumptions that relate to being an artist in Singapore? What are your thoughts on the diversity and inclusion in curated contemporary art exhibitions/programs/commissions in Singapore? In your experience do the local art ecosystem’s biggest players provide equal opportunities for all artists? If not, where do the most grave inequities in representation lie and what form do they take? What are the processes that contribute to such inequities, and generally that bolster marginalization of certain groups? How has the Singapore contemporary art ecosystem evolved since you started your practice? Do you perceive any constraints or limitations to the kind of themes or issues you may discuss in your work? If so, where are these constraints coming from? Do you feel there are any expectations about your work or about you personally as an artist that originate from societal ascriptions of identity (be it race, nationality, gender, etc.)? Do you view yourself as a “Singaporean artist”? Are you represented by any gallery? Do you exercise any other activity or profession that you’d like to mention or are you a full-time practicing artist? What’s one thing you hope for, for the art ecosystem in Singapore?