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Collection showcases the various projects and programmes at 72-13
Cat Hope - Voyeurages
Performance
Thursday, 14 & Friday, 15 December 2006, 8pm
Free admission
In her newest undertaking, Voyeurages, Cat Hope brings together her skills to create a live performance installation involving ten participants, ten video projectors, ten MP3 players, speakers, and a myriad collection of travel images and experiences. Voyeurages (voyeur/voyage) is a work that speaks about contemporary concepts of journey and visitation.
It explores these concepts and juxtaposes them with the visual impact Of viewing the images on the naked backs of participants. This work delves into the confrontational effects that come with the unique experience of exploring new spaces on a provocative plane — the naked human torso.
An accomplished sound artist, performer, composer, songwriter, and noise artist whose practice is increasingly an interdisciplinary one that crosses over into video, performance, and installation, Cat Hope's work has taken her on numerous tours around Australia, the USA, Japan, and Europe. Hope is currently based in Western Australia.
Bodies, sounds, sensations, and visions all come together in a challenging critique of contemporary travel which is simultaneously imbued with those almost ecstatic states of self-revelation, reflection, and political awareness.
- Jonathan Marshall, catalogue essay, May 2006
Cat Hope's Voyeurages is a stunning contemporary audiovisual investigation into the journey.
- Rosie Denis, Realtime Magazine, Vol. 67, 2005
Cat Hope did the first period of her residency at 72-13 in July 2006 and this is the concluding phase of her residency. This is an Asialink Project. Funded by Arts WA and the Australian Council, the Federal Government’s arts funding and advisory body.
Fly By Night
Moving Image
Friday, 24 – Sunday, 26 November 2006
Free admission
In 72-13’s continuing support for the creative community, its next Open Call is the Fly By Night Video Challenge. It is a unique project that challenges young filmmakers and film enthusiasts to exercise their artistic juices and create a video… in one weekend. Fly By Night has proven to be a launching pad for the numerous enthusiasts who cannot put down that camera! It encourages creativity, absurdity, spontaneity, and fun — all within a tight deadline of 48 hours.
Bringing together participants from all walks of life with one common objective — to shoot and to edit, this competition brings about the birth of aspiring filmmakers, among which are teachers, designers, students, and IT professionals. The videos from Fly By Night have even made their way to other screenings which provide an encouraging platform for the participating filmmakers to exhibit their work.
Fly By Night Video Challenge is the real litmus test on creativity and courage. It is as though you are given a box, and you ask yourself if you are brave enough to accept it. Those who are gutsy enough to accept it must quickly know what to do with it… Either you soar up and high, or you come crumbling crashing down – but so what if you fall flat on your face? Tell yourself, you already had the courage to take up the challenge, and so you are another step closer to take flight!
- Victric Thng, filmmaker
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With support from 72-13.
Lise Nellemann / Janos Fodor / Nordic Institute For Contemporary Art (NIFCA) / - Singapore
Residency
Both Berlin-based, Danish artist Lise Nellemann and Hungarian artist Janos Fodor are residency artists in 72-13 from September – November 2006.
Public Presentation
Monday, 20 November 2006
7pm till late
Free admission
On 20 November 2006, Janos Fodor will show a selection of his work in 72-13.
In particular, Janos Fodor invites the local artists community in an open call for artists for SingaporeLounge in Berlin.
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Please bring your portfolios and digital material, documentations and proposals, and let us meet! We are looking for any kind of experienced artists, students, and professionals who want to take part in the SingaporeLounge, Berlin. All material of the SingaporeLounge will be shown without any selection. The SingaporeLounge will be a part of a forthcoming exhibition titled “Tradition Fiction” in the Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin, in March/April 2007. Your work & materials must relate to the exhibition concept:
“Futurama and re-inventing tradition?
Self-reflection and a kind of integrity corning from cultural diversity is supposed to be the main question of national entity. It is the work thesis for the forthcoming exhibition for the process of progress.
The possibilities of history-making, critical attitude on past events, and the chance to construct an acceptable platform for everybody's self-description on an inter-cultural, national, communal and subjective level, might show a potential solution for today's growing identity crisis.
Our topic is the reconstruction of communal memories, and the know-how of building conversations between different ethnical, political or cultural groups on the common platform of sharing similar place & time.
This reconstruction or rebuilding of memories should be based more on everyday experiences, practical answers, on compromises and conversations and less on comfortable cliches.”
“Tradition Fiction” is curated by Janos Fodor, media artist and journalist, and assisted by Sparwasser HO. Janos' 72-13 residency is made possible by The Berlin Senat and the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin.
Public Presentation
“Documenting Exhibitions And Writing Art History”
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
7pm till late
(with the participation of Ho Tzu Nyen, Paul Rae, Woon Tien Wei (p-10), and Dirk Fleischmann)
Free admission
Lise Nellemann is in Singapore as an exchange between NIFCA and 72-13. With the help of local artists, she will present alternative ways of writing (art) History. As a founder and responsible (programming/policy) for this international artist-run project space, Nellemann writes the history of Sparwasser HQ in Singapore. After 7 years of Sparwasser HQ activities in Berlin, it is time to Document.
Case study: Sparwasser HQ, Offensive for Contemporary Art and Communication, in Berlin (www.sparwasserhq.de)
The 72-13 residency is a research into methods of documenting exhibitions and the writing of (art) history. RE-VISITING and RE-ENACTMENT are the two methods tested.
Invited contemporary artists from Singapore were asked to respond to and elaborate upon a selection from Sparwasser's archive of exhibitions. As a re-interpretation or a re-evaluation of exhibitions which took place in Berlin in the past, this re-visit can help to describe differences in time and Space. A re-visit gives a new dimension to "'art history writing" and provide us with an understanding of how an exhibition can be translated and be read in the future. On 21 Nov, invited artists will present their re-enactments of earlier Sparwasser HQ exhibitions.
Woon Tien Wei from p-10 will move the entire Sparwasser HQ database to a Singapore server and leave it there for a year.
Paul Rae is going to translate a part of the online Sparwasser HQ archive from its original into local languages; he will erase the English/German version.
Ho Tzu Nyen will have Lise Nellemann and Janos Fodor re-enact the current event that they are presenting in Singapore in the present.
Dirk Fleischmann, a German artist-in-residence in Wunderspace Singapore, will due to his own absence at the evening be represented with the help of an alter ego. Using an online communication software, he will interview an artist of an earlier Sparwasser HQ exhibition virtually.
Nelleman will also present on the same day another experimental documentation method, a book, which is being prepared to map the activities of Sparwasser HQ. "How To Engage, 19 floor plans of Sparwasser HO and 5 Parameters of Measuring a Success" shows an extract of ideas and strategies practised and collected over the last years. Based on the earlier projects, it functions as a manual for the future.
Muna Tseng - Stella's Room
Residency
20 – 29 October 2006
Free admission
YOU ALWAYS GO FOR THE GARISH, THE TOO MUCH, THE BAD COMBINATIONS, THE WRONG PROPORTIONS.
I WAS HER COOKIE SHE WAS MY COOKIE CUTTER
72-13 launches its Product Development Residency programme at the International Centre of Asian Arts with Stella's Room. 72-13 invited Muna Tseng, a New York choreographer/dancer to share her process through three works-in-progress showings of this piece about a daughter's translation of her mother's life. Stella's Room brings together ordinariness and fleeting splendour to shape a work of art that unifies mother and daughter without subverting their individualities.
Tseng presented her solo piece, working with the processes of movement, tableaux, dance and storytelling. Following each presentation, audience members were invited to discuss the work, which provided both performer and observers opportunities to learn about, explore and further enrich the work.
Stella's Room will premiere in New York City in 2007.
Audience Feedback
Something about the use of personal history to retrieve a sense of self and reconstruct a notion of a past that is glorified and horrified / Something about the attempt to capture and freeze (like a photograph) that lent itself to the struggles that occur when one generation shifts away not only from one land to another, but shifts values, beliefs, practices, lives!
- Charlene Rajendran, educator
l particularly enjoyed the way in which buried issues — the storyteller's tenuous relationship with her mother, her slight shame for her own social class - became as riveting as the explicit narrative about Stella's life. To generate this effect, lugubrious Leonard Cohen-esque music was used; lyrics like "from this broken hill / all your praises they shall ring / if it be your will” elevated maternal love to a quasi-religious level, implying a tangled connection between love and coercion. It was through this suggestion that the latent, rather uncomfortable mother-child dynamic was noticed; all the better for the production.
- Ashraf Sadfar Husain, journalist
The different time frames, the environment, and the happenings during the creation/gestation process gave an additional aura to the beautiful, sensitive, delicate yet solid, melancholic yet witty performance.
- Moh Siew Lan, arts manager
Jerome Bel / Pichet Klunchun - Pichet Klunchun And Myself
Performance
Friday, 20 & Saturday, 21 October 2006
8pm (105min with no intermission)
Free admission
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Donation tickets to the performance are available. Donations made will go towards 72-13's public programming where we intend to present diverse expressions and perspectives, as well as innovative performances and presentations from Singapore and internationally.
We happened to produce a kind of theatrical and choreographic documentary on our real situation. The piece puts two artists face to face who know nothing about each other, who have very different aesthetical practices, and who both try to know more about the other, and above all about their respective artistic practices, despite the abyssal cultural gap dividing them.
- Jerome Bel
Renowned French contemporary dance choreographer, Jerome Bel, teams up with Pichet Klunchun, classical performer of Thai traditional “Khon” (Thai classical male dance) in the explosive piece, Pichet Klunchun And Myself. The hottest contemporary dance duet in Europe this year, Bel and Klunchun will perform their conversation which explodes all notions of contemporary dance. The success of this most original dance documentary performance is that it brings together two artists who, although worlds apart in so many ways share humour, sensibility, and a great open-mindedness.
Jéröme Bel is a French choreographer well known as a provocateur of the contemporary form. He lives in Paris and works throughout Europe. Pichet Klunchun is a Thai classical dance artist and one of the best known Khon masters in Thailand.
The intelligence, the endurance, fruits of a long learning, can clearly be read on the body of Pichet Klunchun, a Thai dancer, expert in "Khon", a traditional style danced with masks. In duo with Jéröme Bel, they propose Pichet Klunchun And Myself, a dialogue on their respective choreographic practices. Seated on the floor, Jéröme Bel's laptop between them, they ask alternately questions one to another, accompanied with short demonstrations. The generous simplicity of Pichet Klunchun and his capacity to dissect his technique, without reducing it but not without humour, are absolutely brilliant. This choreographic experience and explanation reveals, most innocently, the key to a thousand-year-old art.
- Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, 28 June 2005
With support from the French Embassy in Singapore and Power 98.
Ariani Darmawan / Dinh Q. Le / Navin Rawanchaikul / Ong Keng Sen -Conversations On Diasporas
Talk, Screening, Exhibition
4 – 18 August 2006
Free admission
Providing an insight into the new collaborative transdisciplinary creation Diaspora as well as the work of various artists in that production, 72-13 presents a series of conversations to introduce audiences to the research for this new production.
Friday, 4 August 2006, 8pm
Director Ong Keng Sen opens the series of talks and introduces the thinking and directions behind Diaspora. Delving into the materials gathered from research trips to cities including Mumbai, Los Angeles, Chiang Mai, New York City, Ho Chi Minh City, Bali, Jakarta, the Riau Islands. Ong presents an overview of this new work.
The sea nomads don’t talk to the mind, they speak with the spirit of the person. When they tell a story, it is to the listener's subconscious. They do not trust the memories of the brain. Learning by the mind is not their way. In the boat, half awake, half asleep, they talk to you, you are in a dream, They get inside you even if you don't understand the story. You listen, you forget. Then suddenly one day, you will remember.
- as told by Zai Kuning to Ong
Friday, 11 August 2006, 8pm
When my family escaped from Vietnam we left everything behind, including our family photographs. It was as if we had erased our past. I hoped to find some of my photographs when I came back to Vietnam. I went to a second-hand store that sold photographs but I never found any of them. I began to collect other people's photos because it was a way of getting closer to my family. The photographs came to represent the lives we had before and during the war, a way for me to reclaim what was lost. This was a time when the world only saw images of death in Vietnam but we did have a life there then. I actually have some very fond memories from the years during the war.
- Dinh Q. Le
A Vietnamese-American visual artist currently living and working from Ho Chi Minh City, Dinh Q. Le arrived in the West Coast USA, as one of the boat people, a refugee. Educated in Los Angeles and New York City, he decided to return to his roots and work in his homeland as an artist. His work has been shown all over the world including major biennales such as the Venice Biennale, the upcoming Asia Pacific Triennale, and the Gwangju Biennale. He was recently given a solo mid-career retrospective at Asia Society New York.
Friday, 18 August 2006, 8pm
Screening of “Dragons Beget Dragons”
Discussion with filmmaker Ariani Darmawan follows
It all began at the end of 2001 when Ariani Darmawan, stumbled upon a CD "Music from The Outskirts of Jakarta". It was something she had never heard before, strange and altogether fascinating.
Her curiosity grew deeper as she discovered the history to the music. To this day, Gambang Kromong is known as the only adaptive-culture of the Chinese-Indonesians or Tionghoa Peranakan, as they are popularly referred to, literally meaning Indonesian-bred Chinese. Aside from Darmawan's own personal interest as a Tionghoa Peranakan herself, she felt obliged to share whatever information she had with the public about the existence of this hybrid-culture, complete with its rich historical background. She poses: "How much does one know about one's culture, and moreover, one's self?"
After centuries of living in Indonesia, Chinese-Indonesians are still depicted as estranged from the rest of Indonesian society. Rigid racial stereotypes have been firmly attached to them, as a result of various political interests, not to mention the drive of the Chinese themselves to retain certain cultural purities and their heritage intact.
Gambang Kromong teaches us the survival of a culture; it opens itself up to other cultures, all the while retaining its unique identity.
Darmawan is a film-maker, writer, and a video artist residing and working in Bandung, Indonesia. Her films are often taking on themes of power and identity. She participated in many national and international festivals such as: Film Festival Indonesia, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival. and Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin. In 2004 she was invited by Theatreworks to participate in “The Flying Circus Project” and early 2006 in the Gang Festival, Sydney. “Anak Naga Beranak Naga” (“Dragons beget Dragons”) is her fifth film and is her first long documentary work.
Friday, 18 August 2006, 8pm
Opening of Exhibition and Talk by Navin Rawanchaikul
Come to the special unveiling of the new painting by a Mumbai movie poster painter about "Who is Navin?"
Born of Indian origins, Navin Rawanchaikul grew up in Thailand. Now living and practising his art in two cities, Fukuoka and Chiang Mai, Rawanchaikul is embarking on a search for "Navins" in different parts of the world. This is the genesis of his Bollywood music video for the final performance of Diaspora at the Esplanade:
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Late one night, drinking alone in his Chiang Mai studio Navin Rawanchaikul, a lonesome son of diaspora, and the product of a globalised world finds himself searching the internet for people who share his name. What he discovers is a veritable flood of Navins from curry chefs to rock bands to recent software from Sony. In one obscure search result, he finds an alluring phone number. The call he makes sets him off on a worldwide adventure that will combine the creative possibilities of Navins from every corner of the planet and change the course of history! Or will it?
Rawanchaikul has exhibited all over the world including Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Hayward Gallery London, PS1 NYC, Sao Paolo Biennale, Sydney Biennale, Yokohama Triennale.
Indignation
Festival
1 – 24 August 2006
Free admission
Indignation is the LGBT Pride season in Singapore, reaffirming participation in the intellectual and cultural life of this country. The organisers are motivated by a belief that however difficult, progress is possible. They are not passive victims of ignorance and prejudice in an unchanging landscape. They are active citizens playing their part in making Singapore a better place. Indignation has presented a variety of events through the Open Call of 72-13. Held in August each year, the first season was in 2005.
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https://indignationsg.wordpress.com/
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With support from 72-13.
Nordic Institute For Contemporary Art (NIFCA) / Tan Kai Syng - Suomenlinna Islands, Helsinki
Residency
30 June – 21 July 2006
72-13 / TheatreWorks sends Tan Kai Syng to Nordic Institute For Contemporary Art (NIFCA), which will be reciprocated by NIFCA’s artist, Lise Nellemann arriving in 72-13 in November. Like a typical tourist, she marvels and clicks with her camera at the stereotypical representations; as a consumer-archaeologist she digs and scrapes and scavenges so as to swallow them all in a desperate attempt to make all the surrounding signs, information, noise her own; as a compulsive information-arranger and editor she attempts to digest, re-arrange, regurgitate and re-imagine these trophies and fragments of sounds, sights, experiences, notions... Several of visual artist Tan Kai Syng's major blocks of works have been born of her responses to her environments and often times these are situations that are exotic, curious, cruel, clichéd, inane, or all of the above, all at the same time. Her residency in the Suomenlinna Islands will be short but intense, and the sounds, images, texts and memories collected will become a new travelogue of hers, part of the beginning of a new series of work.
Supported by TheatreWorks.
Cat Hope
Residency
26 June – 21 July 2006
72-13 kick starts a series of residencies in the second half of 2006. It is part of 72-13's remit to house residencies of artists from around the world and at the same time send talented Singapore artists to exciting sites as artists-in-residence.
First up, 72-13 International Centre of Asian Arts sees sound artist, performer, composer, video artist and songwriter Cat Hope embarking on her residency. Conducted over 2 separate periods, this first period will run from 26 June – 21 July 2006, followed by the second in December 2006.
Cat Hope’s practice focuses on the relationship between sound and image, and the notion of the artist and audience as voyeurs. Her compositions always have a performative, improvised element, and often explore the bass range of the sound spectrum. She is an active arts researcher, conducting research into the areas of noise notation, triggering systems, sound in forensic science, film music, and infrasonics.
At 72-13, she is developing her performance installation Voyeurages.
Talk
Thursday, 6 July 2006
7.30pm
Free admission
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Hope will show artefacts, video footage and audio recordings of her work which involves audiovisual installation/performance, mobile phone art, consumer electronics, and noise music.
Showing
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
7.30pm
Free admission
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This is an opportunity to experience the work Cat has been developing during her first residency period at 72-13. Visit the private booth of “The Low Groom”, a live performance installation, and expect a mixture of sound, performance, and video art.
Concert
Thursday, 20 July 2006
7.30pm
Free admission
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Experience a mixture of noise and free jazz when Cat Hope collaborates with other musicians from Singapore and abroad for this improv session. Featuring Lindsay Vickery (sax) and Darren Moore (drums).
This is an Asialink Project funded by Arts WA and the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body.
Station House Opera / Philarmonia Brasileira / TheatreWorks - Play on Earth
Performance
Presented by Singapore Arts Festival
Performed by Gerald Chew, Keagen Kang, Noorlinah Mohamed from Singapore, in collaboration with British and Brazilian casts.
15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25 June 2006
Various times
90 minutes (no intermission)
Dusk in Singapore, tea time in Britain, breakfast in Brazil.
Nine people from three continents perform in one single production.
A quayside building in Newcastle Gateshead,
a skyscraper in Säo Paulo,
a riverside theatre in Singapore,
merge to become a fourth imaginary space.
Three audiences, one in each city, watch the performance simultaneously.
A Brazilian couple is eating breakfast, but the woman is very interested in the man sleeping in Singapore; and why is the English woman watching so closely? When he leaves his flat, she follows him through the streets of Newcastle to his rendezvous in Säo Paulo. The revelation of their relationships is played out across the globe — by performers in three continents together telling a story which is both universal and true to its own locality, its own culture, and concerns.
What are our relations to the rest of the world?
Are we strangers or are we family?
The transcontinental world premiere of Station House Opera's major new work Play On Earth opens across the globe in June, a work that in every literal sense transcends time and space. This first time, the three-continent work is a collaboration between Station House Opera, TheatreWorks, and Philarmonia Brasileira.
In Säo Paulo, Newcastle and Singapore, audiences arrive at a building to watch a show, all visible to each other as they take their seats. This global audience then discovers a much larger, fourth performance, visible on three screens above the actors. Projected simultaneously from three corners of the world, a narrative unfolds, immediate, unpredictable and alive.
Play On Earth is a major international collaboration between Singapore Arts Festival, Station House Opera, NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Northern Stage, Artsadmin, TheatreWorks, Philarmonia Brasileira and Bonito & Compri. Play On Earth is also performed as part of the World Summit on Arts & Culture in Newcastle Gateshead with support from the auspices of the Arts Council England and the National Arts Council Singapore Cultural Cooperation Programme. Supported by British Council and Embassy of Brazil in Singapore.
Liza Dalby - The Making Of A Geisha
Talk
Friday, 21 April 2006, 7.30pm
Free admission
TheatreWorks presents a new work, Geisha, at this year's Singapore Arts Festival. New York-based performer Karen Kandel, winner of several Obies, will weave together stories from geishas, maikos (apprentice geishas). clients, their wives, okamisans (mama-sans), offspring of geishas, and anthropologists. Joining her on stage will be kabuki dancer, Gojo Masanosuke. Kandel and Masanosuke will jointly evoke the dream of the absent geisha. They are the dream sellers, like the geishas.
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In conjunction with the performance of Geisha, 72-13 has invited anthropologist and author Liza Dalby to Singapore to share her experience as a geisha. She will discuss how the appeal of geisha within Japan differs from western curiosity about them.
The only non-Japanese to have ever become a geisha, Dalby will give a talk on Kyoto's modern-day geisha and her experiences doing fieldwork amongst them, She will present an insider's view of the dramatic hairstyles, kimono, and makeup that create the distinctive appearance of Kyoto's geisha and maiko.
Author of “Geisha and Kimono, Fashioning Culture”, Dalby has written extensively on geishas and their worlds. Having first encountered Japanese culture when she spent a year with a Japanese family in Saga City, on the southernmost island of Kyushu during her teenage years, Dalby has gone on to study the language, learn the music, and to research on geishas.
With support from Arts Fund.
Yuen Chee Wai / Jazzkammer / Zai Kuning - I Have Escaped Even Myself
Concert
Saturday, 25 March 2006, 8pm
I am the escaped one,
After I was born,
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valleys,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.
– Fernando Pessoa
How did I come to be this, the person I suppose I am? I am merely myself. So who asked the question? In the mirror, I see that which the others call “me”. Hello. Are you there? The only true thing that I can completely trust. Or should I? If only you were me. Or if I were you. Though I also believe I truly were you. Am I not? I have not escaped. I have escaped.
I have escaped even myself is the second in a series of experimental music/sound art events presented by the Singapore Sound Art Collective (sporesac). Building on the success of “I have lost friends” in February 2005, the series continues to showcase a range of local and global artists in their attempt to ground abstract experimentation through the immediacy of sound. Turning a reflective eye inwards upon the personal psyche, “I have escaped even myself’ attempts to address the elusive nature of the self.
In the realm of performance and art, what defines the artist as self?
Is this his or her undertaking alone? Is the artist not a fiction, one fashioned by an audience, even a non-existent one? Featuring six solo sets of sixteen minutes each, a continuous collage of sound with five bridging segments is presented, each a brief improvised collaboration between the artists, allowing a flow of processes that dissolves the idea of singular performances.
This ongoing series is conceived by Yuen Chee Wai, researched by Alex Goh and produced by Harold Seah and presented by sporesac / Flux Us, with the support of 72-13.
sporesac (Singapore sonic arts collective) is an open-ended assemblage of like-minded musicians and event organisers that seeks to create greater awareness of experimental music and sound art in Singapore and its region. Made up of diverse individuals who nevertheless share a passion for avant-garde sounds, the collective has set its mind on strengthening the emerging experimental music scene in Singapore with a number of ongoing initiatives.
I have escaped even myself will feature Zai Kuning, Evan Tan, George Chua, Yuen Chee Wai, Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre (Jazzkammer). The evening will conclude with a panel discussion with the involved artists, and their thoughts about the idea of solo performances and composition will be discussed.
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With support from 72-13 and Flux Us.
FARM - ROJAK 04
Residency
Friday, 10 March 2006, 8pm
Free admission
Singapore design forum, one of the first creatives under 72-13 SCAN (Singapore Creative Arts Nucleus), FARM presents the next installation of ROJAK (local traditional vegetable and fruit salad, or in Singapore slang, eclectic mix) at 72-13. A platform for people to meet, share, show, and tell, each ROJAK sees 10 creators sharing their work within 10 minutes and with 10 slides. This 4th installation of ROJAK sees another 10 creators taking the floor and sharing their work. Usually crammed into private residencies, ROJAK makes it first public appearance in a public space. Is it a party for hipsters or is it a schmooze fest or is it the best place to spot the newest talent in design circles?
Describe this FARM persona. There are a few of you working on this together. Is FARM a combination of all your different traits?
FARM seeks to be a system-maker or a curator of both online and offline projects that hopes to build the local arts community. In that way, each system is somewhat scientific in its execution and approach. But they are also very different too; like in growing different crops, you use different methods for different systems. And also as we see ourselves more as a backdrop where things can happen, we prefer not to be publicised as individuals when we work as a group. The local creatives are meant to be the celebrated one within all our systems and not FARM. We are also very shy lah.
What are some of the biggest difficulties you face in fulfilling your vision?
Like a farm, we hope that we become self-sustainable. Our goal is to become self-funded one day through the way we run our systems.
Do you only see yourself as being a distribution channel? What other role do you see FARM playing in the creative scene in the future?
Yes, to some extent. We do hope that we can help spread the news or even create discursive forums or news channels. We do need more help in this area. We just started LOBANG (Singlish or Singapore English for “opportunity”) online. It's a very small system based on classifieds which we hope will be useful. Tell us if you got a LOBANG to share ok? Right now, we are preparing to show some systems we have been working on over the next few months. There's STAMP which is a system meant to put creative works in our city. This is made possible with a few major sponsors which we really need to thank. The first target is mailboxes. Let's see how this goes.
Then there's collaborative systems soon called FARMWORK and 's. FARMWORK is a system mostly to generate work for FARM itself by doing architectural and interior works always in collaboration with a local artist/designer(s). In that way it also brings work to the people we collaborate with. The processes and results have been by far very promising. We are all very excited about it. 's is a laboratory we made to create inventive local products. 's does not really mean anything till attached to a person's name, celebrating the maker. In that way, all products made from 's is attached with the creative name, for example, Tan Ah Beng's Cute Toys.
Is there a way to bring the process of your creative product to your audience?
Sharing our process is very important. FARM's process in system-making has been very fluid so far. We make, learn, experiment, adapt, make again. We wish someone can document this but there's no time or money to do so as yet. Our website is the closest means of documenting for us now.
There must be a certain amount of observation that you do in order to align yourself with the scene. Is any of this observation a particular inspiration for your work?
Yes, we do look out for everything (hopefully) though the fields of cross-disciplinary and architecture interest us slightly more. This is so that we do not duplicate what other groups might be trying to do and also to be able to judge what could be lacking and make it happen.
Daravuth Ly / Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture - Seams of Change: Clothing And The Care Of The Self In 19th and 20th Century Cambodia
Exhibition
23 February – 19 March 2006
Free admission
Seams Of Change focuses on the theme of clothing and the care for self. This exhibition shows what the people wore, how they sewed clothing, and how they took care of their bodies more than one hundred years ago, before the "arrival of modern" commodities. Exhibits at this exhibition will include line drawings of the clothes the Cambodian people wore in the 19th and 20th century as well as the different types of cosmetics used during that period. Through the exhibition, we will begin to see the politics and history of Cambodia unfold.
Exhibited as part of The Flying Circus Project (Special Edition 2005. Yokohama) at Yokohama 2005: International Triennale of Contemporary Art in September 2005.
In September 2005, TheatreWorks was invited to participate at the Yokohama 2005: International Triennale of Contemporary Art. At the Triennale, TheatreWorks presented The Flying Circus Project (Special Edition 2005, Yokohama). This project is a school of politics which looks at an atypical gathering of “small” politics and everyday activism in arts and culture. It highlights the role of artists in the larger context of their societies by bringing together archives, videos, CD-books, films, documentaries, and special events.
The works at the Yokohama Triennale included, among others, a memory bank titled Seams Of Change: Clothing And The Care Of The Self In Late 19th and 20th Century Cambodia by Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture, Cambodia curated by Daravuth Ly. This work is placed in the context of contemporary cultural developments in Cambodia since the collapse of the Khmer Rouge and is a collection of oral histories of elderly Cambodians. The memory bank aims to collect the memories of ordinary elderly Cambodians following the line of their lives from the time they were young to the present. Through the recollection of each individual memory collected, an "unofficial history" of Cambodia unfolds.
The exhibition, hence, illuminates a time when there were not as many different types of clothes as today, and people generally turned to their immediate environment for what they needed. The focus is on the clothing of ordinary people rather than on the special clothing of the rich or the royal.