Think Singapore and the first thing that comes to mind is the merlion spouting water from its mouth. Then come the glitzy shopping malls, the crowded hawker centres and sprawling botanical gardens. But the fact that Singapore is emerging as an art destination that might soon rival Paris and London, is perhaps one of the world’s best-kept secrets...for now.
The city-state, which celebrates its bicentennial (2019-2020), is home to at least 50 museums, the largest of which is the National Gallery Singapore with over 8,000 artworks. The exhibits are not limited to white cube galleries, but spill over to the streets in the form of graffiti, street art and at least six light festivals throughout the year. The art scene here has something for everyone, from the mildly interested to art aficionados. There are installations in commercial centres, running trails and public parks — the Empress Lawn and Esplanade Park on the Central Business District were integral part of this year’s Singapore Art Week (SAW), an annual visual arts festival. First celebrated in 2013, SAW was started to promote the rising art scene in the country. Since then, every January, the nine-day festival sees a blend of exhibitions, art fairs and talks spread across the city.
As we cross the scenic Esplanade Park, I am surprised to see the number of youngsters who have turned up for guided tours, many with professional cameras and mini tripods. “We call them Instagram boyfriends,” says my guide. “They have infinite patience and can contort themselves to get the perfect shot,” she adds, grinning. Who can blame them? Eye-catching installations set to the backdrop of the tree-lined Queen Elizabeth Walk and the emerald-green Singapore river... if this is not Instagram-worthy, what is?
We stop at The Arts House, a premier art space located at the heart of the Civic District. Built in 1827, it served as the Parliament House of the country until late 1990s, and now hosts art exhibits and concerts. In fact, the old Cabinet room is a part of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s ‘Justice For All’ installation, its chair cushions draped in vivid shades of Indonesian and African batiks. This is part of a larger pattern. Singapore has made it a point to wear its colonial history on its sleeve — many of the city’s most vibrant art exhibits are housed in unexpected places closely connected to its past. One of the country’s notable art spaces, Gillman Barracks, is a British military camp that was set up in 1936. It was restored as Singapore’s Contemporary Art Enclave in 2012. Twenty Twenty, a pop-up contemporary art space near the hip Jalan Besar area, was a ship repairs factory in the 1930s but in its present avatar, showcases works of predominantly female artists.
Stroll out of The Arts House in the Downtown Core of the city, and you will be greeted by the imposing National Gallery Singapore, with numerous Corinthian and Ionic columns lining its façade. This building too has a back story. The 64,000 square metre visual arts institution is housed in what was once two buildings of great public importance in the history of modern Singapore — the City Hall and the Supreme Court. On any given day, the National Gallery is teeming with activity — in addition to regular exhibitions on South Asian modern art, it hosts the Light to Night Festival which lights up nights with projection mapping, food stalls and live music, and a Children’s Biennale which aims to nurture interest in art through interactive kid-friendly exhibitions.
“The idea is to make art a part of everyday life,” says Khairuddin Hori, curator of Atypical Singapore, a travelling contemporary art and augmented reality (AR) technology show. “My aim is to make every project an experience for the visitors. It is not just putting together often cryptic paintings and installations; I want to bring the visitor on a journey, give them various doors to access the art and ways to bring home the art,” he says. Hori, former Deputy Director of Artistic Programming at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, had travelled with his team of seven emerging Singaporean artists to Moscow, Yangon, New Delhi and Bangkok before putting up the show in the National Design Centre in the city.
Art here is not just for enjoyment; it is also educational, and perhaps, a tool in nation-building. “We want to teach people about the environment and sustainable development through art and technology,” says Kay Poh Gek Vasey, Chief Connecting Officer of Meshminds, a creative technology studio. One of their projects involve Singapore’s ‘Changi tree’, which was considered a landmark due to its height before it was cut down during the Second World War. The project attempts to visualise the evolution of Singapore through the rings of the tree trunk and draws attention to the importance of trees as markers of time. The team incorporates Facebook’s Spark AR platform to bring art to life. Scan the QR code adjacent to the installation with a smartphone, and the vertical two-dimensional cross-section of the tree comes to life in 3D, with spiralling texts on each ring representing a historical event.
This marriage of art and technology is an idea that you encounter time and again in Singapore. Overlooking the Marina Bay is the stunning lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum, which acts as an incubator for projects involving art, science, technology and culture. In one of the permanent exhibits ‘2219: Futures Imagined,’ the museum attempts to imagine how Singapore would look like in 200 years, contextualising the predicted effects of climate change and rising inequality. Through five installations set in different periods of times, the work is more of a hat-tip to the resilience of our species rather than dystopian art. In a particular installation, we are taken on a tour of a public housing apartment in Singapore where the kitchen shows how pets and cockroaches provide protein for daily diets as cultivable land becomes a luxury. Told with a liberal sprinkling of satire, the narrative questions the perils of over-dependence on engineering solutions to problems without sufficient investment in human development.
We all know of Singapore as the land of never-ending economic and infrastructural development. But what artists here are trying to say, says Honor Harger, the Executive Director of the ArtScience Museum, is that at the end, what will survive is not the material developments that we made, but the stories we tell and the art we make.
Upcoming art events in Singapore:
Singapore Biennale: Contemporary art event. On till Mar 22
i Light Singapore: Sustainable light art festival to be held in Marina Bay from March 6-29
Disney: Magic of Animation: Ticketed exhibition at the ArtScience Museum, on till March 29
Singapore International Festival of Arts: Performing art festival to be held in Botanic Gardens and Civic District from May 15-31
