Mural wall at Taman Jurong CC with random bicycle.

Remember that popular graffiti art work that’s turned into a kind of tourist photo op in Penang? Well, you had its Taman Jurong counterpart—at least until the uncle rode away.

It currently features the work of TJ residents following a workshop by visual artist Speak Cryptic, but fellow artist Tay Bee Aye pointed out that the wall near the Taman Jurong Community Club has always been a site for mural painting.

She should know—Tay has lived in the area since 1971. So it’s more than fitting that she’ll be presenting an interactive installation work over the weekend for an open house event launching Our Museum@Taman Jurong.

A side view of Our Museum@Taman Jurong

This National Heritage Board, TJ community members and People’s Association collaboration is set to be Singapore’s first community art museum—a partly mobile two-storey set-up housing art works from the national collection as well as those done in collaboration with residents of TJ.

If you wanted to know just what direction the NHB is going with the whole community art thing, this would be a good indication, said NHB CEO Michael Koh.

Why, with apologies to its residents, the choice of this arguably ulu area? “We knew there was already an active art programme here,” said Koh.

Not to mention it’s also home to a number of artists as well; aside from Tay, Terence Lin, Ben Puah and Urich Lau also call this part of Singapore their `hood.

In other words, it’s a place ripe for art—and Our Museum@Taman Jurong is one big “seed,” said Singapore Art Museum director Tan Boon Hui.

The works on display at Our Museum@Taman Jurong's ground floor.

It’s not a simple outreach programme in a conventional sense and neither is it an “extension” or “duplication” of SAM, said Tan. The idea is that the residents will eventually put their stamp of ownership on the museum and exhibit their own stuff there.

In the meantime, SAM has cobbled together a selection of works from the national collection. Curator Khairuddin Hori said the selection was pretty much a mix of subject matter familiar to a broader (and perhaps not regular museum-going or art-loving) public, but also a mix of modern and contemporary, figurative and abstract, and of various materials and techniques.

Chua Mia Tee and Baet Yeok Kuan's artworks on the second floor.

So you’ve got Sarkasi Said’s Pink Evening batik work and Ong Kim Seng’s Smith Street 1 watercolour piece alongside Safaruddin’s pop art Tiffin Carrier and Donna Ong’s Dissolution installation. Upstairs, two paintings by Chua Mia Tee and Baet Yeok Kuan’s steel and copper pod-like sculpture share space with short films by Sanif Olek—including one comprising images shot by TJ residents. It ties in with the central section on the groundfloor featuring photographs of mini-versions of Dawn Ng’s Walter doll in various places as shot by residents as well (Big Walter is set to occupy the basketball court outside).

Hello to you too, Dawn Ng artwork. Our knowledgeable guide, Stacy Low, explains Walter's presence inside a lift.

This, of course, is still an NHB initiative—and there are wonderful archival photographs of Jurong back then, reminding visitors of its roots as Singapore’s first industrial estate (a Vespa assembly plant, and Singapore’s only drive-in cinema—set up to give the area a more residential vibe).

It’s admittedly a pretty cramped space and is basically just a very small art snapshot. But logistical and curatorial matters aside, it’s far from being a token gesture to “bring art to the masses”. Going by our preview’s tour guide, teacher and volunteer Stacy Low, it won’t be a dumbed down affair. Of course there are comments about how the works “relate” to everyday lives, to Singapore’s heritage and history, and fun trivia. But the guide also doesn’t shy away from bringing up terms like “cybernetics” or “pop art” or even describing the effect of perspectives in paintings. It may be a museum in the heartland, but it makes no apologies about being a museum.

(Our Museum@Taman Jurong is located at Taman Jurong Community Club, 1 Yung Sheng Road (pretty easy to get to via train and bus). It’s open from 3pm to 7pm (Mondays to Fridays) and 10am to 6pm (weekends), and closed on public holidays.

An Open House (with a whole bunch of activities) will be held this weekend, Jan 12 (4pm to 9.30pm) and Jan 13 (11am to 1pm).)

The former Chong Cheng School at 28 Aliwal Street (a stone’s throw away from the Malay Heritage Centre) is set to be a “multi-disciplinary arts centre” with a performing arts bent.

The official opening isn’t so soon but here’s the list.

*** 

STUDIO SPACE TENANTS

Abdul Yazid Mohamed Juhuri

Arts Theatre of Singapore

Chinese Opera Institute

Ho Tzu Nyen

Mohammed Zulkarnaen Othman, Eman Raharno Jeman, Sufian Hamri and Anthony Chong

Nam Hwa Amateur Musical & Dramatic Association

Nine Years Theatre

Odyssey Dance Theatre

Ravindran Drama Group Company

Re: Dance Theatre

Singapore I-Lien Drama Society

Teater Ekamatra

The A Cappella Society

Word Forward and Teater Artistik

*** 

SHARED OFFICE SPACE TENANTS

Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya

Avant Theatre and Language

MI Arts Ltd

The Music Society (Singapore)

Poet-playwright-director Elangovan’s latest play Stoma has been denied an Arts Entertainment licence by the Media Development Authority.

The Agni Kootthu (Theatre Of Fire) production was scheduled to run at The Substation from Jan 17 to 19.

It’s the third play from the 1997 SEA Write Awardee to have been banned after the English and Malay versions of Talaq in 2000 and Smegma in 2006.

The licence was withheld due to “sexually explicity, blasphemous and offensive references and language which would be denigrating to the Catholic and the wider Christian community”, according to MDA’s letter, which was posted on the Agni Kootthu Facebook page.

Here’s the synopsis of Stoma on The Substation’s website, which already carried an advisory regarding the play’s “mature content”.

“A Catholic priest who was defrocked and removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations is visited by an internet sex-chat contact.  Her visitation ignites an examination of his conscience and his past transgressions surface as reminiscences to purify his soul. He confesses his sins to seek redemption and when it is fulfilled, the actual sex-chat contact walks in.”

The company was initially scheduled for a meeting with MDA regarding the licence tomorrow, Jan 9, but was given the letter earlier tonight instead.

There will be no plans of staging it privately, said Elangovan, who will instead be focusing his attention on one of his earlier plays, Dogs, which will be staged in Perth in February. He said he’s also working on a new play scheduled for later this year.

In the meantime, those who have already bought tickets are advised to get a refund from The Substation.

***

Ironically (or not?), we did a 2012 wrap up looking at censorship in the arts not so long ago. To recap, here’s what The Substation artistic director Noor Effendy Ibrahim shared with us.

“No doubt there is this sense of opening up on alternative and controversial ideas in art, such as those on ethnicity, religion, politics, and sexuality. But this sense should not lull the arts community into complacency, thinking that state censorship has been totally put away … The need for an arts entertainment licence clearly demonstrates how active the machinery of state censorship and regulation is today, though interestingly and encouragingly there are now avenues for open dialogues with MDA and related state agencies to discuss and negotiate censorship and openness. I feel this opening up and relaxation is only taking place horizontally where diverse ideas (both safe and alternative) are permitted to be presented, but what is still of great concern is that the vertical space may not have increased much, if at all. The glass ceiling is still low. There is still much constraint and suppression on how ideas (and this includes what would be traditionally safe and permitted ideas) can and are to be manifested in art, and even who (which artists/practitioners) can do so.”

***

The MDA has released this statement regarding Stoma:

“MDA has rejected the arts entertainment licence application for the play titled Stoma. The play’s explicit description of sexual acts with Catholic and Christian iconography has exceeded MDA’s Classification Framework for Art Performances which stipulates that content should not denigrate religion. 

To acknowledge the plurality of perspectives in society, arts performances are rarely disallowed.  As such, it was only after careful deliberation that the decision on Stoma was arrived at. In making the decision, the MDA consulted its Arts Consultative Panel (ACP), a citizen-led content advisory committee comprising 40 members of various races, religions and ages, for arts performances. An overwhelming majority of the members found the content to be explicit, blasphemous and of a nature offensive to the Catholic and the wider Christian community.”

Cake Theatrical Productions' Simon Says

National campaigns—who hasn’t heard or been affected by these? A new group show at the National Library re-examines their most ubiquitous element.

Actually, it’s not so much new as it is expanded. An earlier version of Campaign City: Life In Posters was exhibited at Evil Empire back in 2010.

Enjoyable as that show was, I had some misgivings about how the artists responded to the idea of campaigns—but this version works much better.

A collaboration by the NLB and Salon Projects (with Alan Oei and Cheong Kah Kit spearheading), Campaign City features 50 contributors from different backgrounds (artists, graphic designers, students, poets, theatre peeps) creating their own posters.

The new setting (and set-up) offers what its previous small version couldn’t: space to play around with, giving the show a much-needed added dimension and a bit more context.

The works are blown up bigtime, lining the walls of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library on the 11^th floor. Bits and pieces of the campaign discourse are snuck into toilets. There’s a “photo booth” on the ground floor where you can insert yourself into a couple of campaigns.

All these emphasise the in-your-face, pervasive and all-encompassing nature of these national campaigns. They “look down” on and overwhelm you, they’re Big Brother-ish, and, for the photo booth part, point out one overlooked aspect of Singapore’s early campaigns. People (willingly?) participated (for the most part) in what was perhaps deemed necessary for nation building. “People were willing to listen before,” said Oei.

That’s the other important aspect of the show: historical context. There’s a small showcase of seven of the most prominent national campaigns (visitors can also have a look at the posters). All of them integral to the idea of social engineering—not necessarily limited to Singapore but stuff we’re familiar with: Social conduct (courtesy campaign), anti-drugs, pro-environment, work productivity, pro-health, family planning and language.

How, then, did the artists respond to this?

Many of the works—some hand-drawn, some using watercolour, others completely text-based—echo/respond to/run parallel to the same things shown in the NLB showcase, i.e. same same but different.

But there are also others that take it a step further.

For Use Metric Or Die!, for example, Gilles Massot digs up a long-forgotten campaign back in 1979 to standardise measurements. (One of the silliest national campaigns I’ve heard but also, strangely enough, makes sense.)

Ng Yi-Sheng's Speak Odd English Movement

You also have quirky ones like Ng Yi-Sheng’s rebuttal of the Speak Good English campaign with one about speaking “odd English” quoting snippets from Singapore literature; Rizman Putra’s absurd appropriation of the anti-smoking campaign copy (“Mind If I Dance?” “Yes I mind”); and Zhao Renhui’s deadpan Cat Love Society (basically urging you to “Love Cats”). (Oh, and speaking of animals, you’ve got a bunch of pandas, too, which are Singapore’s newest tourism mascots, of course.)

Rizman Putra's The Dancing Man

The original national campaigns revolve around shaping the idea of a Singapore narrative—and it’s interesting to note that many of the works don’t challenge that. Perhaps it’s the nature of the campaign poster format, or certain limitations of a show in a very public setting (race and religion are no-nos), or even the artists’ disposition towards the idea of national campaigns, but whatever it is, you aren’t bound to find many works of a more overt critical nature.

Oei, himself, observed that there was “very little conversation with censorship” in the works—although, at the same time, he cited how some previous viewers had found certain works to be “shocking”.

Justin Lee's Two Is Enough

I won’t think of a work like Justin Lee’s or Tan Peiling’s to be “shocking”, but I liked their twists. The former’s piece, a family portrait with two kids’ heads covered by coloured paper toy balls, doesn’t really work as a campaign poster (and if I remember correctly, it’s from a previous series). But with a title like Two Is Enough and an artist’s note about dreaming to be the “first Singapore-born athlete to win a truly Singapore medal in (a) future Olympics”, no surprises about what it’s about. Tan, meanwhile, juxtaposes a campaign to “Act Responsibly, Speak Wisely” with the suggestion of CCTVs all around HDB blocks.

But what do artists think about the very idea of campaigns?

Brian Gothong Tan's Last Night I Dreamt Of An Elephant On A Bee In A Lion

You get a glimpse in three works. Brian Gothong Tan lets imagery do the talking in Last Night I Dreamt Of An Elephant On A Bee In A Lion, where, like a babushka doll, campaign mascots emerge from one another, with, ahem, a lightning flashing overhead. Cake Theatrial Productions’ simple text-based Simon Says poster comments on instructional aspects of campaigns that tell you to do this or that. A game perhaps, but some, like Stop At Two having pretty serious consequences.

Finally, Elizabeth Lim’s cartoon illustration of a young girl looks at the oral health campaign she grew up with (brush or be caned!). In the continuous run of the words “I will not forget to bring my toothbrush” that dominate the work (on a blackboard-but-also-perhaps-pavement) you see not only a cheeky take on the specific kind of punishment errant students get, but also the idea of campaigns as self-replicating, numbing, and, as we imagine the little girl writing the words again and again, with the power to permeate consciousness. It’s power internalised.

Elizabeth Lim's Untitled

(Campaign City: Life In Posters runs until July 7 at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, 11th floor, National Library Building. Free admission.)

Still haven’t booked tickets to OH! Open House’s Marina Bay art walkabout? Check out this video by my colleague Sion Touhig. Or maybe read my thoughts here.

I’m not quite sure what “year” it falls under—2013 or 2012 or 2011 as the website says. Oh well.

The number of SG artists are a drop from the two previous finalist list. But that shouldn’t matter, right? And in the previous tradition of silly nicknames for artists in contests, I shall dub them Triple Threat. Sounds better than the Three Stooges.

Zhao’s a repeat presence, with one of his polar pics, Expedition #43, while the two others make their debut.

Boo’s Fashion Mall, Las Vegas, USA painting probably comes from his recent series exploring malls and churches (some of which were shown at a solo last year).

Ding’s Ethnographic Fragments From Singapore photo composite (of road and pavement fragments from around Singapore) was from an exhibition back in August. Incidentally, she’ll be making her presence felt during the Art Stage buzz week both at the main fair (at The Substation booth) and at Gillman Barracks.

“Lots of rocks and spots,” she said. We hear ya.

Check out the list here.

You know “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”, so if you’re feet have started tapping with this news, it might be time to go grab some tickets. Tickets are priced from SGD$55 and on sale now.

For more, check out the press release below:

SINGAPORE – The Singapore Premiere of Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage written by Eleanor Bergstein, the script writer and co-producer of the phenomenally successful movie Dirty Dancing, comes to the MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands from May 24, 2013. Tickets are now on sale.
Seen by millions across the globe, this worldwide smash-hit musical tells the classic story of Baby and Johnny, two fiercely independent young spirits from different worlds, who come together in what will be the most challenging and triumphant summer of their lives. The show features a string of hit songs performed by a rocking live band, including Hungry Eyes, Hey Baby, Do You Love Me? and the heart- stopping Time Of My Life.
Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage is a re-imagining of the film, and has been adapted for the stage by the same woman who brought it to the big screen in 1987, Eleanor Bergstein.
“IF YOU LOVED THE MOVIE, THIS ONE’S FOR YOU!” – Daily Express
It’s the Summer of 1963, and 17 year old Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman is about to learn some major lessons in life as well as a thing or two about dancing. On holiday at a resort called Kellerman’s with her older sister and parents, ‘Baby’ shows little interest in the resort activities, and instead discovers her own entertainment when she stumbles upon the staff quarters where an all-night dance party is in full swing. She discovers an underworld of young men and women who spend all their free time dancing. She is mesmerised by the dance moves and the pounding rhythms and ‘Baby’ can’t wait to be part of the scene, especially when she catches sight of Johnny Castle the resort dance instructor. ‘Baby’s’ life is about to change forever as she is thrown in at the deep end as Johnny’s leading lady, both on-stage and off, with breath-taking consequences.
Writer and Creator, Eleanor Bergstein said: “I started writing the movie with the sixties music already in mind. I picked each song and wrote the lines of dialogue against lines of lyric and melody. It was the time of one’s life when one couldn’t separate a conversation from the music playing on the radio. When you couldn’t separate the lyrics of the song from the words you were saying, or the beat of the music from the beat of your heart.”
The fastest selling show in West End history
DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE broke records in the UK and Germany for having the highest advance ticket sales in history. Before it even opened in London, the show had sold-out for the first six months of its run.
DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, Australia on 18 November 2004. Following this, the production went on a national tour of Australia and New Zealand, visiting Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland. In total, the show had a sell-out season of 18 months throughout Australia and New Zealand. A new production opened at the Theater Neue Flora in Hamburg, Germany in March 2006 where it broke records for achieving the highest advance in European history. The production continues to play to sold-out houses and recently sold its 1 MILLIONTH TICKET.
DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE has gone on to perform across the world in Toronto, Canada; Utrecht, Holland; and a North American Tour including Chicago, Boston and LA. DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE is also the longest running show in the history of the Aldwych Theatre, London. To date, over 500,000 TICKETS have been purchased in the UK, totalling box office sales in excess of £25 MILLION. Current productions worldwide include the first ever national tour of the UK and Ireland, where it has broken box office records in several UK cities so far, including Glasgow and Aberdeen with an advance of over £22million, and most recently Stockholm, Sweden, which opened on 14th February 2012.
Featuring a cast of 26 who sing a score of 49 songs played by a live orchestra, performing 73 scene changes, which are lit by 200 moving lights, and 21 costume changes for Baby alone, DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE is a true spectacular you will not want to miss.
Tickets are priced from SGD$55 and on sale now.
To see the live show trailer, go to
www.lunchbox-productions.com/dirtydancing
Performance times are Tuesday to Friday evenings at 8pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2.00pm and 8.00pm
TICKETING AND SHOW INFORMATION
Day/Times Premium A Reserve B Reserve C Reserve D Reserve
Tue – Fri 8pm $175 $150 $125 $95 $55
Sat – Sun 2pm & 8pm
•Excludes the booking Fee of SGD$3 per ticket
FOR TICKET BOOKINGS:
THROUGH INTERNET:
www.BASEentertainmentasia.comor www.MarinaBaySands.com/Ticketing
BY PHONE: +65 6688 8826

Surely this is a first for this RAT: One measly blog post for this month!

Apologies to my three avid readers for not updating as regularly as in the past—but seeing as the Mayans were proven wrong, I’ll make up for it next year.

What a year 2012 has turned out to be, ey? Anniversaries for/by The Esplanade, Kuo Pao Kun and The Necessary Stage. “Sticker Lady”. Janice Koh stepping up as a most impressive Arts NMP. Gillman Barracks. The David Copperfield moments of our Venice Biennale participation and the Singapore Arts Festival. The Transformers moment of MICA into MCCY and MCI. The shocking news of Benson Puah’s cancer diagnosis. The tragic passing of Emma Yong and others…

And then there’s everything else.

Thought I’d share my picks of shows for 2012. Admittedly, for some reason or other, I’ve missed out on or didn’t really follow through with a lot of stuff, many of which have earned raves from fellow followers of the visual and performing arts scene: Patricia Toh’s Homogenous and Pretty Things, Checkpoint Theatre’s Occupation, the Mandarin version of A Language Of Their Own, the KPK exhibition at NMS or the site-specific performance 11 Kuo Pao Kun Devised, The Finger Players Oliver Chong-show Roots, the inspiring Contact dance festival, those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it exhibitions at Gillman Barracks’ cool galleries side, etc.

But hey, I did catch a few others.

***

1. NATIONAL BROADWAY COMPANY by TheatreWorks

“While all of this is happening—this trip down memory lane, this effusive celebration of local theatre’s rich heritage, this generous unpacking and sharing of stories—there’s also OKS’ excellent mindf**k running throughout the entire thing. Because NBC is also a complex exercise in viewing performance itself.”

2. THE SONG OF THE BROKENHEARTED TIGER by Ho Tzu Nyen

“TSOTBT is an angry, angry piece. And it’s an anger that is directed at the audience. The fury of sound and light and smoke can be disturbing. But in the context of its own story, the extinction of an entire subspecies, surely it’s a discomfort that becomes meaningless. When the chest constricts at the end, as the sound volume briefly peaks to its breaking limit, surely this is the “truth of sensations” that Ho talks about.”

3. MY GRANDFATHER ROAD by sklo

The artwork that got everybody talking in 2012. `Nuff said.

4. LEAR DREAMING by TheatreWorks

“Aggressive beats, laser lights, some wailing, a bit of gruff stomping by the guy in a traditional Japanese costume (of sorts). Good ol’ Lear was having the ultimate tech-Noh moment.”

5. CANE by Loo Zihan

“Yes, questions of authenticity, of simulacra, of what it means to “perform” a performance. But also, of perceptions of historical truths and facts, etc. What happened tonight has proven to be different from what many of us expected. In some ways you could say it has also proven to be bigger that that image of Cane we had in our mind.”

6. LUCID DREAMS IN THE REVERIE OF THE REAL by Lee Wen

“Its fluid, open door idealism allows us not just to stand back, take stock of and belatedly applaud a visionary artist but, in fact, to immerse ourselves in the most pertinent questions regarding the very experience of art. What does it mean to experience art? What does it mean to be an artist?” (From an article that came out in TODAY)

7. THE BOOK OF THE LIVING AND DYING by The Finger Players

“Funny, menacing, absurd, and dramatic (although not at full-on Poop levels), its ruminations on death and reincarnation seamlessly blended with its little touches of sci-fi/fantasy, a delicate balance that I thought Chong (Tze Chien) realised well.”

8. TURN by Susie Lingham

“Here’s where Lingham’s “alchemical” comment resonates deeply—dioramas on plinths comprising layers partially peeled away to reveal texts, images of the Mayan calendar, ancient cosmological and geographical maps, old medical diagrams. Peer inside and before you know it, you’re sucked into Lingham’s delicately crafted works that funnel and spiral down with the distinct sensation that it could just go on forever.”

9. SIDEBYSIDE by Tammy L Wong, Ming Poon, Scarlet Yu, Joavien Ng, Daniel Kok

“Yours truly, however, was at the Theatre Studio, catching the totally delightful SideBySide showcase of works by independent choreographers—that ended with the unforgettable moment where a certain dude, whom followers of the Singapore Biennale and the Singapore Arts Festival may recognise as Low Kee Hong, egged audiences to cuss their hearts out… Four bite-sized pieces paying tribute to a variety of things—and revealing just how inventive our local dance scene can get.”

10. NEW STRANGE FACES by Valentine Willie Fine Art

“As many have pointed out, Valentine Willie Fine Art’s Singapore survey show New Strange Faces is a hit-and-miss show. But such is the urgency of its topic that, compared to the two previous annual shows, IMHO, it’s the most important of the series to date. Some might think it’s ironic that such a show is being presented in a private gallery by a Malaysian gallerist, but I don’t think so. The distance it affords (in a non-state museum, encouraged by a non-Singaporean) is precisely why we have it.”

(UPDATE: As a curator joked, I should get a better diary. I can’t not add this gem of a small show, which again, slipped my mind.)

11. EVERYTHING THAT HAS A POINT MAKES A CIRCLE by Sai Hua Kuan

“Judging by the works, which range from photographs and sculpture to readymades and drawings, it’s a solid way of getting re-acquainted with one of the art scene’s most refreshing voices… The best thing about the show is that, for all its conceptual rigour, many of the works displayed are rendered in a delightfully deadpan manner.” (From an article that came out in TODAY)

***

And, again, because, you know, lists are fun… other notables.

• The Perfection Of 10 by Sean Tobin
• Prism by Institute Of Policy Studies/DramaBox
• Spring Awakening by Pangdemonium Productions
• Goh Lay Kuan And Kuo Pao Kun by TheatreWorks
• October by The Necessary Stage
• Future Proof by Singapore Art Museum (UPDATE: For some reason, I thought it took place last year. Oh well, better late than never.)

***

Here are others from fellow arts followers (and if you know of anyone else who came up with theirs, let me know).

The Flying Inkpot’s annual lists from their reviewers can be found here.

If you want more of Inkpotter (and occasional TODAY reviewer) Naeem Kapadia, check out his blog here.

Meanwhile, the two-in-one blog Buttons In The Bread also released theirs here (Jeremy’s) and here (Ilkosa’s).

Artinfo Southeast Asia have also weighed in on theatre here and visual art here.

A great part of it really is simply a showcase of the stuff that SIF has supported for the past year by way of travel grants overseas presentation grants. I thought I needed to clarify that because it is at the fourth floor of SAM at 8Q (in contrast to the previous one held at SOTA).But in that context, it’s still worth a visit—if only to be impressed with SIF’s involvement in the arts. This year, it’s 108 projects by 92 Singaporean artists/groups presented in 91 cities.

It’s a crazy, the range as well. You’ve got the usual bigtime suspects like Ming Wong, Michael Lee, TheatreWorks, THE Dance Company, Ho Tzu Nyen, The Necessary Stage, Toy Factory, etc. But you’ve also got folks like the Singapore Contemporary Young Artists, Platform 65, Monster Cat, etc. (While some of the works have been shown here, you do realise that there are a lot of stuff done overseas by Singaporeans that haven’t been seen here. Or at least not yet.) (And of course, you’ve probably read elsewhere about the great romance story that came about from one such SIF-supported project, the batik-meets-photography collab between Singaporean photographer Mintio and Indonesian artist Kabul.)

That said, they did manage to squeeze in one small exhibition in Dezipcoding.

It’s the Singapore leg of the travelling-exhibition-but-not-really Project Glocal. Organised by Filipino curator Dayang Yraola, the regional effort comprises artists from Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore, with the first exhibition held a few months ago in the Philippines.

Despite the admittedly cramped space for it, and if you get past the idea that it’s within the bigger DiverseCity, and if you keep in mind that the framework behind Project Glocal is really more as an incubation-type endeavor where a bunch of artists from different countries hang out, get to know each other for some possible future collaboration, then it’s worth checking out.

Singapore artists include Black Baroque Committee (with their quirky boxes of “dangerous” items from the previous NAFA graduate show making a repeat appearance in a slightly different way), Jason Wee (whose geometric preoccupations take on a more pyramidic form—via drawing), Ang Song-Ming (look out for the bag beneath the bench), Tang Ling Nah (who collaborates with the Philippines’ Irma Lacorte and SB2011 artist Mark Salvatus in an interesting multi-layered video piece) and Urich Lau (who gives us the chance to play DJ or God—didn’t Faithless have some similar song?—where we can “scratch” and manipulate the video of the other Rochor Road accident that did not involve the Ferrari).

Oh, careful where you step. One of the artists from Hong Kong has scattered “cockroaches” on the floor. Like this one.

From Luke Ching's Folk Art series as part of Project Glocal's Dezipcoding exhibition at DiverseCity.

Eeewww.