I want I want...

my imitation of Blake's "I want I want!", except the magician's rabbit is already on the moon! This is #5 of the magician series, #4 is here and here.

Got well in time for my first printmaking class where I made the sketch above into a B/W monoprint!

Yesterday J asked me what I wanted. Not wanted to be. But wanted, in the largest sense - in "life".

I would like to think I want to be able to say this at the end, and then thinking backward from there, live accordingly. But it seemed hard to give such an answer at that time, when a whole set of seemingly "real, pragmatic" issues seemed to be on the plate. The price for daydreaming too much.

pass it on

i like how yoshitomo's painting "too young to die" is merchandised here as a giant ashtray. we don't smoke so it's used as a tray for vitamins and medication. the irony either way!

I've been sick since Saturday, the most virulent flu-bug I've known and promptly passed to J.

The only "good" thing that has come out of the 5 days was that I managed to finish reading 2 wonderful books which I would, if I could, promptly pass to someone - Nicole Krauss' The History of Love and RK Narayan's Tiger for Malgudi.

That's all for now. I don't think blogging counts as "rest" ;>

only lines

a mock cover for a book still waiting for its poems

Arthur Yap died on 19 June. The Straits Times wrote a eulogy for the "man of few words" who died of throat cancer, his vocal box removed and replaced with an artificial implant 2 years ago. Like Goh Poh Seng who passed away last year, I read somewhere that he was living apart from Singapore.

He is my favourite Singaporean poet, and after all these years, still the best. I re-discovered him only a few years ago, reading anew when SKOOB published his selected poems The Space of City Trees in 2000. (Arthur Yap is also a painter and the cover art below is his.)

He writes a measured line, but its syntax and cadence - natural, steady - belie an ambivalence - as if to preserve, still, another space, an invisible ellipsis, a hidden parenthesis. And it is these spaces which give his poems endurance, give an open invitation to stay, still, contemplate - perhaps - know. There is seldom a false note or an exaggerated gesture against a social or political narrative - the poems don't read like they need to prove their intelligence or their place in our thin literary history. If at all unreasonable, it is not angry youth. If careful, it is not from being studied, studious - but as Yap wrote in a poem, words are to be stilled, or we are to be stilled by them, whichever. Personal, but never screamingly inward. As from his first collection, this poem -

expansion

no stretch of darkened sky
would show a patch of red
a patch of sunset

where the sun will not stay
after dark
the skyline of houses
grows with the sky
and who can tell
what is this completion;
i cannot chew the month to days
masticate the days to hours
and line the hours each to each
saying, out of context, i die.
where once a single day
was a day and a night
it is now the amoeba of day
of night,
the line of sponge houses
soaks in the sky
as the sponge sky
seeps into the houses.
where once houses hung from sky
they now are clutches.
so one urban expansion
has to lean on another
or they die

while the tree of night grows and grows

(from only lines, 1971)

all art-ed out!

UK’s national cuisine

Just when I thought I’ve had enough of art for the week at Newcastle, I was taken on a tour of a small area called Oesborne Valley where all kinds of arts and cultural activity have been taking root. Aargh, enough!

But it was strangely inspiring.


A beheaded Christo, since I was taking this photo in secret

I met Christo, a geeky cinephile (is there any other kind of cinephile?) behind the Star and Shadow Cinema – a micro cinema. This is new term I learnt today. A staff at the Baltic Arts Centre, he would take time off to run a cinema (for cinephiles called the “cinecide”) 2 days a week. And since the Oesborne Valley property came up, he formed a partnership with other micro cinemas like the “A side” (artist films), “the other side” (LBG cinema) and an anarchist cinema to take over this old disused building at Oesborne Valley.

Called the Star and Shadow Cinema, it is due to open in 22 July. When we visited it, it was still a really run down place still. We found out from Christo that since he did not have money to renovate it, he had put an ad in the papers and online for “builders” to help one weekend. So everything in that building was actually hand-built by volunteers and himself over the past few week! Impressive! Shy Christo in his migrating geese sweatshirt, tortoise-shell glasses, curly hair and stone-washed black jeans showed us a door/wall – he good-humouredly told us he was especially proud of this piece of pretty makeshift construction, and smiled cheekily. When we left, a group of volunteers had just arrived for a General Meeting.


“The Art Works”, a new gallery renovated using the materials of its original warehouse and run by an artist renting out space to emerging artists with no commission for works sold. Mighty good idea!

The Cinema is next to “The Art Works”, and just down the road is an older establishment called “The Cluny”. Owned by Mike, a theatre practitioner who had bought it in the 70s for close to nothing, it is an an old flax mil by a tributary of the River Tyne. It houses some 40-50 different artists, designers and crafts persons. They run the facility like an artist co-op. Artists decide how it is run, the rent that is charged, and whether a new applicant is accepted. It is, like the cinema, a run down no-frills sort of place dis-used and abandoned by its previous tenants.



This is all what is meant by the term “regeneration”, the twin sister of “renaissance”. Renaissance City is what Singapore aspires to (with or without reference to15th C Venice), but regeneration would not be on our minds. Regeneration is for backward, derelict, beat up, crime-infested cities! Regeneration is for cities with old, disused, derelict buildings. Regeneration is for Newcastle, where its 60 coal mines are no longer. Regeneration is for a culture that hates to destroy and would use and re-use. For us, we would rather a rebirth – though from what we never quite know.

Still, I am glad to be home tomorrow. It is where I am daydreaming I would one day set up some kind of gallery and artist studios cum "micro cinema" too.

superhumanism (and harry potter)

A Singaporean living in Newcastle and whom I met said this when comparing the UK to Singapore: "In some ways, the UK is very backward, but in other ways, it is way ahead."

OK, so this may sound like a generalisation that would apply to any and every country, but in the context of the conversation, it was a useful reminder that for everything that Singapore could take pride in having achieved, it was often at the cost of something else equally valuable.


click for larger view

During the last 2 days of the conference, I heard from artists, cultural leaders and even a judge on the impact of their artistic or cultural endeavour in transforming communities. And the most important and interesting lessons for me were learnt from countries or communities of the "third world" (I feel compelled to use these inverted commas because the whole chronology of first/third world seemed at odds with the arts and culture) – countries or communities marked by social and material poverty.

A government official from Columbia admitted with no embarrassment of Columbia’s troubles, but spoke with a measured confidence about the conservation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s birthplace, the promotion of the diverse Columbian musical traditions, the development of village-level artist schools and the results of a Scandinavian study which showed that Columbia was one of the happiest countries in the world (I’m not sure if the study surveyed the drug lords too!).

American artist Rick Lowe described the moment when a young person, viewing his sculptures expressing the problems of environmental destruction, had turned to him and challenged him thus: "It’s ok that your sculptures tell us about all these issues and problems of our community, but I know all that. What’s the use of telling me about the problem that I know." And so Rick Lowe started to think more about social sculpture, and described to the conference his powerful Row House Project with a low-income and rundown Houston neighbourhood to transform the physical and living landscape through art. Artists coming together with their community to change their environments. No self-pity or endless griping about the lack of state funding here!

Then there was Justice Albie Sachs, a former South African freedom fighter (his one empty shirt sleeve a reminder of the real cost of freedom) and appointed by Nelson Mendela as a member of the Constitutional Court. He spoke this morning about the decisions behind the liberating design and the deliberate location of the new South African Constitutional Court beside the No. 4 Prison, a symbol of apartheid injustice past. And what beautiful, human architecture! What pride in a freedom, but also a culture hard won!(click on the link to take an online tour of the building and its art)

Justice Sachs would guide tours for the building and would train other guides. He described how he wanted these young guides to tell the stories he told and feel the same pain and struggle, but wisely concluded that he had to let go – the youth must form and tell their own stories, with the same irreverence, boldness and imagination that he too had when he was young.

A culture can be magnanimous. It is more than a material generosity. Perhaps as with a person who has stood the darkest trials of spirit and body and knows for certain what cannot be taken away, a culture acquires magnanimity only when it holds the same knowledge with confidence. And as with that person – Justice Albie Sachs, Kuo Pao Kun – such a culture will love its heritage in equal measure as its future.



On a lighter note, the conference was also guest to the generous Duchess of Northumberland in her beautiful castle, a film location for Harry Potter 1 & 2 and some other films (I forget which). Just in case you thought the conference I’m at is all we-are-world inspiration, there’s also aristocracy and what old money can afford – canapés, fish and chips, lots of Newcastle ale, wine, a fantastic garden (though cheesily lit), and a 13th century castle bathed in the soft evening light of an English summer that faded only at ten.


the northumbrian sheep and my shoe on the duchess's precious fibre-lit floor

Paris had his Helen

Will you choose her? The Virgin Mother, Damien Hirst’s 35ft tall bronze sculpture in the courtyard of the Royal Art Academy for their annual summer exhibition.

At the National Gallery, a guide is introducing a 17th Century (?) painting to a group of 7 year-olds on a school excursion. It depicts the handsome youth Paris, seated under a tree with Hermes behind him and three naked goddesses before him – Athena or Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; Venus or Aphrodite, the goddess of love; and Juno, the goddess of wealth. He holds out an apple in offer. Who will he offer it to? And implicitly, what does he desire in return?

Guide: What about you all? Will you choose intelligence, knowledge; or love, the most beautiful woman in the world; or money, fortune?

Some of the kids raised their hands, eager to give their answer. Others seemed deep in thought, or perhaps they are just bored.

Guide: Tell me, how many of you want to be intelligent? You think intelligence is good?

3 maybe 4 hands shot up, both boys and girls.

Guide: Ah, and how many of you want to marry the most beautiful woman or the most handsome man in the world?

6 or 7 kids raised their hands, giggling, shouting “me!”. Most were girls, save for a boy with ash-coloured hair who coyly smiled.

Guide: I see Matthew, you’re a smart boy. And finally, how many of you want to be rich, to have lots of money, cash –

Before he could finish, the rest of kids all raised their hands, even those who had, until now, not seemed to be engaged by the naked goddesses and the curly-haired youth.

Well, we all know what Paris chose in the end. But he’s clearly a dying breed, save for cheeky Matthew.


There were several long-haired art students doing these detailed pencil drawings of paintings at the National Gallery. Thus inspired, I took out my notebook and pen too, for my version of this painting. Click on image for larger view in flickr

After 2 days of meetings and some art in hip happening London, I am sitting in a rather dreary Newcastle room where there is no aircon to counter the ringing silence (although half an hour ago, a woman’s moaning seemed to have defeated even the solid walls of this restored 19th century building), none of these 3 fleshy ladies would convince me to trade in an apple, unless one of them changes her name to air-conditioning! I did think while watching the kids that if I really had to choose, I would rather settle for Minerva. But then again, man’s wisdom cannot ease fear, insecurity and worry. It has not delivered peace and salvation – at least not of the sort that lasts. And it certainly has not conquered death. For all that, I chose Jesus than a woman with an owl and a shield.

deja vu

I would probably be exaggerating to say that even the flight path felt familiar. So I shan't. Only the bad airline food and service are (especially after J and I have experienced the automatic upgrade the last time we flew). But when I stepped out of the plane, the patterned carpet, the characterless corridors and the nightmare queues at immigration - ah, Heathrow, the UK. Only this time, the number of migrants/residents from South Asia rivalled that of the tourists.


We are staying at a 1-month old little hotel by Earl's Court, in a neighbourhood where a Rolls is parked by the curb, but turn a corner and it's student housing.

And true to my recurring dream, the first stop after my colleagues and I dropped our bags was to Sainsbury's.

the ship that could've sailed away

Saturday ended up being some kind of an art and architecture day for J and I.

It started with a visit to this designer's workshop at Katong, then to Dramabox's A Stranger at Home at the National Library -

the new space-agey library that's pretty much part of the efficient architecture that has prevailed - all photos in this post are by J/TOHA

a detour to this Gotham-like Parkview Square building -

J's fave building - the Art Deco, rather over-the-top structure that should audition to be Bruce Wayne's office - it has some 15 or so giant gold statues of folks like Dante, Chopin, Sun Yat Sen...and a giant goose

before winding down with friends at the 5th session of ROJAK byfarm held at the Golden Mile Complex.

publicity poster of the aptly-themed Rojak5, given its venue

I learnt so much from the various people and works I saw on Saturday I cannot even start to describe here the questions and answers that went through my mind the taxi ride home at 3am. But my favourite would be the story of the Goldenmile Complex which L told us right after ROJAK ended and during his brief guided tour to us.

Designed in 1972 by the original Design Partnership (William Lim, Koh Hsiao Chuan etc), L told us that the building was a realisation of these early Singaporean architects' dreams of the mega-city, part inspired by the Japanese metabolists and derivative of Le Corbusier's work and philosophy. From the outside along Beach Road, the building pretty much resembles a ship! But from its back, its tiered terraces/balconies like some kind of babylon. But I've increasingly come to appreciate architecture not for its sculptural exterior, but from its inside. Inside is where man interacts with the physical space, interacts with others - a process which the physical space subtly shapes - and interacts with ideas - the space the physical eyes purveys stretching or melding with the space the inner eye perceives. And Goldenmile Complex does have some really amazing spaces within.



L told us that when the Design Partnership first ventured this design (right after or before? the People's Park building at Chinatown), they were so committed to their ideas and vision, they and other architectural practices all set up their offices in the Goldenmile Complex. (I wonder if the folks who designed the Pearl Bank apartments, which was probably built at about the same time, also had their office there).


L telling us stories at the internal staricase landing between level 6 and 7

I liked best how each floor of the building is different - departing from the identical stacks of our public housing and corporate monoliths. The variations and the different paths one could chart just walking from one floor to the other demonstrates a humanist...or perhaps even humane architecture. J spotted the humour in the details of the building, such as the airvents on certain levels, these concrete openings playfully shaped like ventilation fans!



The creative individual alone can know contentment and achievement, and the individual consumer can benefit from his/her work. But when a community of such individuals is formed, perhaps the imagination of a generation can be stirred.

there and back

a week of meetings gave me a chance to doodle this 2 days ago.

It's been more than 9 years since I've been back from the UK. I'm sure it'll be a little strange going there next Monday, as if visiting a dream.

This is the recurring dream.

I am in Cambridge. I find the room I've been assigned to - it's a lot grottier than I had expected. But this is the UK after all. I try to figure out why I'm there. I must be crazy to be back with no plans and no J. Ah. I'm supposed to be doing a phD or something. I go back to the college bike shed and try to retrieve my bike. Hey, I still have the key to the lock. I cycle to Sainsbury's to stock up on groceries. This being the UK, it is 5pm and Sainsbury is about to close. They've run out of semi-skimmed milk. I grab something, but I don't know what. There is no sequence with the check out counter. I drop by the College computer lab (oh, they still have those ancient macs) and check my email. Then I go into the college's porters lodge to check my mailbox. They still have one with my name. I am surprised. The college porter says hi and asks why I am back - you must be crazy to be back, he says. I laugh and say something or other. It is getting dark. I must get back because there are no lights on my bike. I wake up.

art tends

Friday evening and over the weekend, enjoy some art and help raise funds for Indonesian quake victims here. (image by A 100 tents)

Hope Street

sceptical ampulets getting all body-arty at the Stamford Art Centre on Waterloo St.

We took last Friday off work with plans to have no plans. But Ma J's acupuncture session in the city made us feel guilty for not having gone to visit her the whole week, so we trooped down to be with her instead and stumbled into the busy street of hope.

Well, the truth is that we were also feeling doubtful about this whole acupuncture business. We both had a mental image of a dried-up old Chinese man smelling of axe oil, wearing a black gong fu get up and waiting for Ma J in his dark cockcroachy room where there are dusty bottles of pickled lizards and snakes in some urine-coloured fluid.



Of course, once there, we were relieved to find a gentle professional TCM practitioner from He Nan and his clean, modest clinic, albeit located in a dark corridor of this HDB block just across from the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple at Waterloo Street. Next to this temple for the Goddess of mercy is the Hindu Sri Krisnan temple. Devotees at the one appeared to also offer incense at the other - definitely no religiously-motivated antagonism here! Beggars and vendors hawking incense and lotus flowers dot this busy pedestrian street, in front of shop windows with buddhist amulets, "healing" crystals and other assorted luck/health/properity-giving objects. How inappropriate that a street appearing to proffer hope should be named instead after a battle!




Top Lady Luck outside the Kwan Im Temple Middle Outside the Sri Krishnan Temple Bottom: Outside the St Joseph Church just round the corner at the adjacent Victoria St. All photos by J

J's siblings have avoided accompanying Ma and Pa J to the acupuncturist thus far. This is because not only had her doctor at the hospital remained non-committal about acupuncture, she had instead only issued Pa J the warning to "avoid the vital points". I guess therefore no one wanted to volunteer to share Pa J's decision (and responsibility) to finally send Ma J to an acupuncturist regardless.

J tried to explain Pa J's decision to his sister this way - "If your spouse was ill, wouldn't you try anything that has the slightest chance to make him/her better? How can you live thinking that there is this one possible cure that you did not try?"

Hope - whether false, misguided or well-placed - is tenacious, even if in small doses.

self promotion

Despite our complaints about Singapore designers' love for self-promotion and style over social and intellectual engagement (wah!), ampulets confess that we cannot resist the 1819 supermovement which, under a banner of patriotism, provides for expressions of unabashed devotion, sincerity, ironic inflection, contrivance or artful indulgence. In other words, we're just happy our submission here got accepted for the Majullah Stickapura Series 3!


the stickers are supposed to be on sale somewhere, but we're not sure where yet.

a penny for this?

A narrow 5-storey shophouse designed by Chan Soo Khian from the award-winning SCDA Architects, the private MINT museum of toys is located at Seah Street, right beside the Raffles Hotel. At the basement is a cafe with seats upholstered in a specially-made robot pattern brocade!

There was an article in the papers about the the museum recently, so I shan't describe the museum in any detail - except to say it's a great place to spend a slow lazy weekend afternoon.


I want a name card like this...

I guess one of the perks of my job is that I get to go to a museum on a weekday afternoon and call it work!

But what's better is being brought round the museum by its owner, Mr Chang. An engineer in his 50s who started collecting toys since he was a kid, Mr Chang now has a 3000 sq ft warehouse full of toys. On display at the museum are just 5% of his collection of pre-80s toys of every genre imaginable. But how did an engineer get to start and own his own museum?!? By living modestly otherwise. His wife revealed that their 3 children share 1 bedroom. They don't own a garage full of fancy cars.

It's all about choice. That's what Mr Chang taught me that day. And passion - sustained and pursued without compromise.

Once, when asked to choose 1 toy to speak to a group of schoolkids about, Mr Chang chose a penny toy made in Germany in the 30s. A simple tin toy of a woman pushing a cart, but beautifully and carefully made. He wanted to use the toy to illustrate the lesson that no matter how menial or unimportant your job may seem, do it to the utmost and do it with pride. Though it cost only a penny, whoever designed and made the tin toy did so carefully and with obvious attention to detail. Now that's a trait many of us Singaporeans are not brought up to value. Instead, we are taught to judge everything and weigh our effort pragmatically against the financial return or reward received.

Mr Chang also showed us his special collection of Micale Dolls, each handmade by the late Michael Lee - a 4 feet tall man with a big heart, giving all the money he made to refugees in Hong Kong.

The only disappointment was the cliche blown up in the museum's elevator, "He with the most toys, when he dies, wins." Surely someone who professes to admire Michael Lee and espouses the virtues of the penny toy cannot believe this ridiculous cliche. I comfort myself that his branding consultant must have insisted on this.

J and I don't have a museum. But for nothing, not even a penny, ampulets share with you some of our favourite stuffed toys here.