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ART REVIEW: Survey: Space, Sharing, Haunting Making sense of the arts and culture

SINGAPORE — The past two years have been pretty rough on The Substation. After Noor Effendy Ibrahim’s departure at the beginning of 2015, ten months passed without an artistic director, until artist Alan Oei stepped into the role. Oei’s first year on the job has not exactly been smooth-sailing, with his proposals to reinvent the 25-year-old independent arts centre met with vociferous opposition from the arts community.

SINGAPORE — The past two years have been pretty rough on The Substation. After Noor Effendy Ibrahim’s departure at the beginning of 2015, ten months passed without an artistic director, until artist Alan Oei stepped into the role. Oei’s first year on the job has not exactly been smooth-sailing, with his proposals to reinvent the 25-year-old independent arts centre met with vociferous opposition from the arts community.

Oei, in his proposals last December, had wanted to ease out the centre’s venue rental function and reshape its programming. He wanted to position The Substation as a “research and developmental space”, and embark on a year-long programme that will concentrate on one big theme or idea.

Now, rather than a year-long programme dedicated to the theme of nostalgia, Oei’s current tack is examining The Substation itself — its role, function, and so on within Singapore’s arts community.

At first, that stated goal might not seem to gel with The Substation’s current programme, Survey: Space, Sharing, Haunting, in which the reins have been handed over to Post-Museum for the month of September.

It’s not that much of a stretch, though. Post-Museum has also seen its fair share of recent challenges: After the loss of their space in 2011, they’ve operated nomadically, to the extent that fans of the organisation have coalesced into a Facebook group called “Wandering restless souls of Post-Museum (or so it seems)”. Given their similarities and differences, there might be much that can be learned from this cross-over.

In its website, Post-Museum also said that its “takeover creates the opportunity to invite cultural producers and audiences to examine and reflect upon the state of the arts and culture in Singapore”.

The themes of space, sharing and hauntings will be expressed through different activities, it said. “We imagine the dialogue moving along different paths, creating entrances, reconfiguring old spaces, activating forgotten routes, and opening up wormholes. We believe this programme will liven up The Substation body and serve to reinvigorate the arts and culture in Singapore.”

One of the most simple, yet startling changes is the temporary relocation of The Substation’s entrance, from the front of the building to a small side door in an alleyway.

It may sound like a relatively minor change, but the repurposing of space made possible by this reorientation makes The Substation feel like an entirely new venue. It also seems like a callback to conceptual artist Lim Tzay Chuen’s Space Alteration #7, which made a number of changes to the gallery space proper.

As if to make the most of their brief time at The Substation, Survey presents a smorgasbord of programmes, generally anchored in some fashion or another to the visual art exhibition which runs throughout the month.

While each artwork therein might be deserving of detailed essays, it is the impression of the show as a whole that packs a punch. There’s an organic, even anarchic sensibility to the artworks and the methods of their display — it’s more art-punk squat than a stiff, starched group show in a white cube.

This organic, communitarian ethos carries over to the rest of the programming, the eclecticism of which is drawn from Post-Museum’s focus on relational, social forms of art practice, rather than more strictly visual approaches.

There are, among other things, lectures on citizenship and activism, yoga classes, ghost storytelling, performances ranging from improvised spoken word to impromptu music, public dialogue sessions, and so on, in tandem with groups such as the Foodscape Collective and Project X, a sex workers’ rights group.

There’s even an opportunity to play (or watch someone play) Metal Gear Solid V while discussing military violence, statelessness, and incarceration, over a span of 24 hours.

If you’re wondering what to check out, and tried asking Jennifer Teo, one of the brains behind Survey, which programme is her favourite, you might be told that that’s like asking a mother who is her favourite child. Perhaps it doesn’t matter too much what you choose to see in Survey’s last week, with the boundless, infectious energy coursing through the whole programme.

Survey: Space, Sharing, Haunting runs until Sept 30, from 12pm to 9pm Sundays to Thursdays, and 12 pm to 12am Fridays and Saturdays at The Substation, 45 Armenian Street. Free admission.

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