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A camp with a difference

SINGAPORE — If you are heading to Gillman Barracks this weekend, you may find people camping out at the open carpark behind Block 43 Malan Road, engaged in discussions about world affairs, making soup, and engaging in barter trade at a free market.

Rehearsal is an urban camping experience at Gillman Barracks presented by Post-Museum as a social experiment aimed at creating spaces for different groups to come together, have open discussions and talk about new ideas. Photo: Post-Museum

Rehearsal is an urban camping experience at Gillman Barracks presented by Post-Museum as a social experiment aimed at creating spaces for different groups to come together, have open discussions and talk about new ideas. Photo: Post-Museum

SINGAPORE — If you are heading to Gillman Barracks this weekend, you may find people camping out at the open carpark behind Block 43 Malan Road, engaged in discussions about world affairs, making soup, and engaging in barter trade at a free market.

For arts collective Post-Museum, which organised the event, this urban camp was inspired by “the idea that often, discussions — be they about art, culture or city life — don’t last for a very long time. Often, they are limited by (things such as) opening hours”, according to artist-curator Woon Tien Wei, who founded Post-Museum with his curator and activist wife Jennifer Teo.

“Ideas for our city are important because they can help shape a better future for everyone. Why not spend a little more time on them? So we thought, why don’t we just have a space that is open for everyone to spend a longer time together and be ‘undirected’? Let everyone have their own rehearsal, let people make connections with one another.”

That inspired the name of this urban camping-and-social experience, Rehearsal.

Part of Cities For People, the pilot edition of the annual NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Ideas Fest 2016/17, Rehearsal — its second edition — will take the form of a campsite that invites the public to stay, eat, and live together over a period of 48 hours from Friday (Jan 20) to Sunday.

Its first run, which took place at The Substation last year, attracted more than 30 people. Then, Post-Museum had invited people to spend time together and do something collectively over a 24-hour period.

This year’s edition will see the open carpark transformed into a makeshift living environment, with spaces such as the kitchen, sleeping area, library, and meditation space built using recycled materials from NTU CCA Singapore’s previous exhibitions. They will be built by the attendees themselves, through a collective wood workshop, and they will be asked to shape the site according to their activities and interests.

While there, they will have discussions about the topics raised during the three-day public summit held during the NTU CCA Ideas Fest such as sustainability, food and energy sources, and social relations.

They will also talk about the United States Presidential inauguration of Mr Donald Trump, which took place last night, engage in a collective hair-braiding session, and hold a soup party where attendees can bring along vegetables and help make soup together.

The Singapore Really Really Free Market will also be held in conjunction with the event. Expect a sharing of items or skills at the temporary market, which started in 2009, such as books, toys, or food or poetry writing, tarot card reading, and music.

Woon hopes the overall experience of this urban camp will leave people feeling “recharged and inspired to share and give more of their passion, ideas and future plans with others”.

For more details, you can visit http://ntu.ccasingapore.org/events/rehearsal-post-museum/. You can sign up for the event at http://peatix.com/event/230863.

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