At unique sessions, NMP Kok Heng Leun seeks input from artists

SINGAPORE — He might not have a constituency or a grassroots team, but that has not stopped Kok Heng Leun from holding his own unique Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS).

Since becoming a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) this March after the arts community repeatedly put his name forward, Kok — a playwright/director and artistic director of multi-award-winning theatre company Drama Box — has assembled several town hall meetings in auditoriums, and held more intimate classroom-sized open sessions called Statement(s) for The Arts: Connecting Policy and Practice. In both, art-makers are invited to talk about how various government policies have impacted them.

Says Kok, “As an artist myself, there are issues I’m familiar with, like censorship or housing grants, but I don’t know everything. If you don’t know a topic well, you can probably still make convincing speeches in Parliament, but you won’t know the right questions to ask to effect change. So I need a lot of people’s input.”

MINISTERING FOR THE ARTS

Kok’s meetings are quite different from the MPS held by MPs with a constituency. Firstly, they’re rarely one-to-one: Kok is always outnumbered by diverse people sharing their experiences and views. So far, these sessions have seen artists such as Sean Tobin (head, faculty of theatre, School of the Arts Singapore, artistic director of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, and theatre director), performance artist Eng Kai Er, and actors Brendon Fernandez and Judee Tan drop by.

Secondly, he must explain to these people that as someone who is not part of a political party and with limited financial means (Kok has even gone on sabbatical from Drama Box, largely to focus on his NMP duties), he cannot promise immediate redress of their dissatisfactions.

“It’s not a situation where somebody says that the covered walkway is too dark and I get the town council to immediately address that,” he said. “I don’t have that sort of position. My work is to effect policy, which always comes with a lot of baggage: Who implemented it and why? Is changing the mindsets of people making these policies what we need to do? Honestly, all these might take longer than my term. What I can do is use everybody’s input to know what to bring up in Parliament, such as at the upcoming budget debates. Input from many voices makes for a more convincing case.

Arts Engage, a network of arts practitioners from various disciplines, were very involved in discussing various potential amendments to the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act in 2014. They came together for extensive consultations about the proposed Arts Term Licensing and after registering their opposition and reasons, the Media Development Authority withdrew it from the Bill.”

Kok added that he will ensure that the issues discussed are all on public record, such as the report that was put out after the recent town hall meetings about arts grants. “The National Arts Council explained that certain concerns might not be immediately resolvable, but at least I have a record to say later, ‘This was raised one year ago, are we going to do something about it?’,” explained Kok. “I want to complete a shadow report about various issues such as censorship and funding during my term, so that if there are periods without an NMP representing the arts in future, the community can continue to update it as documentation. An institution must have its memory. Meanwhile, I am grateful that people have been willing to share their voices.”

AN ACTIVE COMMUNITY 

People have been doing more than sharing. Numerous volunteers have stepped up to help put the sessions together, including Cultural Medallion winner Alvin Tan.

“Heng Leun didn’t ask me to help, but I just get word of his events out there,” said the artistic director of The Necessary Stage. “His monthly take-home NMP stipend is less than S$2,000 — he can’t afford a communications department. He pays his researchers and everything is gone. So I spread news on social media, I call people — and we persuade people to come. Honestly, this kind of conversation is very new. Some might not put faith in it or think it’s another talk by an MP, but we combine forces to assure them we are serious.”

The Substation has also been lending itself as a venue for Kok’s initiatives, including for the Arts NMP in Residency programme as part of Post-Museum's Survey: Space, Sharing, Haunting series. Various others have been volunteering their skills in research, organisation, documentation, archival and so on. Of course, even more people have showed up to share their concerns … and not just for Kok to use as parliamentary material.

“The sessions have revealed the extent of common concerns, like exploitation of freelance art-makers,” revealed Kok. “I was moved by the sense of community when an attendee said, ‘I always thought there’s no point trying to stand up for certain benefits I feel artists deserve. But after hearing everybody speak today about wanting the same things, I think, maybe it can be done’. Our society is so complex now, it’s easy to stay solitary and not listen to anybody else. Conversation helps us realise we are not alone.”

Tan added: “People at the sessions started analysing instead of whining, and discussing whether they can get together and do something on the people level, exploring alternatives to Singapore’s hierarchical mindset of ‘Leave things to the government because they know best’. Solving a problem can be two-pronged: We can look to authority, but we also shouldn’t treat people like Heng Leun as kitchen gods to demand things from. We can look among ourselves.”

Artists and government working to solve the same problems can seem surprising to some who see them as mutually antagonistic. However, Kok himself — whose pet art form of forum theatre had, for several years, been denied funding for being seen as having Marxist connections — believes this is not so.

“People and the government sometimes have different versions of stories. You can learn things from both. When I was presenting Both Sides Now — a forum theatre project regarding death and dying in Singapore — I worked with government bodies to discuss their concerns about this issue. My job as an MP now is not so different from my art-making: Presenting stories that might not be heard to people who need to hear them. It might not be my preferred platform, but I’ve always asked people to stand up and speak out. That’s difficult if you are not doing the same yourself.”

Two more open sessions — Statement(s) for the Arts by Kok Heng Leun — will take place on 23 and 24 September 2016, 7.30pm at The Substation, Level 3 Classroom.