Open House turns Joo Chiat into No Man’s Land

SINGAPORE — It seems the folks behind OH! Open House can’t get enough of Joo Chiat. After last year’s art walkabout edition around the neighbourhood, it’s heading back this month with a slight twist.

Instead of the usual tour we’ve come to know from the group, it’s presenting an immersive theatre experience as part of the Singapore Art Week. Titled No Man’s Land, the event sees guests following a narrative trail that blends fact with fiction, instead of having volunteers simply sharing stories about the place.

“People will be given instructions to move to different locations in Joo Chiat, they’ll be given either clues or straight instructions to follow a plot,” said OH! Open House partnership and communications manager Lim Su Pei.

Guests will be going through three stops in the neighbourhood before a truck picks them up to bring them to a shophouse off Joo Chiat, where the adventure continues in five rooms, which will be decked out with intricate sets that include a jetty and a showroom. In the course of No Man’s Land, one can encounter a host of fictional and real characters who include a singer, a “boy-made-good” and a migrant worker.

“We’re falling back on our same mission of using art to tell stories about the neighbourhood. But instead of a guide telling you ‘you’re here and this is happening’, you learn through the journey,” said Lim. “And at the shophouse, each of the five rooms will tell a different story about Joo Chiat, which may be fake or real, and it’s up to the guest to figure out if the character is playing himself or not.”

She added that the stories are all based on the histories found in Joo Chiat, and there might even be some “confrontational” instances, as when a migrant work will ask sensitive questions such as how much salary a guest earns.

In a press release, OH! artistic director Alan Oei elaborated on the decision to stage No Man’s Land: “Joo Chiat is a relic of old Singapore. It resists the block by block urban plan because it’s organic and historied. Diverse groups of people have had the time and space to plant their roots here. We wanted to explore all of those stories again, but put you, the guest at the centre of it. There’s little safe space, so it’s more intense, even ethically challenging.”

In a sense, the show’s immersive theatre format is similar to an event Oei had held back in 2013 called The End Of History, a performance installation examining the life of his fictional artist character Huang Wei that included performances in different rooms of a shophouse as well.

But No Man’s Land won’t be the only Open House event this year. While Lim declined to reveal their next walkabout neighbourhood in March, going back to Joo Chiat was simply an opportunity that was to good to resist. “We’re repurposing the rich content we had already done for last year’s walkabout and we wanted to give the people another, different way of experiencing the place.”

No Man’s Land will be held on Jan 22, 23, 24, 29, 30 and 31, from 6pm. Tickets at S$55 from http://www.nomansland.sg