Singapore arts community reacts to Trump’s win

SINGAPORE — The stunning upset by Donald Trump in the United States presidential election has driven at least one artist here to take action.

Local contemporary artist Heman Chong announced on Instagram on Wednesday (Nov 9) that he would be shutting his ongoing exhibition at Gilman Barracks on Friday and Saturday in protest.

The artist-in-residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts started work on his new long-term project entitled The Library of Unread Books in September this year, a members-only reference library made up of donated books that are unread by their previous owners.

For the duration of his residency the Library would be open to the public every Friday, from 12pm to 12am, and often on weekends as well. However, “as a clear and present response” to the result, Chong will be closing The Library of Unread Books for two days to stage “a quiet protest”.

“We have decided to stage a silent protest by closing the library this week because we feel depressed that a man who is an anti-intellectual, a misogynist, and a racist, can and will become the leader of one of the most progressive nations on earth. By marking the occasion as such, we join many other similar protests around the world as a gesture of solidarity in reflecting on the current state of things,” explained Chong when approached.

Chong is not the only local artist to voice his dismay at the outcome of the US Elections announced yesterday. Many artists, writers, curators and creatives from the Singapore arts scene also took to social media to express their concerns and sentiments.

Pooja Nansi, Young Artist Award 2016 recipient and spoken word performer, posted on Facebook a quote from Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, in which Clinton had encouraged little girls to “never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams”.

Nansi commented that she “ought to be sleeping” but was involuntarily in a “silent ugly cry” because of what Clinton had said.

Sharing with TODAY why she felt strongly about what was happening in America, Nansi said: “As a woman, it hurt to have to watch this. Because it showed me that we live in a world where men can achieve things even when they are rude, disrespectful, bigoted, and have zero experience for the job. And it was hard to watch a woman who has 30 years of public service experience have to suffer the indignity of running against a man like that as though he was anything close to an equal.”

Adib Jalal, co-founder and director of Shophouse & Co., a placemaking community-centred studio, had also expressed his dismay on Facebook. “If this is the leader of a superpower and some say “the free world”, then it is very worrying indeed,” he told TODAY.

He added: “His clear disrespect and suppression of diversity is perhaps the biggest concern because it is in diversity that culture and creativity thrives.”

Joshua Ip, award-winning writer and founder of literary nonprofit Sing Lit Station, shared several posts expressing his dismay with the elections results on Wednesday, but posted on Facebook this morning on a more hopeful note.

Addressed to all friends who style themselves as writers, creators, artists, makers of things, he said: “Whether you consider yourself an activist who uses your mastery of the written word to campaign for justice and truth, or an analyst who reflects on the zeitgeist from a certain considered distance, or a confessor of the human condition in all its tremulous weakness and vulnerability, or a satirist who strikes blows against stupidity while sheathing your fists in gauntlets of humour — history has just afforded us a rare opportunity for the next four years. and an unmissable responsibility. Game on.”

Nansi expressed similar sentiments about the impact of the election results on the arts scene globally. “I think it should and it will propel artists to think harder about how their art can address, impact, speak to, and against the changes happening in our world.”