State of the Arts: June 21 to 28

SINGAPORE — The Singapore International Festival Of Arts’ pre-festival event OPEN, well, opened with a bulk of the talks and screenings at 72-13, Mohamed Sultan Road over the weekend and will continue over subsequent ones. The M1 Chinese Theatre Festival, spearheaded by The Theatre Practice, also kicked off. Meanwhile, developments in several big arts events have also been revealed: Next month’s Singapore Heritage Fest takes a special interest in Singapore’s outlying islands, with tours as one of the highlights. The UOB Painting Of The Year contest for this year is open for application and has opened a new gallery space to showcase past winners. The Prudential Eye Programme announced that it would hold a special Prudential Singapore Eye exhibition at ArtScience Museum in January next year, after which it would travel to Saatchi Gallery in London. Meanwhile, Singaporean poet Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde has progressed to the next round of 16 in the unusual Poetry World Cup international event. After “beating” his Chinese counterpart, Kon faces a poet from Cyprus on July 1. MAYO MARTIN