SINGAPORE – The Waterloo Street is abuzz – in spite of the upcoming double closure of Stamford Arts Centre and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). The area is fast becoming the go-to spot for indie arts in Singapore.

“Waterloo Street is charming in that it has retained its special blend of activity and calmness in the middle of a bustling city centre,” said Ma Yanling, company manager, Centre 42, which is a theatre development space located on Waterloo Street.

Other performing arts and creative groups that have taken up residence in the area are homegrown performing art groups The Theatre Practice (TTP), Dance Ensemble Singapore Ltd, and centre for photography and film, Objectifs.

Even as the Stamford Arts Centre and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) are due to close in the upcoming months for a major revamp, the arrival of new indie arts companies in the Waterloo Street Arts Belt has “quietly changed the landscape here”, Ma said. “There are always opportunities to engage with art in this area,” she added.

TTP’s artistic director Kuo Jian Hong added: “It is a creatively stimulating place to be in, and also great for us to reach out to a diverse audience.”

The Waterloo Street Arts Belt is part of the National Arts Council’s plan to develop a “unique focal point for arts activities in the heart of the city”.

Several arts institutions such as the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the School of the Arts (SOTA) are also in the vicinity.

Objectifs’ manager Chelsea Chua said: “We have good relationships with the art schools around us; We hosted the graduation showcase for NAFA in 2016 and will do so again this year, and on an informal basis we have collaborated with lecturers from LASALLE and curators from LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Singapore on art projects and exhibitions.”

Recently, Centre 42 also collaborated with Singapore Management University (SMU) School of Social Sciences’ Arts and Culture Management Programme under its The Living Room programme. Students from SMU presented and discussed their research findings on cultural policy, and milestones in Singapore’s cultural history. The programme hosts dialogues with emerging and veteran theatre practitioners on issues and trends relating to Singapore theatre.

As more arts companies take up residence in the Belt, the area has become a hive of activity.

TTP will organise a fifth installment of its dialogue series titled ‘Huh? Artist Wellness?’ when its food and beverage space, The Practice Tuckshop, opens on May 29.

TPP’s spokesman Jasmine Lim said the dialogue hopes to address the concept of mental wellness of performers in the arts industry. “(It is) a first step in raising awareness, enlivening and empowering our arts community.”

On The Practice Tuckshop’s new theme ‘Space of Taboos’, Lim said: “we are creating a safe space to talk about and question less-spoken topics (such as mental wellness).”

She added: “Every quarter, we will curate exciting programmes based on different themes, in hopes to bring people together as we blur the distinction between art and life through participatory art installations, dialogues, works-in-progress and more.”

Further down the road at Prinsep Street is independent non-profit arts space known as DECK.

A purpose-built space with 20 modified shipping containers, DECK has an artist studio for residency programmes, a public library, and two galleries for exhibitions.

Since it opened in October 2014 to September last year, DECK received 62,700 visitors at its exhibition, programmes and public lectures.

According to DECK’s co-founder Gwen Lee, “the art space maintains an open mind for collaboration, which is not strictly only photography, but a lot more dynamic, cross-disciplinary, which involves design, music, performance etc.”

This weekend, for instance, its OPEN DECK annual fundraising event will celebrate photography, arts & design in Singapore within the award-winning container art space. It is curated by award winning designer and founder of Kplus Gallery, Pann Lim; Books Actually founder Kenny Leck and director and co-founder of DECK, Gwen Lee.

The cluster of arts and creative practitioners at the Waterloo Street Arts Belt also provides for a collaborative environment.

Earlier this year, Objectifs worked with both Centre 42 and TTP to host part of their Noise mentorship exhibition in their spaces from Feb 16 to March 12.

“We (Objectifs) were keen to extend the show beyond our own space to our neighbours along Waterloo Street to reach out to new audiences and work with new partners. It was an easy way to begin the conversation with C42 and The Theatre Practice, who were both friendly and open to collaborations,” Objectifs manager, Chua said.

This spirit of engagement and collaboration between these independent spaces and groups in the vicinity, along with other arts institutions, have made the Waterloo Street Arts Belt and its surrounding area a vibrant arts precinct.

Ma said: “We believe that the bringing together of arts spaces and artists into the area will inject fresh energy and perhaps synergy.

“It would be crucial to observe how each art space engages with the direct community. It will take time, and it will require organic growth to have the best influence in the area.”

TTP’s Kuo added: “The area has been developing as a place where we nurture artists, as well as create works. But I think it is also beginning to grow into a space that the public can go to to enjoy arts activities. We still have a lot of work to do to create a buzzing arts scene, but I think it is not just Waterloo Street, but Singapore.”