Canberra fires up the barbie to celebrate SG50
SINGAPORE — Barbecues, wall-art pieces and street performances — they each come in 50 — are in the works to mark five decades of friendship between Singapore and Australia as well as the island’s golden jubilee.
SINGAPORE — Barbecues, wall-art pieces and street performances — they each come in 50 — are in the works to mark five decades of friendship between Singapore and Australia as well as the island’s golden jubilee.
Organised by the Australian High Commission in Singapore, the celebrations, known as 50 Bridges, will be held in the heartlands — Housing and Development Board (HDB) estates, hawker centres, shopping malls and schools.
Under 50 Walls, Australian street artists will be conducting workshops at local schools to teach students about street art. They will also be collaborating with Singaporean street artists to paint 50 walls located in the heartlands.
Australian High Commissioner Philip Green said yesterday that the idea for 50 Walls had come from wanting to decorate Singapore’s infrastructure and bring contemporary Australian street art here.
“One of our purposes is to signal to all those foreigners who don’t understand Singapore that this is now a cool, edgy, contemporary society,” he added.
50 Performances will feature street acts in the form of puppetry by members of two Australian theatre companies, Polyglot and Snuff Puppets.
Polyglot will be performing with puppets in the shape of native Australian animals, while Snuff Puppets will be showcasing its large-scale puppets that represent disembodied human body parts.
There will also be an animated film directed by award-winning animator Dave Jones, created from stories by members of Singapore’s pioneer generation and sketches by Raffles Girls’ Primary School.
The short film, My Day, will showcase what it was like growing up in Singapore of the old days, with several pioneer Singaporeans lending their voices to the animation. It will screened on Channel 5.
One of the pioneers involved, Bollywood Veggies founder Ivy Singh-Lim, 66, recalled the time when the kampung (Malay for village) was known as a community made up of many people from different backgrounds bonding together.
“We lived together, helped one another and enjoyed each other’s company,” said Ms Singh-Lim, who used to live in Rose Lane, Tanjong Katong.
The final element of the celebrations will be the 50 free Australian barbecues to be held simultaneously across the island in one night, with 10,000 steaks to be served to the public. The barbecue pits will be located mostly in HDB estates.
50 Walls and 50 Performances will run from May 18 to 29. The barbecues, on the other hand, will be a surprise, said the Australian High Commission.
Apart from 50 Bridges, which was announced yesterday, Canberra is also lending four koalas to the Singapore Zoo for six months as part of the celebrations to mark the two
anniversaries.
The koalas, Chan, Idalia, Paddle and Pellita, arrived here on Monday and are currently housed in the zoo’s quarantine facility. The animals will remain there for a month, said Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which manages the zoo. The koala exhibit is expected to be opened to the public late next month.