BRACKMAG ISSUE 3 / THIS IS HOME

We're proud to share a new issue of the #BrackMag in collaboration with the cultural mapping project ‘This is Home’ organised by Matt3r, which ran from Oct 2015 to May 2016. It documents the culmination of the project in the exhibition 'This Is Home' in Dec 2015, which opened in the social space The Recess and then travelled back home to Queenstown Library and Community Centre. The collection of stories form reflections on the themes explored in the artworks, including: Loo Ching Ling’s rumination on routines of a HDB dweller; Bestlyn Loo’s discussive piece on the liminality of the corridor; Emma Goh’s fictional piece that matches the “mixture of abstract and realistic arrangements” in both artists Ng Hui Hsien’s Sands and Sufian Samsiyar’s The Imaginary World of Tanglin Halt. He Liwei’s footnotes from a stranger’s notebook. From afield, Melinda Lauw explores (such a lack of) space via the Fung Wah Biennial in New York. Issue Editor Nazry Bahrawi considers Singapore vis-à-vis Penang. We’ve poured our hearts into the making of this volume and there's so much more inside that we would like to show you. The magazine is freely available online now. Next month we're back at My Queenstown for a xinyao concert. We'll have more details later. Meanwhile, read it, share it, we'd love to hear from you. Read this issue

A CHAT WITH ALICE LEE / QUENSTOWN RESIDENT / MY TEAMMATE

Alice, can you introduce yourself?

I am a resident of Tanglin Halt. I have lived here for 38 years. I am 67 years old.I have two children, one boy and one girl. My hobbies are going to look for places to eat. I’m a fussy eater but I like to look for new things to try. I like to eat together with my friends. I also like to travel, to go overseas with a group of friends. Eat together! Enjoy together!

                                                        

What do you think of your artist?

<Laughs> I think she looks very young. And what she is doing is very meaningful, so I try my best to help her. For example, she used the games that we played in Singapore 50 years ago. She’s bringing them out to the public in Singapore again and in other countries also. This will remind Singaporeans of the games we used to play when we were young. This shows how children used to play in Singapore, so we can teach the children today of these “forgotten” things. 

                                    

How do you feel about performing together with Núria?

I thought it was very meaningful. Her movements are so beautiful, they really attract people to watch. I wanted to watch her more, but I remembered the filming so I tried not to turn my head.  Also when we were together, we could communicate and connect through the performance.

                                     

What do you want to tell people about Tanglin Halt?

I want people to know that Tanglin Halt is a place where the people have a lot of empathy. We have the KAMPUNG spirit! We eat together, talk together about what we are doing and thinking. The community is very close and feels warmly towards each other. Whenever anyone has difficulties, we will come together to help out. For example my neighbours and friends give me the keys to their flats. When they go out, if they forget to turn off the lights, or gas, or close the window, I will go over to help.

    

                                                                

Last question, Alice. Why did you give Núria the saga seeds when you first met her?

These saga seeds are very meaningful to me. I have kept them for more than 12 years already. I collected them with my good friend when we went every morning to exercise together. Until now, I cannot bear to throw them away. We were very close friends. We helped each other a lot. When she was sick, I bought food for her and looked after her. She lives at nearby at Queens Close but something happened, some misunderstanding so from very good friends, we are now very distant. I still say hello to her. But these saga seeds remind me of her. I will think of those times we walked together and picked them together. Life was simple. I don’t blame her for anything. I trust her even now. So I keep these seeds by my side for so many years. She doesn’t know that I kept them. If one day she comes to my house, I will show her the seeds that I have kept. When you trust someone, when you have a friendship, you don’t throw it away. This is why I thought it was worthwhile to give Núria the seeds when we first met, because they hold a lot of deep meaning for me.

SAMPLE III - QUEENSWAY

SUNDAY AT BLK 35A. TANGLIN HALT

Notes from an opportunistic observer

When Núria first asked Alice to play a game of five stones with her, the latter laughed and promised to practise.

The simple game between a Girona native and a “married to Tanglin Halt” resident was an attempt to engage and connect two individuals dissimilar in age, culture, ethnicity, native language and background. For the performance artist Núria, physical engagement through a game created a perfect, safe space to reach out to Alice, the local resident she was partnered with – of whom she arrived knowing nothing about except that once, there was a game she enjoyed in her youth.

“Five stones” later became a motif in the work that resulted, culminating in their joint performance one muggy Sunday under the pavilion of Blk 35A. By accident rather than design, Alice invited 3 other residents to join in a group game of five stones, making up (with Núria) a rather unexpected but lovely crew of five. Sitting on a recreated street map of the area on the pavilion floor, the five “stones” were a literal, poignant reminder that places are created by the community that inhabits them.

Núria performed twice – less a performance than an expression of both her longing to connect and the multiple frustrations and anxieties of repeatedly trying to do so over the past 4 weeks of her residency. She interprets her local hosts’ conversations over their game through movement, at times disjointed, jerky and fretful in moments of isolation; at other times, fluid, joyful and expansive during moments of breakthrough in connection.

Alice and the residents had a surprise up their sleeves. Moving into a Stonehenge-like circle, they started an acappella choral singing of the Chinese- language lullaby 世上只有妈妈(Mother is Best), to Núria’s delight. The latter’s appreciation was not merely for the gift of the song – it was a particularly touching choice given the recent bereavement of one of the singers in the group. This was later shared with Núria – a true connection through the offer of vulnerability.

Other Tanglin Halt residents passing through the pavilion on Sunday must have been surprised by the surreal scene of a red-haired, 6-foot-tall woman leaping, twirlingand pirouetting around 3 singing ‘aunties’ and a silent, shy child. The strangenes,however, is only aesthetic. Underneath the surface was an expanding notion of home,place and family.

SAMPLE II - TAK PAO

Named after the colloquial Chinese term for takeaway food, ‘TAK PAO’ is an experimental take on film as a medium for experiential mapping, resisting the bird’s eye view of conventional two-dimensional maps. The artist uses her camera to traverse the lived environment of a residential estate in Queenstown, circumnavigating through the corridors of Singapore’s earliest HDB flats, built so early they preceded the HDB’s public housing policy of creating void decks. The camera celebrates minor landmarks in the topography, lingering over areas of symbolic value or sites of social interaction such as pavilions and public tables to offer the viewer a visual exploration of the cultural data and spatial dynamics of the area.

Long takes which track the camera’s progress through the estate and its attendant wet market and hawker centre shore up deeper realisations of how the built environment shapes and reflects patterns of daily use and shared identity by inhabitants of the area. The installation evokes understandings that these communal areas of food and commerce are very much a natural extension, perhaps even an integral element, of residential estates in Singapore. The fruits depicted in the film are a result of a collaborative process between the artist and Alice (the resident), who pointed them out and explained them when taking her on her first tour of a Singapore wet market.

The fascinating sequences of the artist’s performance art executed in selective spaces and landmarks embody the artist’s attempts to reconstruct and recreate the participatory processes of the urban environment and landscape. By incorporating inter-disciplinary techniques of dance, mutual engagement with local residents and experiential community-specific fieldwork, the installation is a layered, visceral and evocative take on the cartographic process as a means of bringing to life notions of heritage, culture and identity.

SAMPLE I - SEEDS & STONES

‘Seeds and Stones’ is a multi-layered visual art and aural experience. The installation explores themes of loss, transformation and renewal in light of Tanglin Halt’s impending demolition and redevelopment. Clips of buildings in Queenstown are overlaid with fractal, Rorschach-like imagery of cranes with their spindly claws extended, twisting out towards the buildings. Sequences of giant trees and buildings being felled are interspersed with archival film footage depicting moments in the ordinary lives of residents – neighbourhood kids hunched over some shared mischief, playing five stones and trying to jump rope. The use of visual layering creates the textural effect of residents watching, almost impassively, their houses slow-gliding to destruction. 

The artist’s own fluid, sinuous and expressive movements are integrated within the work, the calligraphy of her long limbs drifting, swirling and curling with emotion. Her dance sequences are rendered in shimmering, phosphorescent light silhouettes, carefully stacked and layered over each other to dreamy, mesmerising effect.

The haunting, fragmented soundscape is a product of the artist’s interactions with, and interpretations of, the people and natural environment in Queenstown. The artist blends a rhythmic drumming pattern of saga (love) seeds indigenous to the area with excerpts of recorded interviews with Alice, a resident and community leader in Tanglin Halt, to create intricate polyphonic textures unique to the neighbourhood. The sonic reinterpretation of the interviewee’s familiar but disembodied and deconstructed Singaporean accent also captures and offers an insight into the way Singaporean accents sound to foreigners. 

Each element of the installation thus provides the Singaporean viewer with a novel, unexpected opportunity to understand and confront their own perspectives and understandings of home.

THEME IIII - TRAVEL JOURNAL

ENGLISH

Theme Four: Movements & Barriers

1. What difficulties did you experience during your project? 

Having produced work immediately. And the language.

2. How did you try to overcome these difficulties? 

Changing my perception remind me that I've done so far is part of a process that goes beyond the immediacy and that I have finished presenting, in certain aspects, are initial notes about perceptions in which I could satisfy more research. Internally, it live as the start of a process that asks me to close the formal level, but I can not conclude in the vital and creative area. It isn’t in my hands, I can only hear him, it travels free inside me. It’s life giving me and I already speak when the time past. 

Regarding language difficulties I have tried to treat them with playfulness, while still being aware of the limitations in this area. 

3. How did you incorporate these difficulties into your work?

Accepting and adding.

4. Why did you want to come to Singapore?

I request a scholarship in art community that develops here. My lack of knowledge of about Singapore was considerable - not to speak English - and could have been anywhere else in the world. Anyway, I saw it was an opportunity to open myself and go beyond what was known so far. 

5. What similarities or differences did you discover between Singaporean culture and your own? 

One difference and one similarity …

Here there is an immense wealth to express how divinity manifests. There is a spiritual consciousness healthy, respectful and harmonious rooted in everyday life of people. In my home, there are many more contradictions toward religious beliefs and spiritual awareness, and great confusion between belief and fact of feeling. I personally feel it 

is essential to do this and lead to spiritual awareness. When I plug it all makes sense and feel that my degree of acceptance towards improving things. 

The similarity in this respect is that although various forms manifest the essence is the same: there is something that is bigger than us and feel. It's mystery is nothing yet is it. 

Unfortunately, we share a 'cultural trait' and is the excessive consumption of things that are not necessary to live. It is something that I have saw clearly both here and there. 

6. How did you feel talking to Alice and the other Queenstown residents?

As I said, one of the difficulties has been the language. After the first meeting with Alice I had a little difficulty because I had not clearly explained my goals. Then I transform this feeling and I realized I just had to listen and trust in the same process. So I afford not to make use of the organizational work that had been prepared and of unique form on intuition. 

7. Was it easy to move around in Queenstown, and Singapore?

Yes, Matt3r has done a lot for me in this regard.

8. How has your experience so far changed you?

The experience is begins rich. I know I'm changing, but I dare not put words to something that still cooks in secret. At the moment, I feel that any change I will see in the same creative work and over the time. 

9. What advice would you give another foreign artist in residency?

You would be faithfull to yourself and open yourself for things are expressed through you. 

CATALÀ

Tema 4: Moviments i dificultats

1. Quines dificultats vas experimentar durant el teu projecte?

Haver de produir obra de forma immediata. I l’idioma.

2. Com vas tractar de superar aquestes dificultats?

Canviant la meva percepció en recordar-me que el que he fet fins ara forma part d’un procés que va més enllà de la immediatesa i que el que he acabat presentant, en certs aspectes són apunts inicials de percepcions en les quals em satisfaria poder investigar més. Internament ho visc com l’inici d’un procés que se’m sol·licita tancar en l’àmbit formal, però no puc concloure en l'àmbit vital i creatiu. No es troba en les meves mans, jo només puc escoltar-lo, va per lliure a dins meu. És vida, se’m dóna i ja em parlarà quan sigui el moment.

Pel que fa a les dificultats lingüístiques he procurat tractar-les amb esperit lúdic. 

3. Com has incorporat aquestes dificultats a la feina?

Acceptant i sumant.

4. Per què vas voler venir a Singapur?

Vaig sol·licitar una beca en art comunitari que es desenvolupava aquí. La meva desconeixença sobre Singapur era considerable - per no parlar de l’anglès - i podria haver estat a qualsevol altre lloc del món. El cas és que veia que era una oportunitat per obrir-me i anar més enllà del que havia conegut fins al moment.

5. Quines similituds o diferències vas descobrir entre la cultura de Singapur i la teva?

Una diferència i una similitud…

Aquí existeix una riquesa immensa per expressar la forma en què la divinitat es manifesta. Existeix una consciència espiritual saludable, respectuosa i arrelada harmònicament a la vida quotidiana de les persones. A casa meva, existeixen moltes més contradiccions envers les creences religioses i la consciència espiritual, i grans confusions entre la creença i el fet de sentir. Jo, personalment, sento que és essencial fer present i donar lloc a la consciència espiritual. Quan m’hi connecto sento que tot té sentit i el meu grau d’acceptació envers les coses millora.

La similitud en aquest sentit, és que tot i que les formes es manifesten diverses, l’essència és la mateixa: existeix alguna cosa que és més gran que nosaltres i se sent. És misteri, és no-res i alhora és tot.

Desgraciadament, compartim un ‘tret cultural’ i és el consum desmesurat de coses que no són necessàries per viure. És quelcom que he vist amb claredat tant aquí com allà.

6. Com et vas sentir parlant amb Alice i els altres residents de Queenstown?

Com he dit, una de les dificultats va ser la llengua, després de la primera reunió amb l’Alice vaig patir una petita dificultat perquè no havia pogut exposar amb claredat els meus objectius. Llavors, vaig transformar aquest sentiment i vaig adonar-me’n que només calia escoltar i confiar en el mateix procés. Així que vaig permetre’m no fer ús de l’organigrama de treball que havia preparat i confiar de forma única en la intuïció.

7. Va ser fàcil moure’t a Queenstown, i Singapur?

Sí, Matt3r hi té molt a veure.

8. Com ha estat la teva experiència fins ara, has canviat?

L’experiència està essent rica. Sé que estic canviant, però no goso posar paraules a una cosa que encara es cou en secret. De moment, qualsevol canvi que hi hagi sento que s’anirà veient en el mateix treball creatiu i al llarg del temps.

9. Quin consell li donaria a un altre artista estranger per a la residència?

Que sigui fidel a si mateix i s’obri a què les coses s’expressin a través d’ell.

THEME III - TRAVEL JOURNAL

ENGLISH

Theme Three: Home (Girona vs Queenstown)

1. Where is your home?

My home is in Susqueda, amid of a valley, near the river.

2. How long did you work and research in Queenstown?

A long a month.

3. Did you feel uncomfortable in Queenstown?

No, quiet the contrary, very well recived and so I felt comfortable.

4. Your first video showed the demolition of buildings in Queenstown. Is there a similar issue in Girona?

The problem in Girona, Catalonia and Spai is that there are many empty buildings and many people living on the street. What should be of the people, ended in the hands of banks. The situation is grim.

5. Who did you speak to in Queenstown for your work?

With Alice Lee, a woman of strength, light and amazing hospitality. The first time I met her, I saw clearly that it was me who had guided the meetings, in any case, it was her. I was just there to listen and ask. It is she who gave me knowledge about Queenstown live without that I would do anything special.

6. How do you use maps in your work?

I have used as a specific and valuable tool on which the rest of the work is unified.

CATALÀ

Tema 3: Casa (Girona vs Queenstown)

1. On és casa teva?

A Susqueda, enmig d’un sot entre muntanyes, a la iera del riu Ter.

2. Quant de temps has treballat i investigat a Queenstown?

Al llarg d’un mes.

3. Et vas sentir incòmode a Queenstown?

No, ans al contrari, molt ben acollida i per això m’he sentit còmode. 

4. El seu primer vídeo va mostrar la demolició d'edificis a Queenstown. Hi ha un problema similar a Girona?

El problema que hi ha a Girona, Catalunya i Estat Espanyol és que hi ha molts edificis buits i massa persones vivint al carrer. El que hauria de ser de les persones ha acabat en mans dels bancs. La situació és nefasta.

5. Amb qui parles a Queenstown per al teu treball?

Amb l’Alice Lee, una dona d’una força, llum i hospitalitat sorprenents. La primera vegada que em vaig reunir amb ella, vaig veure clarament que no havia de ser jo qui guiés les trobades, en tot cas, era ella. Jo només estava allà per escoltar i preguntar. És ella qui em va aportar coneixement viu sobre Queenstown, sense que jo hagués de fer res especial. 

6. Com fas servir els mapes en el teu treball?

Els he utilitzar com una eina concreta i valuosa sobre la qual la resta del treball s’unifica.

THEME II - TRAVEL JOURNAL

ENGLISH

Theme two: food

1. What is your favourite Singaporean food? Why?

The Steamed Eggplant with Soba Sauce, the Breaded Seafood with Black Sesame and Honey Sauce and all possible combinations of seafood and mushrooms. They are favorites because their taste causes me great pleasure I find little difficulty to digest them.

2. What Singaporean food do you dislike? Why?

The only things I have are avoided are eggs and spicy food. Boiled eggs cooked in different ways, such as Tea Eggs, I find that are beautiful to see, but I don’t feel like eating them. As for the spicy food, my stomach simply does not tolerate them, but I pick up spices on my walks.

3. In "TAK PAO", you performed in the Tanglin Halt market and food centre. Why did you choose those spaces?

I caught that Singapore is a place where cultures come together through food. There are Chinese, Indian and Malay food stalls in the center. They have rich differences but at the same time, they are united through this space. Essentially the ingredients offered is are the same, but once cooked, the dish tells a story. Every time you eat a dish, you get this story. And the story leads to identity. Like raw food, people essentially are equal, but our experiences give us an identity. We build our houses in our inner world, with this wealth. If you accept a dish that is offered, you're opening yourself to the cuisine and culture represented by the person who offered it to you. You let the other into yourself, there is acceptance rather than denial. The community structure in Queenstown is also generated through food. The food itself does not impose its offer. People choose to relate to it, and in Tanglin Halt I observed that the relationship with food is alchemical in many aspects.

I chose to perform in the market because of the circular shape of the plates used there, and the way people gather and thus have in this space a relationship of equals. What is the community but a relationship between equals? When we eat, we are. Seeing people eat at Tanglin Halt, I picked up this reflection. When people eat, we simply have no place to theorize about the food and get into disagreements. In any case, the action is shared food. Because being, we always give each other. I chose Tak Pao, because it refers to food and take away. I am also taking away the beauty that emerges in Tanglin Halt, which is something I will bring home. I take with me and I do know and having digested integrated. A good way to explore Singapore is through taste.

4. How did people in the Tanglin Halt market react to your performance?

The people were curious.

5. How did you feel performing in the market?

I felt strange, since the external space and the state body there are different here than where I come from. I was in full adaptation to the environment. Investigating, groping, experimenting, measuring myself.

6. What did you find interesting about the design of some spaces you filmed in your videos?

I was guided a lot by intuition, and in many cases I chose places where I could preserve my privacy, much depended on how I felt at the time and of the objective was more or less clear about what I wanted to reflect on the job.

7. What was your creative process like in creating "TAK PAO”?

The process was the same as when it happens in any other process. One thing connecting to the other as the work advances. I understand it once it happens. One of the characteristics of my process is that I often work for symbolic union. When there is something that moves me, I give it space and gradually it grows into a new connection. I know that when I am on track everything that is happening takes a different temporal quality, all is present and linear notion of time is diluted. Feeling, this is the word, feeling, knows more than reason.

8. What is your own personal relationship with food?

I'm sensitive to it. When I relate with it, it talks about me and my internal state.

CATALÀ

Tema 2: El menjar

1. Quin és el teu menjar favorit de Singapur? Per què?

El Steamed Eggplant with Soba Sauce, el Breaded Seafood with Black Sesame and Honey Sauce i totes les combinacions possibles de Seafood with Mushrooms. Són favorits perquè el seu gust em provoca un gran plaer i alhora em costa poc de pair-los.

2. Quins aliments de Singapur no li agraden: Per què?

Les úniques coses que he evitat són els ous i el menjar picant. Els ous durs cuinats de diferents formes. Trobo que són preciosos de veure, però no em ve molt de gust menjar-me’ls. Pel que fa al menjar picant, senzillament, el meu estómac no ho tolera, però les espècies en si, les recolliria en els meus passeigs.

3. A "TAK PAO", actues a Tanglin Halt Market i al Food Center. Per què vas triar aquests espais?

He captat que Singapur és un lloc on a través del menjar les cultures s’uneixen. Hi ha el lloc de menjar xinès, el lloc de menjar indi i el lloc de menjar malai en un mateix centre. Es diferencien a través de les riqueses que els identifiquen i alhora és un lloc on tots formen una unitat. En essència el menjar que s’ofereix és el mateix, però un cop cuinat, t’explica una història. Cada vegada que menges un plat, reps aquesta història. I la història ens condueix cap a la identitat.

Les persones, com la matèria primera dels plats, en essència som iguals, i és l’experiència la que ens dóna una identitat, la que ens construeix la casa per dins, el nostre món intern, la nostra riquesa.

Si prens un plat que t’ofereixen, estàs obrint-te a qui te’l cuina i tota aquella cultura que representa. L’altre és algú a qui t’obres, deixes que entri en tu, hi ha acceptació en comptes de negació. La comunitat de Queenstown es vertebra també a través de tot allò que genera l’abundància del menjar.

El menjar en si no s’imposa, s’ofereix. Llavors hi ha com les persones es relacionen amb ell, però a Tanglin Halt he observat que la relació que s’estableix amb ell és alquímic en els seus aspectes.

Vaig escollir la forma circular perquè és la forma del plat, continent de menjar, i és la forma en què les persones que es reuneixen i es disposen d’aquesta manera en l’espai es troben en una relació d’iguals. I què és la comunitat sinó una relació entre iguals?

Quan mengem, som. Veient a la gent menjar a Tanglin Halt, vaig recollir aquesta reflexió. Quan les persones mengem, som, senzillament, no hi ha lloc per teoritzar sobre el menjar i entrar en dissidències, en tot cas, l’acció de menjar es comparteix. Perquè en el ser, sempre ens donem a l’altre.

Vaig escollir Tak Pao, perquè fa referència a emportar-te el menjar i perquè la bellesa que desprèn Tanglin Halt en aquest sentit és quelcom que vull portar a casa, que em vull endur amb mi i fer-ho conèixer després d’haver paït i integrat.

Una bona manera de conèixer Singapur és a través del gust.

4. Com la gent a Tanglin Halt Market reacciona a les teves accions?

Va ser curiosa.

5. Com et vas sentir en l’acció del mercat?

Estranya, ja que l’espai extern i l’estat corporal són diferents aquí que allà d’on vinc. Estava en plena adaptació al medi. Investigant, temptejant, experimentant, mesurant-me.

6. Què va trobar interessant sobre el disseny d'alguns espais que va filmar en els seus vídeos?

Em vaig guiar molt per intuïció, i en molts casos vaig escollir llocs on pogués preservar la meva intimitat, depenia molt de com em sentia en el moment i de l’objectiu més o menys clar que tenia sobre el que volia reflectir en el treball.

7. Quin va ser el seu procés creatiu com ara en la creació de "TAK PAO”?

El procés va ser el mateix que esdevé quan entro en qualsevol altre procés. Una cosa va lligant amb l’altre a mesura que avanço en el treball. Ho comprenc, un cop ja ha esdevingut. Una de les característiques del meu treball és que treballo tot sovint per unió simbòlica. Hi ha quelcom que em mou, li dono espai i a poc a poc allò que em mou m’obre a una nova connexió. Sé que vaig per bon camí quan tot el que va esdevenint pren una qualitat temporal distinta, tot es fa present i la noció lineal del temps es dilueix. Sentir, aquesta és la paraula, sentir, més que saber per raó.

8. Quina és la seva relació personal amb el menjar?

Sóc sensible a ell. Quan m’hi relaciono, em parla sobre mi i el meu estat intern.