Join in on the festivities at our blue house on 24 and 25 August 2018!

Our favourite annual event, Late-Night Texting (LNT), is back on 24 and 25 August! But this year, we’re switching things up. In our first two editions, we experimented with the possibilities of text-based performances, where we played with genres such as spoken word poetry and improv comedy. In this third edition, we decided to bring the focus back to our core medium: the dramatic text. Centre 42 is, after all, a theatre development space that supports the creation, documentation, and promotion of text-based works for the Singapore stage.

Amidst SNF’s light installations and live performances around the Bras Basah.Bugis precinct, we hope that LNT 2018 can be an opportunity to introduce festival-goers to up-and-coming theatre-makers. Four theatre collectives will be presenting over 30 performances among them this year. Two of the groups – Dark Matter Theatrics and Main Tulis Group – are returning favourites, while the other two – GroundZ-0 and The Second Breakfast Company – are new to LNT. Even though they are vastly different from each other, what they do have in common is that all the artists have a long-standing relationship with Centre 42 through various programmes or productions that we have collaborated on over the years.

Read on to find out more about each of these four groups and what they’ll be presenting!

“Eat My Shorts” by Dark Matter Theatrics

Playwright Marcia Vanderstraaten, actor Lian Sutton, and playwright-director Christopher Fok from Dark Matter Theatrics.

Dark Matter Theatrics (DMT) – which comprises playwright-director Christopher Fok, actor Lian Sutton, and playwright Marcia Vanderstraaten – returns this year with another iteration of “Eat My Shorts”. This programme is no stranger to those who have previously attended LNT, as it has been around since our very first edition. As before, there will be 12 10-minute short plays by local playwrights, as the team hopes to rekindle the appreciation for the form. Except this time, instead of inviting playwrights who they already knew, DMT launched an open call for scripts with the theme “short-sighted”, as they felt it was funny and also suggested conflict.

“We held an open call because we wanted to be conscious of new voices – voices that we hadn’t heard of – [and hear] stories that were different,” says Christopher. “The reception was quite promising, and we had a choice of scripts to choose from. After we made our selection, we gave them the good news and sent them feedback on things to improve on.”

The selected playwrights are a motley crew of more established names, such as Kaylene Tan and Dora Tan, as well as newcomers like Edward Eng and Tan Kwan Boon. They had all interpreted the theme in their own creative ways.

“Some of the work submitted did adhere to the theme in some way, but others didn’t,” he explains. “But that’s the nature of inspiration – sometimes the prompt might push the writer to explore uncharted territory and that is what we were subtly nudging the playwrights to do.”

Audiences to “Eat My Shorts” can look forward to meeting a whole host of characters, from an online vigilante to a Kitchen God to Super Mermaid, among others.

“Eat My Shorts” will be performed on both 24 and 25 August.

“ETA:9MIN” by Main Tulis Group

The seven currently active members of the Main Tulis Group playwright collective. Photo: Erfendi Dhahlan

Main Tulis Group (MTG) is another returning group. The playwright collective has called Centre 42 its home ever since it was established in 2016, and it made its first public outing at LNT last year. There has been some changes to the team since then, as Nabilah Said and Sabrina Dzulkifli are pursuing further studies in the UK, and Johnny Jon Jon has left due to personal reasons. However, MTG has also gained a new member recently: Raimi Safari.

The nine-minute plays, will be presented as dramatised readings at “ETA:9MIN”, reflect these changes; they are split into two thematic groups: “Arrivals” and “Departures”.

“It’s quite apt because there’s been a lot of changes for all of us personally, and also because of the comings and goings of people within MTG this year in particular,” says member Nessa Anwar. “We’re still in the midst of discussing potential collaborations with other groups and getting accustomed to changes in the team, so it seemed fitting.”

Topics covered in their plays include memory, identity, friendship, and love. The playwrights wrote these pieces specially for “ETA:9MIN”, with inputs from their fellow members.

“We always provide constructive feedback. Even if a member’s not around for the script read, we send the scripts around and comment through email. We’re also quite accustomed to each other’s work by now, so we know how to push each other,” says Nessa. “I believe in each of us to write about necessary, intriguing, thought-provoking, entertaining things, and it’s been a privilege so far to be a part of it, and share our work with the community.”

“ETA:9MIN” will be performed on 24 August only.

“Legends of the Islands” by GroundZ-0

Actors Hang Qian Chou, Suhaili Safari and Lina Yu from GroundZ-o.

GroundZ-0 (pronounced “ground zero”) was founded by veteran theatre maker Zelda Tatiana Ng in 2017. Its mission is to explore and create multilingual, intercultural and cross-genre works, with a special interest in experimenting with traditional arts forms.

Zelda was previously an actor in Saga Seed Theatre’s “Seedy Stories” at LNT 2016, so she’s no stranger to the event. For “Legends of the Islands” this year, she is working with actors Hang Qian Chou, Lina Yu, and Suhaili Safari to tell stories about Singapore’s islands. Various versions of the legends behind the islands will be performed as multilingual street wayang, and the audience can then decide which ones they think are true.

Asked why she wants to present them as street wayang, Zelda replies: “I remember when I was young, street wayang was a main part of entertainment for us. It’s normally performed in different languages and there were no surtitles, but there were no complaints from the audience. I want to revive that energy that I experienced as a child. And I think it will be a great match [with the content of the stories]!”

The scripts are collectively devised and improvised by the team, based on stories about our islands that Zelda found online.

“I was giving a lecture at a secondary school one day and I started to Google more about our islands. In the process, I discovered some very interesting stories about them. Most of the time, we only hear about Sang Nila Utama and Raffles, but there are also other stories that are equally intriguing,” says Zelda. “It is important to introduce these ‘not-so-popular’ stories to our younger generations. These are our own stories, and we should treasure them and pass them on.”

“Legend of the Islands” will be performed on both 24 and 25 August.

“Lovebites” by The Second Breakfast Company

Kristine Ng, Denise Dolendo, Mark Benedict Cheong, Adeeb Fazah from The Second Breakfast Company. Photo: Damien Aaron Lim

While the other three collectives at LNT are creating plays largely from scratch, The Second Breakfast Company (2BCo) has chosen to go down a slightly different path. They will be juxtaposing excerpts from older Singaporean plays against excerpts from newer local plays. All of these works explore love in its multifaceted forms: between friends, between family, and between lovers.

“We wanted to explore what has changed about how this universal theme of love is tackled and presented by Singaporean writers across different aspects beyond the romantic approach,” says Mark Benedict Cheong, the company’s second artistic director. “We chose plays that were emblematic of their era, and looked for similarities and points of comparison between the relationships presented in both plays. While [this] may not be the most comprehensive exploration, we hope that the comparison [between the pre-2005 and post-2005 plays] may spark further thinking into how our writing and our attitudes have changed (or remained the same).”

The programme is very much in line with 2BCo’s mission. In an interview we did with artistic director Adeeb Fazah when the company was first formed in 2016, he told us: “We have three pillars for the company: the reimagining of existing classics, the reinvention of current ideas through original works, and the revival of the Singapore canon.”

“Lovebites” allows 2BCo to continue on that mission. Some of the plays that audiences can expect to re-encounter include Lim Chor Pee’s Mimi Fan (1962) and Chelsea Cheo’s The Wedding Pig (2017).

“Lovebites” will be performed on 25 August only.

 By Gwen Pew
Published on 6 July 2018

Find out more about Late-Night Texting here, and join us at Centre 42 on 24 & 25 August 2018.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #6.

Project Tandem participant Lily Goh (right) communicates with Peter Sau (second from left) and Shai (second from right) through sign language interpreter Too Jun Yee (left).

Project Tandem is one of the first theatre training platforms in Singapore that engages artists from the D/deaf and disabled community. Founded and led by theatre practitioner Peter Sau, it was established in April 2017 with support from Centre 42’s Basement Workshop programme. A closed-door work-in-progress showcase of the team’s first work, Making A Stand, will be taking place at our blue house on 21 and 22 July. But as with any endeavour that breaks new ground, getting things to where they are now has not been easy.

Project Tandem was conceptualised last year when Peter was involved in the creation of a disability-led play, And Suddenly I Disappear – The Singapore ‘d’ Monologues, with UK playwright Kaite O’Reilly. As established D/deaf and disabled performers are almost non-existent in Singapore, Peter decided to search for emerging talents through his network of contacts. He identified 13 people to join him in a pilot training last year, and four of them were invited to perform in And Suddenly I Disappear. This experience made him realise that there is currently a lack of platforms to support D/deaf or disabled artists in Singapore, resulting in a lack of fair representation. So he came up with the idea of forming a collective – Project Tandem – as a cost-free training ground to develop their skills, and increase their presence on the Singapore stage.

The participants took part in 10 sessions of workshops last year that concluded with each of them presenting a short closed-door showcase at Centre 42 in September 2017. Since January this year, Peter and his team have started working towards the creation and staging of an original work – Making A Stand – after securing funding from the National Arts Council’s Creation Grant. The piece comprises two segments: the first is a personal story that each of Project Tandem’s emerging artist will deliver, which is co-created by them and the project’s lead writer and dramaturg, Shai; the second is a verbatim tapestry based on interviews that were conducted with D/deaf and disabled Singaporeans, which will be performed by four of the participants.

Peter Sau (left) and Grace Kalaiselvi (middle) workshops with Project Tandem mentee Danial Bawthan.

As part of their training, the emerging artists are assigned their own personal mentor – a freelance theatre practitioner with experience in creating original work. Peter had identified the potential mentors and carefully paired them up after discussions with both the mentors and mentees. There have been challenges throughout, whether it’s figuring out how to manage a group of participants with very different skills levels and performing experience, or ensuring that the mentors are challenging and pushing their mentees without going too far. He is honest in admitting that there are times when they don’t get it right, but believes that that is often when they learn the most as they are pushed to come up with creative solutions to unique situations.

“For example, when I – as a sighted person – work with one of our mentees, Lim Lee Lee – who is a guide dog user – I would ask her to project [her voice] by saying, ‘I’m here, reach me, I’m 10 metres away from you’,” says Peter. “She can only retain it for around 10 minutes. I would get frustrated and question why she keeps drawing back, but then she told me, ‘that’s because I have never seen anything and I can’t catch the distance cue.’”

Once Peter understood this, they ended up experimenting with different ways of measuring distance, and settled on using a piece of string that Lee Lee would hold on to, and Peter would tug at set distance intervals.

“Tactility is something that I’m learning,” he explains. “It made me realise that sound is more than just loud or soft; it needs to travel not just to reach you, but to touch you. That’s just one very small instance where working with a D/deaf or disabled mentee has opened up what I had previously been comfortable with.”

For the mentees, the biggest challenge is often working with their mentors to present their personal stories in a way that they are comfortable with. Lily Goh, for instance, is an artist who has been exploring visual theatre through song-signing, body movements, and percussion music. She was initially given a poem about disability and discrimination – inspired by her lived experience – that she would perform through choreography and physical movements. When she shared with her mentors, Peter and Zhuo Zihao, that she did not feel connected to the piece, they had a discussion and she was encouraged to try telling a story in her own way. Lily ended up creating a very personal monologue that reveals the communication barrier between herself and her non-signing family members. She even agreed to combine sign language with spoken language, despite her nervousness.

“This is my first time doing a showcase with sign language and voice. I am concerned about how the audience will react to my use of speech and sign language – it has been decided that there will be no captions for the signing-impaired, as in the hearing folks who do not know sign language – so I worry that my speech may become unclear to them,” she says. “But most of the shows presented by hearing actors don’t provide captions for the D/deaf audience either, so they can experience the same problem [that we usually face] this time!”

Peter remembers how the team was blown away by how powerful Lily’s piece is when she first performed it for them.

“We learnt that a D/deaf person need not always be non-speaking, as long as they know the reason for why they’re doing it, and they’re open to it,” he says. “And it was the authenticity and power of her emotions that moved us, more than the fact that she was speaking. The spoken word became an access tool for us.”

Emerging artist Claire Teo (left) discusses her ideas with her Project Tandem mentor, Shannen Tan (right).

Similarly, Claire Teo, a student who is pursuing a Diploma in Performance at Lasalle, also went through several drafts for her monologue with Peter, Shai and her mentor, Shannen Tan. Her initial piece was about a personal experience of being made use of as a visually impaired performer for publicity and inspiration purpose. Later, she wanted to change the subject matter, so Shai and Peter did a three-hour interview with her, and they came up with the idea of having Claire take on the role of a life coach to talk about “eight rules of surviving life”. At the time of our interview with Claire, rehearsals for the piece had yet to begin and she wasn’t sure whether she’s fully comfortable with how it will come across (she describes it as “very cynical – like a dark comedy”), but she was looking forward to working on it with Shannen.

“I think what makes this mentorship work is that we are both very open-minded to each other’s criticism and suggestions,” Claire explains. “She is not offended. She will accept that something isn’t working, and she’ll work on it. I like that [attitude].”

These situations can be tricky to navigate, and requires a lot of trust and patience on everyone’s parts. But over the past 15 months, Peter has started to realise and accept that the challenges are, indeed, part of the journey. The important thing is that they keep learning – not just for mentees to learn from mentors, but vice versa, too.

“We realised that in a Singaporean context, failing is a very big problem to us,” he says with a laugh. “But I have learnt to accept that I should fail together with them, and understand that failure is the way to actually take the step forward to produce work that we are happy about. It’s about co-learning. It’s about putting down what you think is right, and to be curious about what the other person can offer, and co-nudging each other forward.”

As for what comes after the July showcase, Peter would personally like to work towards a full ticketed production that would be open to the public, provided everyone is on board with that, too.

“We co-own this work and we cannot move on without them wanting to move on,” he says. “So we shall see.”

But regardless of where the Project Tandem team goes from here, they are already making a stand to say that they are here, and they will persevere – together.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 6 July 2018

A closed-door showcase of Project Tandem’s Making A Stand will be taking place at Centre 42 on 21 and 22 July 2018. Find out more about the group’s journey here.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #6.

Left: Neo Hai Bin, playwright of “招: When the Cold Wind Blows”. Photo: Neo Hai Bin 
Right: Publicity image of “招: When the Cold Wind Blows”. Photo: Wild Rice

It is a late Wednesday afternoon in May 2018, and Neo Hai Bin and I are sitting in a sun-drenched café in Chijmes. He is fair-skinned, slightly-built and mild-mannered. Sitting across from me with a toothy grin and hands lightly folded, I find it hard to believe he was once a fearsome Basic Military Training instructor barking at army recruits on Pulau Tekong. But that’s precisely what his Mandarin play 招: When the Cold Wind Blows is about.

In Cold Wind Blows, Xavier Ong is a man who completed his National Service ten years ago, but is still haunted by dreams of his time in the army, leaving him reeling over how he transformed from an anxious recruit to a cussing, steely Platoon Sergeant. The play will premiere at the Singapore Theatre Festival (STF) as part of a double-bill this coming July.

“[Cold Wind Blows] explores how human nature can be twisted under certain extreme circumstances or environments. And army is an extreme environment,” Hai Bin tells me. I ask what he means by an “extreme environment”, and he brings up the 1971 Stanford prison experiment as an example of how situations of highly unequal power relations can drastically alter human behaviour.

I’m heartened to hear Hai Bin speak about Cold Wind Blows with such clarity, because that hadn’t always been the case. As a documenter, I’ve been following the development of the work since January 2016, when Hai Bin and his collaborator Chong Woon Yong began their nine-month Basement Workshop residency at Centre 42.

Cold Wind Blows started out life as Project Men, in which Hai Bin and Woon Yong wanted explore the concept of masculinity through the lens of National Service. Like Hai Bin, Woon Yong had been a commander at the Basic Military Training Centre on Pulau Tekong.

Besides drawing from their own memories and experiences, the playwrights also talked to other Singaporean men about their time in the army, and looked at news reports and forum pages on National Service and Pulau Tekong. I recall the playwrights struggling with the stacks of research and writing they had amassed.

“I think at the start, I think we weren’t super clear on our reasons for doing this,” quipped Woon Yong in my first interview with them four months into the project. “It was like swimming through mud.”

More pertinently, Hai Bin and Woon Yong wrestled with whether they were even the right people to say something about National Service. Hai Bin candidly shared, “We are Chinese. That in itself is a privilege already. We [were] commanders – another privilege. We speak English – another privilege. We have ‘A’ Levels – another privilege. We have nothing to talk about. We have no issues. What kind of issues are there? 要做什么 [What to do]?”

The pair worked steadily and shared a first draft of their play at a private reading on 21 May 2016. Industry peers who were invited to the reading included playwright Jean Tay, directors Nelson Chia and Liu Xiaoyi, as well as Thong Pei Qin, who was asked to direct Cold Wind Blows in 2018.

“The session was good,” Hai Bin told me after the reading. “This group of people [helped us] clarify what was lacking in this draft and what was lacking in our ideas.”

Hai Bin and Woon Yong continued working on the script and prepared for an off-book showcase of the work under a new title, 招: When the Cold Wind Blows, after a popular song sung by marching troops in the army. They performed the 40-minute play for small groups of invited audience members in the Centre 42 Meeting Room on 10 and 11 September 2016.

The first inclination that Cold Wind Blows was reaching beyond the gendered confines of the project was when female audience members responded favourably to the work during the showcase.

“I was very moved by what was happening to [Xavier], so it wasn’t a problem that I had no concept of what National Service is,” a female theatre practitioner commented after the performance. “I think everybody can relate to that idea of enforced discipline. We’ve all gone through it at some point in school, maybe not to that level, but you can sort of get the idea of the bullying and the sort of power that can corrupt.”

“招: When the Cold Wind Blows” performed on 10 Sep 2016. Performed by Neo Hai Bin (left) and Chong Woon Yong (right). (Photo: Screengrab from Centre 42 video documentation.)

However, at the end of nine intensive months of work, the playwrights had had enough of the play.

“A bit jelak [Malay for “cloying”], a bit too close,” Woon Yong said in my final interview with them in the Basement Workshop. “Maybe we will let it rest a while, and then we will come back again.”

“There has to be changes made to the script,” Hai Bin said pragmatically.

In 2017, Wild Rice resident playwright Alfian Sa’at was on the lookout for new scripts for the Singapore Theatre Festival (STF) in 2018, and Centre 42 recommended Cold Wind Blows. Alfian got in touch with the playwrights to find out more about the work.

“I liked the script,” Alfian replies when I ask why he had selected Cold Wind Blows for the festival. I press for him to elaborate.

“I am drawn towards playwrights who have a concern about the society they live in. In Cold Wind Blows, it’s someone who’s trying to examine the experience of National Service that is really quite different from what I think I’ve seen before, which happened to be very often quite celebratory, [works like] Army Daze [a play and film by Michael Chiang] and, of course, the Jack Neo film series [Ah Boys to Men].”

Hai Bin decided to continue working on the script, while Wong Yong chose instead to focus on G.F.E., his play that will accompany Cold Wind Blows in the STF double-bill. With dramaturgical advice from Alfian, Hai Bin revised the script and added over 15 minutes’ worth of material. The cast and creative team were assembled in late 2017. When I meet Hai Bin at Chijmes in May 2018, rehearsals for Cold Wind Blows have just begun.

The long journey to see Cold Wind Blows on stage is about to end. Although it’s been almost 30 months since the work was first conceived, Hai Bin still has the same concerns about the androcentric play. Except this time, he has an answer.

“I have to admit that for this play the playwrights are men. The characters are men. National service is for men,” Hai Bin says to me. “But now, the play is more than about men.”

Far more than witnessing the creation of a new work, I’ve also seen Hai Bin grow as a playwright. Asking him how working on Cold Wind Blows has influenced his play-writing, he credits the experience with helping him write his most recent play Cut Kafka!, a cross-disciplinary work based on the writings of Franz Kafka that was staged in March this year.

He says, “As a new playwright, you don’t have a methodology. When you don’t have a methodology, then everything is a possibility. Then you get confused. And you’ll want to tear your hair out!

“Now, I have a clearer idea of what sort of person I am and what I want to write. It gets easier.”

By Daniel Teo
Published on 6 July 2018

招: When the Cold Wind Blows runs at the Singapore Theatre Festival from 12 to 15 July 2018 at Creative Cube, LASALLE College of the Arts. Tickets can be purchased here.

To see the development of Cold Wind Blows in video interviews and writings, check out our Basement Workshop page.

Tay Tong (left) and Helmi Yusof (right) first crossed path in the early 1990s, although they didn’t become friends until much later.

As Tay Tong steps down from his role as the managing director of TheatreWorks – a post that he held for 30 years – Centre 42 has invited him to share his illustrious career in our next edition of the Living Room on 15 September 2018. He will be in conversation with Helmi Yusof, an established arts writer with The Business Times.

The pair are now fast friends, but even though both of them have been working in the Singapore arts scene in their different capacities for a number of years, it actually took a while for their paths to formally cross.

“I’ve known of TT for many years, though he didn’t know me [in the early days]. When I was a teenager, I helped out backstage at a few TheatreWorks productions [in the 1990s],” recalls Helmi. “As general manager [at the time], TT was too busy to notice me. But it’s hard for me not to notice him – he dresses impeccably and walks as if on a cloud.”

Helmi went on to become a film and theatre journalist for The Straits Times in 2000, but he still did not get to meet Tay Tong then, as established companies such as TheatreWorks were always covered by his more senior colleagues. It was only when he joined The Business Times as the paper’s main arts correspondent in 2012 that he finally had the chance to get to know Tay Tong properly.

“We hit it off, became good friends, and now he knows far too much about me,” says Helmi.

Tay Tong shares the same sentiments. “Helmi is one person who knows me well and who has seen my journey as a cultural worker. He has insights into the overall arts scene here and internationally,” Tay Tong says. “As an interviewer, he is often provocative, yet respectful and sensitive. I expect to be called out by him on 15 September, but I know it is meant to be professional.”

Tay Tong’s contributions to TheatreWorks are undeniable. There is no doubt that the famed local theatre company would not be where it is today without his hard work behind the scenes.

“TT has been on the forefront of TheatreWorks’ transformation for 30 year so it’s worth discussing his work as a producer and manager,” says Helmi. “All too often in theatre, it’s the directors, actors and playwrights – and to some extent, the designers too – who get the spotlight. But producers don’t get much attention at all because so much of what she or he does is invisible to the audience. I’d like to shine the spotlight on the work TT has done to help bring the company onto the international platform. I believe we could all learn so much from him.”

Tay Tong had been instrumental in driving many of TheatreWorks’ projects and initiatives, whether it’s producing some of its most iconic work – such as Fried Rice Paradise (1991) and Fear of Writing (2011) – or helming its international platforms, including the Flying Circus Project, a multidisciplinary developmental programme, and the Arts Network Asia, a grants-giving body that connects artists working in the region.

“Working in TheatreWorks and the scene [in the ’90s] was exciting, because you knew that with every effort you put into the work, you were breaking new grounds and pushing boundaries, production after production. I was always on an adrenaline high,” says Tay Tong. “And you know that you are not alone in doing this – everyone in the scene was working collectively towards a goal, to enlarge the role and space for the arts.”

Tay Tong was also inadvertently the catalyst for Helmi becoming a playwright. In 2014, he invited Helmi to report on TheatreWorks’ Writers Lab.

“I sat in for the first session and watched these writers open up and talk about their emotional hurt, nightmares and neuroses”, remembers Helmi. “I thought: this is fun! I have neuroses too.”

Helmi ended up writing his first full-length play titled My Mother Buys Condoms in Writers Lab. The romantic comedy was staged by Wild Rice two years later, as part of the Singapore Theatre Festival in 2016.

Given the pair’s history and respect they have for each other’s work, there will no doubt be much for them to discuss and reminisce about at the Living Room.

“I trust [Helmi],” Tay Tong says. “Helmi has promised to ask me for the ‘dirt’! But I have yet to decide if I will dish out any dirt…”

By Gwen Pew
Published on 6 July 2018

Come hear more from the dynamic duo at Helmi Yusof in the Living Room with Tay Tong at the Centre 42 Black Box on 15 September 2018. More info coming soon.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #6.

The Private Museum was established in 2010 as a place for art collectors to showcase their collections. Photo: The Private Museum

The Private Museum (TPM) was established in 2010. The non-profit independent arts space, which is located at 51 Waterloo Street, aims to provide “a space for art collectors to showcase their collections in a curated display, as well as an alternative platform for artists to push boundaries in the expressions of various art forms”, according to its website.

Hear more about the gallery from Aaron Teo, TPM’s museum manager.

What do you do as museum manager?
I lead a relatively small team of three to four members, and we work very closely together on programming, acquisition, budgeting, manpower management, fundraising, collection management, marketing, etc. I would say that my core focus is to ensure that all of the above are run as smoothly as possible, and ensure that the interests, vision, and reputation of TPM are properly protected and upheld.

What has been the biggest challenge as museum manager?
To find a reliable, receptive and passionate team that I can trust.

As the museum manager of The Private Museum, Aaron Teo leads a team and works on everything from programming to budgeting.

How are artworks selected to be exhibited in the museum?
Our exhibitions should be meaningful, impactful and significant in contributing towards Singapore art history. Each exhibition has different criteria as to why we collaborate with the artists/collectors/curators/arts practitioners. Most of our collaborations with artists are showcasing newly commissioned artworks. The works selected, of course, must have a certain standard in quality.

What is the most memorable exhibition you have worked on and why was it the most memorable?
All of the exhibitions that I have worked on are memorable to me in their own ways. Having said that, I do enjoy working with some particular collaborators more so than others. One example is the exhibition Optimism is Ridiculous – The Altarpieces by Natee Utarit. The show features the collected works of Natee Utarit from various collectors. The works are in the form of altarpieces found in Catholic churches, and our usually intimate white-walled arts space was transformed into a sacred eastern temple-like sanctuary (ironically). Like I said, I enjoyed the process with my collaborators (gallerist and artist) and we realised our core vision in presenting private art collections. It was a very well-received exhibition.

The Bras Basah.Bugis precinct is home to many museums and visual arts galleries. Besides TPM, which other museum or gallery in the area do you enjoy visiting?
All the major institutions such as the National Gallery Singapore, the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum, and the Asian Civilisations Museum. Other small arts spaces include Objectifs, DECK, the Lasalle galleries, the NAFA galleries etc.

What can we look forward to from TPM in the second half of 2018?
More exciting exhibitions and our upcoming new project (Moving Image) which includes art films and video art.

By Jai Saraswathy
Published on 6 July 2018

Visit The Private Museum at 51 Waterloo Street, #02-06. Find out more on their website here.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #6.