Hot: Justice for Singapore designers
Not: Justice for Singapore photographers
An artistic community outcry over a GeBIZ tender by the Ministry of Education (MOE) asking for “unlimited changes” drew the attention of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) which said that the requirement was “unfair” and reminded all government agencies to ensure that all expectations are “reasonable and fair”. Alas, there was less swift justice for a Singaporean photographer. Turns out, a campaign video for US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took inspiration from the work of one of our top lensmen, John Clang, but failed to credit him in it. While a brief mention was later included in the video credits, Clang voiced his displeasure saying, “I wish I didn’t have to find out about it this way.”
From left: Singpapore Design Week, Loo Zihan
Hot: Singapore Design Week
Not: Unneccesary censorship
Singapore Design Week (Mar 8-20) is coming soon, with exciting workshops, talks and exhibitions by designers, studios, retailers, F&B names and education institutions. Though Singapore was named the UNESCO Creative City for design back last December, we won’t be winning any prizes for freedom of expression. Two objects were removed for alleged obscenity from artist Loo Zihan’s exhibition, titled Fault-Lines: Disparate And Desperate Intimacies, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore. ICA Director Bala Starr told The Straits Times that the exhibition is “intended to be inclusive, particularly bearing in mind that we have young as well as mature students at Lasalle, many from different cultural and religious backgrounds.” It’s a disappointing move by Lasalle/the Institute—where images of nudes are part of the curriculum—resorting to what seems to be a rather arbitrary definition of obscenity.
From left: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sonny Liew
Hot: PM Lee’s techie trip
Not: PM Lee’s photo op
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made his way to the US on a trip which saw him meeting up and taking pictures with Silicon Valley bigwigs like Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and ol’ Mark Zuckerberg. Another, far more intriguing photo opportunity that made the rounds on social media saw PM Lee posing with a copy of Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan, the book that the NAC pulled its grant support from, saying the story undermined the government’s authority. Oops.
From left: Mr Brown (Youtube), We are Majulah (Youtube)
Hot: Ingenious parodies
Not: Right wing nationalism
A video titled “I Will Not Die For Singapore” went viral on social media last week—and for all the wrong reasons. Produced by the group behind the movement We Are Majulah, TV show host and former DJ Devan Nair brings up the topic of patriotism and whether Singaporeans would die for their country, striking a nerve among netizens, some of whom felt that it was a “self-serving ideal” and a nationalistic “propaganda tool”. In response, popular podcaster Mr Brown released a hilarious Singlish-packed parody, adding a much-needed dose of humor to the whole brouhaha.
