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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Substation: How Many More Canaries In The Coal Mine?, Su Fern Hoe
The Substation: How Many More Canaries In The Coal Mine?, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since 1990, The Substation has been the sole occupant of the conserved building at 45 Armenian Street. Over the years, it has transformed the once-abandoned power station into Singapore’s first artist-led multi-disciplinary arts centre. However, in February 2021, The Substation was officially asked to vacate the building. Although the current situation facing The Substation is not new or unique, its impending fate is emblematic of, and raises deep questions about the progressively precarious and capricious conditions of arts practice in Singapore. This editorial highlights four underlying problems that we should be concerned with.
The Substation: How Many More Canaries In The Coal Mine?, Su Fern Hoe
The Substation: How Many More Canaries In The Coal Mine?, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since 1990, The Substation has been the sole occupant of the conserved building at 45 Armenian Street. Over the years, it has transformed the once-abandoned power station into Singapore’s first artist-led multi-disciplinary arts centre. However, in February 2021, The Substation was officially asked to vacate the building. Although the current situation facing The Substation is not new or unique, its impending fate is emblematic of, and raises deep questions about the progressively precarious and capricious conditions of arts practice in Singapore. This editorial highlights four underlying problems that we should be concerned with.
Great Expectations: What Does It Mean To Hold And Make Space For The Arts In Singapore?, Su Fern Hoe
Great Expectations: What Does It Mean To Hold And Make Space For The Arts In Singapore?, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The arts and artists need space to thrive. However, as much of the land in Singapore is stateowned, providing space for the arts—literally and figuratively—remains challenging. Today, there is a rich variety of arts infrastructure in Singapore, including performing arts venues, statesubsidised artist studios and co-working spaces for freelancers. However, this stateadministered infrastructure comes with expectations, as these arts spaces have been positioned as expedient policy resources capable of achieving a broad confluence of cultural, urban, economic and social outcomes for Singapore. These “great expectations” on state-initiated arts spaces and the ensuing implications are the foci of this paper. I …
The Arts And Culture Strategic Review Report: Harnessing The Arts For Community-Building, Su Fern Hoe
The Arts And Culture Strategic Review Report: Harnessing The Arts For Community-Building, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR) was initiated in 2010 to chart the next phase of cultural development in Singapore. The final report, which was released in 2012, appears to propose a paradigm shift in focus for arts and cultural policy making in Singapore: from the desire to manage the arts and cultural sectors into profitable creative industries to the utilisation of the arts and culture as expedient tools for social cohesion and community building in Singapore. This shift has resulted in government programmes placing (renewed) importance and emphasis on “community arts” as a cultural activity. This chapter critically …
Global Ambitions: Positioning Singapore As A Contemporary Arts Hub, Su Fern Hoe
Global Ambitions: Positioning Singapore As A Contemporary Arts Hub, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This chapter has two objectives. The first is to critically interrogate the state’s efforts in utilising the visual arts as a means to position Singapore as an international arts hub and marketplace. As Kwok Kian Woon and Low Kee-Hong have noted, “Singapore’s cultural policy has everything to do with staying on top as a focal node in the late-capitalist world system of the new millennium” (Kwok and Low, 2002, p. 154). This chapter offers an overview of the programmes and initiatives introduced by the state from the 1990s to the present in order to encourage the entry of international art …
Ambitions Of A Global City: Arts, Culture And Creative Economy In 'Post-Crisis' Singapore, Lily Kong
Ambitions Of A Global City: Arts, Culture And Creative Economy In 'Post-Crisis' Singapore, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper chronicles some of the key policies pertaining to the arts and culture in post-independent Singapore. A brief summary is first provided of the early (1960s and 1970s) cultural policy focusing on the harnessing of arts and culture for nation-building purposes, followed by the subsequent (1980s) recognition that the arts and culture had tourist dollar potential. The paper then expands on the cultural/creative economy policy of the 2000s, in which arts, heritage, media and design are recognized for their economic value (beyond their role in tourism to include their export value and their importance in attracting global workers). The …
The Sociality Of Cultural Industries: Hong Kong's Cultural Policy And Film Industry, Lily Kong
The Sociality Of Cultural Industries: Hong Kong's Cultural Policy And Film Industry, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this article, I explore the sociality of cultural industries by analyzing the film industry in Hong Kong. In particular, the social networks and relationships at multiple scales – across national boundaries, within local settings and on production sets – are examined, revealing their critical role in contributing to the health of the film industry. The risks faced at various steps of the production, marketing and distribution process are ameliorated by trust relations, built up through time between social actors in spontaneous ways. While Hong Kong cultural policy in part seeks to create the social and spatial contexts within which …
Cultural Policy In Singapore: Negotiating Economic And Socio-Cultural Agendas, Lily Kong
Cultural Policy In Singapore: Negotiating Economic And Socio-Cultural Agendas, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this paper, I examine the role of cultural policy in a newly industrialised economy, which is at the same time a state with a short history and only nascent beginnings in nation-building and efforts to construct a distinctive cultural identity. Using Singapore as the site of analyses, develop an understanding of the intersection between the economic and socio-cultural agendas behind cultural development policies. I illustrate the hegemony of the economic, supported by the ideology and language of pragmatism and globalisation. At the same time, I explore the reception of and attempts to negotiate (and at times, contest) state policies …