The Magazine for the Literary Arts, Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Culinary Arts
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'Ave News of the World of Art
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Born blind in a small town in the Philippines, Katchry Jewel Golbin (Alienette Coldfire) did not have easy access to Braille books and publications. But, fast forward 26 years later, she earned herself a third-place finish in the finale of the 11th season of the French television programme “La France a un Incroyable Talent (France Got Talent)”. Alienette is just one of the extraordinary talents taking to the stage during the
True Colours Festival in Singapore
23-25 March.
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100 Million Books!
Yes, there are definitely more books than that in the world. That's just the number of books given away by just one person. The famed country singer
Dolly Parton donated her latest book “Coat of Many Colors”
to the Library of Congress. Her "Imagination Library" has just given away its 100 millionth book. This happened on World Book Day, 1 March 2018. While the snow and stormy weather - and that's not fiction - kept people away from events in the United Kingdom, the
Roald Dahl Museum
celebrated books on Saturday 3 March, with Writing Hut Talks, make a Dirty Beast in the Crafty Kitchen, and follow a trail around the Museum. Did you buy or read a book on World Book Day?
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Wooden it be Lovely! -
UNECE, in cooperation with FAO,
is co-operating with several partners in the forest sector to promote fibres from wood as a sustainable alternative to more environmentally-unfriendly fabrics. An idea brought to life at this event by models displaying clothes made of forest fibres, an initiative by the
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
in partnership with the Institute for Italian Design. On 1 March, the UN agency held a meeting of European members in Geneva to discuss how the fashion industry can adopt sustainable practices and incorporate more responsibly-sourced materials in design. At right, are two of the garments on show, designed by Alessandra Perna and made from wood fibres - beached wood pulp, natural cork and leather-like wood panels - and inspired by famous Italian carpenter-artist Aleksandra Zee.
LIGNEAH
is one such wood fabric, patented for the first time in Italy, which was born from the will to create a new, natural, sustainable and cruelty-free material. It is wood that becomes as soft as a skin and as flexible as fabric. Tree species used for producing these fabrics are: ash, birch, maple, bolivar, walnut, cherry and beech.
Read more
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Celebrating the Art of Direction & Acting -
Veteran director Lewis Gilbert (right), whose
career spanned seven decades in British film, has died aged 97. Best known as the director of three James Bond films, You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), as well as such classic British war films as Reach for the Sky (1957), Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) and Sink the Bismarck! (1960),
Lewis Gilbert
also made a succession of award-winning pictures, including Alfie (1966), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989). In the same week, we saw the passing of one of television's funniest character actresses, the delightful
Emma Chambers
(above)
, best known for playing opposite Dawn French in "The Vicar of Dibley" and with Hugh Grant in "Notting Hill". Of course, their work and legacy lives on, but we must take time to reflect on, and celebrate, two great British artists.
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The Art of Sustainability - in Lights!
First held in 2010, i Light Marina Bay is Asia’s leading Sustainable Light Art Festival. A showcase of light art installations by artists from Singapore and around the world, the installations light up the Marina Bay waterfront from 9 March to 1 April. All light art installations reflect an element of sustainability and serve as reminders to encourage festival goers and the general public to adopt sustainable habits in their everyday lives. Pictured is the installation entitled
Transistable Plastic by Luzinterruptus (Spain).
Read more about international light festivals.
In case you want less light, but plenty of other creative action, look out for
Singapore International Festival of the Arts
(SIFA), starting 26 April and the
True Colours Festival
, which we've been alerting you to for some time, which runs 23-25 March.
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Art Scene and Heard in Singapore
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Art of the Designer.
Hubert Le Gall doesn't like to be put in any pigeon hole. Artist? Designer? Creative genius? Maybe he's all rolled into one. When we met him and saw his work on show at Mazel Galerie in Singapore - and also at Art Stage - you can see and hear why he rejects typecasting. He designs and makes furniture - tables and mirrors - and he loves animals and plants. Go and see for yourself while his works are still at the Mazel Galerie in Scotts Road.
Read what's been written about him too.
Art from the Streets.
From 13 January until 3 June 2018, ArtScience Museum presents an exhibition featuring nearly 200 works including on-site projects, paintings, installations, videos, archives and sketches from 50 of the world’s best known street artists such as Banksy, Shephard Fairey (aka OBEY), Futura, Seen, Space Invader, JR, and Vhils. Art from the Streets is the first major retrospective of street art ever shown in Southeast Asia. The exhibition traces the 40 years of this artistic movement from its beginnings to its rise as an urban art form.
Read all about it.
Monuments & Memorials
Join STPI to celebrate the first major solo exhibition from Internationally acclaimed, multiple award-winning artist Dinh Q. Lê in Singapore. Born in Vietnam, his family immigrated to the US at the age of ten to escape the Khmer Rouge. At STPI, Lê revisits this historical event to create stunning photo-montages where he weaves photographic strips into a tapestry of images, a continuation of his artistic practice in the medium of print and paper.His works encapsulate the common human experience of loss and redemption, merging Eastern and Western cultures, as well as personal and fictional realities.
National Gallery & Century of Light
Colours of Impressionism
tells a story through the colours that the painters used at different stages in their careers. From the deep blacks of Manet's Spanish-influenced paintings, to the green and blue landscapes that Cézanne and Monet painted outdoors, to the soft pinks of Renoir's classical female figures, the exhibition traces the importance of colour to the Impressionists' radical reshaping of painting in the 19th century.The exhibition features over 60 masterpieces from the renowned collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, including key works by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro and Cézanne.
Go to the National Gallery for more.
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Music and Art in Play: All the World's a Stage
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The acclaimed
National Theatre
- on the South Bank of the Thames, London - arrives in Singapore for the first time with its staging of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", which won five Tony Awards and seven Olivier Awards. Based on the best-selling novel by Mark Haddon, it tells the adventures of young Christopher Boone, a fifteen-year-old with an exceptional mind but whose behaviour suggests a mild form of autism, as he goes on a search for the killer of his neighbour’s dog. This is a phenomenal blend of storytelling and theatrical magic that tackles the issue of mental conditions with extraordinary direction by playwright Simon Stephens. Presented by the
Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT)
at The Esplanade. 29 March to 8 April.
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"Evita"
is on a roll in Singapore until 18 March. As we love stage musicals with a passion, this time there's a confession that this production did not fire us up as much the film version did, staring Madonna, Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Banderas. Ok, maybe hard to match those big names, but West End performer Emma Kingston, while having a strong voice, didn't quite deliver on what we've come to expect from leading ladies on the stage. But how about Che Guevera's character? South Africa's Jonathan Roxmouth was superb, acting and singing so well, he definitely matched the talent of the film's singing star Banderas and could even be "accused" of upstaging Evita herself. As an international musical treat for Singapore, it is well-worth going to. Here's an alternative view to absorb.
Read this review by Gary Lim in City Nomads.
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For the Lion King Asian Tour
The principal cast includes Ntsepa Pitjeng, who is returning to the role of ‘Rafiki’ and direct from London’s West End production is Mthokozisi Emkay Khanyile, in the role of ‘Mufasa’. Also from the United Kingdom is music theatre performer Antony Lawrence as ‘Scar’. Australian actor Andre Jewson will feature as ‘Zazu’; the charismatic New Zealand born performer Jamie McGregor will play ‘Timon’ and South African favorite Pierre van Heerden will return as ‘Pumbaa’.
More on the Lion King.
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Writers of the World Unite - For Good!
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Literally Yours: People of the Book
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What's Seventy?
We met and listened enthralled when the irrepressible Shobhaa De launched forth on “sex and hitting seventy" and all things related. She was talking about her life story (so far!) at the Asian Women Writers Festival in Singapore in January. It’s said that Shobhaa De's writing "exudes an empathy that has turned several of her books into life manuals for generations of Indians". She has also inspired many would-be writers to take up the craft. In Singapore too.
Go to Penguin for more.
A Diamond Uncovered
Nilanjana Roy, writing in FT Weekend in January 2018, "exactly 150 years ago", when the first instalment of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone was published. It came out in All The Year Round — “A Weekly Journal Conducted By Charles Dickens” — and was well received by readers, who gladly paid 2d to read the latest book. One of Collins’ characters neatly summarises the plot: “Here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond — bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man.”
Read the rest in FT Weekend.
Delivering Stories for You
#BuySingLit is an industry-led movement to celebrate stories from Singapore. Advocating ‘Buy Local, Read Our World’, homegrown book publishers, retailers and literary non-profits have come together to encourage more people to discover and embrace Singapore’s literature. Through buying and reading local works, you support the writers who bear witness to our lives, as well as the businesses in our community that deliver these stories to us. Most of all, you will experience the profound joy of unravelling the multi-faceted world around you.
There's more here.
Make Room to Read
Read about "The lanky 54-year-old" who started the John Wood Foundation and started getting books published for children. Since it was set up in 2000, Room To Read - which focuses on girls' education and children's literacy in Asia and Africa - has built about 20,000 libraries and 2,000 schools, and introduced literacy programmes that have benefited more than 10 million children.
The Straits Times story by Wong Kim Ho is here.
500 words on Asian Books Blog
"500 words from" is an occasional series in which novelists talk about their newly-published novels.This from Asian Books Bog. Fiona Mitchell is a British writer and journalist who spent three years in Singapore before returning to the UK.
The Maid's Room
is her first novel. It explores the lives of female migrant domestic workers in Singapore, and of the expat women who employ them.
There's much more on Asian Books Blog
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Get Festive with Music & Dance, Lights & Action
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True Colours Festival
will take place from 23-25 March 2018 in Singapore. Up to 20 performing artistes/troupes from Japan, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Cambodia, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, plus guest artistes from the United Kingdom and Canada, will perform at a multimedia concert experience at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. This never-before festival will present some of the most talented performing artistes with disabilities in the Asia Pacific region. True Colours is presented by UNESCO and The Nippon Foundation, and produced by Very Special Arts Singapore.
Read all about it.
i Light Marina Bay is Back in Lights.
Marina Bay will light up with 22 enthralling light art installations and a myriad of activities that the public can look forward to. This year’s festival will also see greater participation from the community in the creation of sustainable artworks. Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the sixth edition of the sustainable light art festival will run from 9 March to 1 April 2018, featuring installations created by artists from Singapore and around the world.
Read More.
And all that Jazz.
Singapore International Festival of the Arts in 2018 - from 26 April to 12 May - promises to be one with great variety to appeal to all tastes. Something for everyone. Dance and drama might predominate, but there's music to enjoy, including
the legendary Duke Ellington Orchestra, founded by and named after one of 20th century’s most prolific American composers, which will play some of the late composer and musician’s landmark jazz pieces for Singapore music lovers in a lively 75-minute performance amid the lush greenery of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The play based on George Orwell's "1984" gets prime festival treatment too.
For the full programme go here.
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The Art of Travel: A Place in Time
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A Place in Time
:
This photo "Colour to Wear" is by Somenath Mukhopadhyay (India). He was runner up in PEFC's 2017 ‘Experience Forests, Experience PEFC’ photo contest with another photo of his photos called, "Woodsy Fancy".
Read More
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International Design: in Wood, by the Sea,
in the Air and in Print!
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Now into its 5th edition, the
Singapore Design Week (SDW) 2018
will run from 5 to 18 March 2018. The annual SDW brings together a collection of local and international design activities in Singapore. Organised by the DesignSingapore Council, the SDW is open to the design community, businesses, design students, public sector officers and the general public.
Much more here.
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Dundee, Scotland
,
where the futuristic Victoria & Albert Museum, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, appears prominently and appropriately alongside the Captain Robert Falcon Scott's
Discovery
on Discovery Point.
All typical of what's inside and out. Design past, present and future. Ahead of its opening in September, the Los Angeles Times has named the V&A museum as "one to explore" in 2018. The newspaper described the £80m building as "a stylized ship floating on the River Tay". The museum's opening exhibition will be Ocean Liners: Speed & Style, which will "re-imagine the golden age of ocean travel".
More about the first V&A outside London's iconic museum.
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Art in a Word: FOOD
Introducing the Culinary Arts
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Wellington's Culinary Arts through the Eyes of Margot Henderson
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"Home is where the heart is, and Wellington has my heart — with its harbour, skies and hills, it’s just so beautiful. My husband Fergus [founder of London’s St John] and I always plan our trip so that we fly into Wellington in time for lunch, and our first stop has to be Nikau Café (pictured), a superb restaurant attached to the City Gallery." This from
Margot Henderson,
in the FT Weekend feature by this celebrity chef, now based in London.
Here's the full story.
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Postscript: A word or two
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Be Happy in the Year of the Dog
Yes, the Year of the Dog has truly arrived. What will you make of it? We're past thinking that peace and prosperity - and all other good things - come on a plate. It must be worked on - creatively and productively - and all of us must make some effort. The artist's life is rarely one of privilege. It takes courage. It takes passion. It often involves sacrifice. And it definitely involves a lot of hard work. But whether you hit the big time or have just small successes, the creative process itself can be satisfying and rewarding. The artist who shares his/her creative output brings pure pleasure and enjoyment to many. I'm sure Shakespeare had this in mind when he wrote these words for
Twelfth Night
: "If music be the food of love, play on". More than music. Surely, this applies to all artistic endeavours.-
Ken Hickson
Illustration: This blue and white porcelain dog created by M Hickson.
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in association with
Sustain Ability Showcase Asia (SASA) and ABC Carbon
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