CRITICAL THINKING

“I’m constantly going back to larger issues outside of the arts. How do we want life in Singapore to be reconfigured?” Ong elaborates, “For example, one of the issues I’m concerned about is foreign workers and the kind of economic apartheid in Singapore. It’s about owning up to the fact that, as artists, we can make an impact and we have the responsibility. And once we take on this responsibility, we realise that there are people out there who are listening and they need role models. These role models can be a doctor or nurse right now, but they can also be somebody who’s speaking an alternative sense.”

To encourage artists to get into this mode of critical thinking, T:>Works recently organised Curating No-thing, the first of its kind virtual programme for its Curators Academy featuring four separate lectures on Zoom covering topics such as creating worlds and ethical generosity. Ong founded The Curators Academy in 2018 with an international mission to develop curatorial skills in performance and interdisciplinary work. The series in May attracted 1,800 participants globally.

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“These are people who want to be enriched by what’s going on in the global scene. There’s so much thirst and hunger for knowledge at the moment for the fact that the world has gone quite wrong and we need to rethink our world. The Curators Academy brings together like-minded people who want to get a sense of solidarity with the rest of the world,” shares Ong.

This idea of looking at local happenings through a global lens is also one of the reasons why Ong believes that funding for the arts needs to be more neutral, going out of Singapore to the international foundations. This also means that artists in Singapore need to take on larger issues such as climate change. This is what T:>Works is trying to do with The Curators Academy. 

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“There’s a need for us to look at everything more holistically. You can’t be a thought leader if you’re depending solely on the government for funding because then, you are the government’s thought leader. I think it’s important to say that I’m not anti-government but I believe, as a thought leader, you have to look at issues across the world in a larger way than just what’s happening in Singapore.” Ong expounds.

Under Ong, TheatreWorks has distinguished itself with transnational and intercultural collaborations that explore the Asian identity in a globalised world. Some notable works include the visionary Lear (1997), an independent collaboration with the Japan Foundation Asia Center, which offered an alternative perspective of Asian traditional arts. Ong later presented a re-visioning of this production based on the Shakespearean classic King Lear with Lear Dreaming, which made its European premiere at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris in 2015.

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THE DIGITAL SPACE

T:>Works’ new visual identity, designed by its chairperson and visual artist Heman Chong, hearken back to the early days of computers and the DOS or Disk Operating System. It not only forms as a reminder of the user of a system—in this case the audience—but it also indicates the company’s expanding focus on the digitalisation of performance.

Ong explains, “In my 35 years of making performance, this is the first global disruption I have experienced in the arts and in life. 2020 is a big year for performance companies like T:>Works. What is performance in the new times? The new visual identity marks the impact of Covid-19 on the arts sector and our lives.”

Starting from July 15, T:>Works will be presenting the second edition of its Festival of Women: N.O.W. 2020. Led by artistic director Noorlinah Mohamed, the all-new virtual festival, created and developed entirely by women, puts an emphasis on socially conscious and engaged works.

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Ong sees the need to energise the digital space. “You can no longer discuss issues in terms of the old hierarchies. We are trying to create a digital space as a space for thinking about life, so it’s neither work nor play, but rethinking a new paradigm and our place in that world.”

He offers this note of caution to the Singapore arts scene: “If we don’t fight to do art in a different way, we will be left behind.”

There is cause for concern. As the world is slowly coming out of lockdown and trying to jump-start the economy in phases, arts and culture is one of the sectors that is the last few in the spectrum of return. At the time this story is published, cinemas, museums and galleries in Singapore have gradually opened, while theatres and concert halls remain closed. 

Going back to the question of what a post-Covid arts scene will look like, Ong brings up the example of how artists and arts groups in Germany are involved in the rethinking of how to open up with safe distancing.

“For them, theatre is an essential part of life, so they cannot just shut down the theatre for a year. They’re already pushing to start now and it means the need to bring safe distancing into the structuring of the way they work—all the blocking and design have to be changed. I think that this is a more realistic embracing of the Covid reality.”

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