Core Programmes (2010-2015)
Helmed by Artistic Director, Noor Effendy Ibrahim, the core programmes of The Substation during his term focused on promoting interdisciplinary contemporary art practice in a critical and rigorous manner. Through these core programmes, The Substation hopes to encourage research, experimentation, and innovation in the arts, bringing different artistic perspectives together in critical dialogue.
Film
Moving Images
Moving Images is Singapore’s first year-round programme dedicated exclusively to independent and short films. Established in 1997, Moving Images is known for its diverse and innovative programming focusing on experimental films, shorts, and documentaries, nurturing local and Asian filmmakers and connecting them internationally. The Singapore Short Film Awards and the Experimental Film Forum were first hosted in 2010, while the Singapore Indie Doc Fest and First Take were first launched in 2004.
Film
Directors' Lab
Directors’ Lab is a research and mentorship programme focused on developing theatre directing methodologies with the guidance of theatre and performance practitioners based in Singapore and Southeast Asia. It seeks to help theatre and performance practitioners develop strong inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural directing sensibilities, and Singapore-specific directing methodologies. It is an 18-month long programme, and is currently the most extensive of its kind in Singapore.
Music
Tribal Gathering
The Tribal Gathering was initiated with Tribal Gathering of Tongue Tasters in 2010, a quarterly event that creates unusual collaborations between musicians, sound artists, and performers. The series also includes the Tribal Gathering of Jaw Benders, which presents a line up of local alternative, hardcore and indie bands in an annual festival to celebrate the diversity and quality of local music.
Visual Arts
Open Call Programme
Open Call was first initiated in 2008 as a visual arts platform to support and realise strong artistic, critical and rigorous visual arts proposals. In 2010, Open Call expanded to include an incubation programme for performance art. A sound art component was introduced in 2011.
Visual Arts
Associate Artist Research Programme
Associate Artist Research Programme (AARP) is a two-year residency programme where invited art practitioners are provided with curatorial, financial, administrative and operational support to develop individual interdisciplinary art research and practice at The Substation. The programme replaced the previous Associate Artist Scheme first initiated in early 2002.
Literary Arts
Love Letters Project
Love Letters Project was initiated in 2009. It brings together a large number of writers of different ethnic, sexual and linguistic backgrounds to write poems around the theme of love, loss and longing. The Substation also commissioned and published a number of publications, including works of fiction. The latest novel, Several Islands, was published in 2011.
Seminars / Talks
Substation Conferences
In the 1990s, The Substation hosted a series of landmark annual conferences. The inaugural event, Art vs Art, held in 1993, was remarkable for bringing together audiences, academics, activists, and a full range of arts professionals—from actors to administrators, artists to playwrights—who all came to discuss art in terms hitherto unexamined in public. In order to continue fostering dialogue and discussion on pertinent issues facing the arts community, The Substation relaunched its conferences series in 2012.
Multi-disciplinary
Septfest
The Substation celebrates its anniversary annually on 16 September. The Septfest arts festival was created as a month-long celebration of performance, visual, sound, filmic and literary art. Traditionally, the Open Call events are staged during this period, and are often accompanied by specially commissioned events, conferences, seminars, exhibitions and parties.
Workshops
Learn*
The Substation has always devoted part of its resources to public education and arts appreciation programmes. Now formalised into four individual programmes available to Primary and Secondary schools, JCs/CI and ITEs, these programmes instill and nurture critical thinking and creativity in young minds. The Substation is committed to researching, designing and presenting stimulating and exciting programmes that will contribute to a more holistic educational experience for students.
Publication
ISSUE
Taking on a different theme every quarter, ISSUE showcased The Substation's unique take on issues in Singapore, tackling topics from gender to activism, technology to food. ISSUE features articles from a variety of perspectives, from NGO leaders, to artists, alongside our very own comics section, top 5 list, and the latest happenings at The Substation.