FAQs –The Substation Walk-in Sessions 2016
Commonly asked questions that will continue to be updated.
1. What is the reason for the themed discussion format of the earlier walk-in sessions?
The format of the sessions was an attempt to encourage discussions to begin from a more informed space – where information on a specific topic is sent out on the Friday prior, giving sufficient time for people to have read, think and return for a measured discussion on the following Tuesday. We’ve received feedback asking for the proposed number of participants per session to be increased, who also enjoy listening to other people’s opinions, and think that diversity is important. We consolidated each Tuesday into a single walk-in sessions, and there have been a small number who come for more than one.
2. Will venue rental remain?
Yes. For every year, four months will be dedicated to a ‘Substation Season’ where the programming will be fully curated by the team and the building is locked down as a show in itself. The remaining months are ‘Open Season’, where venue rental will still proceed. We’ll keep this for at least the next two years and then review this with the community.
3. Why can’t it be promised that venue rental will still remain beyond the next two years (FY16/17)?
As we learn more about how people not only currently use the space, but what other ways they can activate the rest of the building. Also, there is an idea and ideal about inclusivity, which a lot of people have conflated with venue rental. It has been synonymous with the idea in the past, but one is a means to an end, and one is an end in itself.
4. Does venue rental in the Open Season have to fit within the designated theme for the year?
No.
5. What is the main thematic that will drive programming plans for FY16? Is it still ‘Nostalgia’?
The proposed first theme was Nostalgia. We’re still in exploring it at some point, given how the nation seems to be in its grip. But for now, with the heightened interest in The Substation, it makes great sense to devote the entire year to exploring The Substation as a building, as a site of memory and history, and how it can evolve in relation to a larger landscape.
6. How are these themes generated?
Previously, it was a three year plan, where the Substation would delineate certain artistic/intellectual themes that it is interested in pursuing. But I feel there’s value to move towards something more organic – if there is a current or pressing issue that is worth pursuing, then it will be considered, even if it doesn’t fit the year’s theme. So, for instance, we’re organising an artistic response to the Cross Island Line MacRitchie situation. Not so much to galvanise a consolidate position, but to work with artists who have had sustained practice in engaging the idea of Nature — from horror to the sublime, to activism and fictions of representation. We hope to complicate people’s relationship with how nature exists within the city, and perhaps it will open up new perspectives towards the MacRitchie situation.
7. What is the programme line-up for FY16?
These are our cyclical programme structures:
A. ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE (AIR) programme will see artists coming in for a non-output oriented residency, providing a space for them to carry out research, organise social meet-ups with the community etc. The AIRs will act as a larger extension of The Substation, contributing to programming ideas. For the AIRs, ‘making’ is more of a daily practice that generates speculative possibilities. We start with by-invitation to artists whose practice can help us shape the programme, and then we will also have a future Open Call component.
B. CABINET installs work or texts from the AIRs. It accrues works not as acquisitions or permanent collection, but feel like books we can touch and use. It creates relationships between artworks and themes. Like a Cabinet of Curiosities, it provides the physical material for conceptual and ideational usage to both artists and students.
C. SEPTFEST - SUB SEASON is being reimagined not as a presentation festival, but as an open space and ongoing conversation about The Sub. It will likely have our AIRs leading the discussions using an Open Space format.
In line with trying to interrogate the site, we will produce the ‘Rubble Project,’ or ‘12 ways to deconstruct a box office’ invites an artist or a group of artists to unlock and explore the physical site of the unused box office – whether in terms of positive space or negative space left behind. The first month will see us working with an architect as he creates incisions and slight excavations to the box office – exposing the walls, finding the structural beams and devising a series of cuts in helping us think about what the space is. It is hoped that the shape-shifting of the building will be an opportunity for the community to start thinking about what The Substation is in terms of a physical site, and through that physicality, reveal the attendant memories/ nostalgia/ history of the space. The project will be reconsolidated into a larger show about The Substation at its conclusion.
8. How will you be programming and selecting artists? Does it take into consideration The Sub’s history as a space for the fringe and experimental?
Our first point of reference is all the artists who’ve worked with us, either through the Open Call, AARP or Director’s Cut, or have traditionally presented here. So you’ll see the AIRs will look to deepen relationships with prior AARP artists.
That said, our programmers are expected to survey not only “The Sub artists” but all artists, performances, and exhibitions — these have to run the spectrum from emerging, fringe, experimental to mid-career and established. As programmers, the first point of contact with artists should be to understand their practice and body of works, and not be primarily based on projects or commissions. These conversations are starting points for long term commitments to the support of artists.
Programmers or curators are neither gatekeepers nor talent promoters. They have core competencies in particular disciplines, but are also be involved in all other disciplines — thus you could say our programming is interdisciplinary not in form, but in attitude and proximity.
9. There’s a lot of talk about this space as multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary. That has always happened, and many artists do experiment with other disciplines — is that going to be different?
I’d like to expand our definition of interdisciplinary as between other cultural forms, not only between art forms. To actively encourage artists from different disciplines to work together to expand their own body of work is worthwhile because it can give rise to new, experimental forms not readily reclaimed by institutional practices. Therefore, our approach is to create more natural spaces for artists to collaborate and learn from each other — this can be achieved by shaping specific discussions within their work here.
Our programmers will each have core competencies in particular disciplines, but also be involved in all other disciplines — thus you could say our programming is not interdisciplinary in form, but in attitude and proximity.
10. What are the artistic ambitions and challenges here?
There is generally an overproduction of art in an increasingly professionalised field heavily dictated by the state. Artists are content-on-demand producers, responding to themes and marketing slogans.
For our artists to fully embrace their own artistic ambitions is to not only give them space to deepen the rigour and criticality of their practice, but also to excite them, and show them that their works matter to a larger public. To shift away from programming as “who are the best artists in each field?” towards “who are the artists whose works can inflect, shape cultural discourse?
11. Are artists to respond, and shape their works to the themes by The Sub?
No, that would be disastrous, and something we need to be extra mindful of. Artists should hone and mine their own obsessions, it’s that constant struggle and engagement that allows radical provocations of the status quo.
12. What is The Sub’s role in the development of emerging artists and what programmes support this?
The Substation’s mission is not to specially create programmes for categories of artists: whether it is emerging, mid-career, or established, whether they are mainstream or fringe, or from film or visual arts. When artists have works that resonate or create dissonance with our thematic discourse, we will work with them. When artists are making interesting works, we will engage them in conversation, not always with presentation in mind, but keeping a long term commitment to their practice.
13. Is there a possibility of reviewing the tenancy with Timbre? Can we get the garden back?
We’re not in the position to review its relationship with Timbre as we have a contractual relationship with them. Further, they are a fairly major part of our revenue. We also know there is noise spillover, but bear in mind that The Sub is an old building and we don’t have the comfort of newer, purpose built venues. Maybe it’s better to embrace that.
14. In lieu of these walk-in sessions with the community, what is the degree of change that could be made to the original vision and proposal that was submitted to the board in May 2015?
The vision remains the same, which is The Sub can drive larger conversations in Singapore, and that it can be a space that is not open only to the art community, but to a larger traction of Singaporeans. The true measure of when it’s successful again is when its independent voice can resonate at a national level. For us to do that, it also means that it cannot just be the arts community supporting The Sub. It needs a larger traction of middle class Singaporeans so that for instance, when we have disagreements with the State, it cannot arbitrarily pressure us. But that is not to say that we are deliberate troublemakers, but that we want to be able to talk about difficult things in serious ways using the arts – to discuss about issues in measured and balanced ways. The vision doesn't change, but the question is how do we get there.
And I've shared that I've completely changed the approach. Previously I thought of myself kind of more of an architect, redesigning the space so people can use it better. But that’s kinda like importing design elements in, importing shiny new things from overseas. Maybe the thing to do is to try and build these programs and structures organically with other artists – it doesn't have to always be so finished or polished as long as we're building something together organically. I think that's been the biggest development so far in terms of discovering what the Sub is and what it means for artists who actively use it.
There have been shifts to the original position after conversations with many people. One of the stakeholder groups were the punks. Initially, I had approached the Substation from the position of it as a professional arts landscape, and that was because of the privilege that I had to be working in this industry. For a lot of people, they don't even have the privilege –it is something that we forget about sometimes – that the very act of making music, making art was a kind of expression of their existence in Singapore. So we try to accommodate groups that have found their home here. But at the same time, it is important that we avoid falling into a kind of tribalism.