Festival Director, John hopes to fully integrate art into the chosen space, co-existing and interacting with each other. Come experience the unique opportunity to see the exhibition through the eyes of John.

Reflecting on the desire for escapisms, Kim’s Universe in a Teacup offers up mindfulness as an alternative remedy to the urban fatigue. Amidst the urban haste, the tea ceremonies he conducts utilising handmade tea ware creates a moment of meaningful pause from the everyday.

The process of sharing food allows for storytelling, hopes and fears, bringing together generational sharing of knowledge. This installation + performance project will serve as a meeting place for the artist and community through food, to establish meaningful connections via the sharing of a meal.

Celebrating its 33rd anniversary, The Substation presents, Re-Connect/Centre/Converge: The Arts Festival by The Substation. Coming back this year with a new direction and new branding, the festival will showcase multi-disciplinary programmes featuring both emerging and established artists.

A Peek at Time is a film program made out of 3 screenings, presented during SeptFest 2022 uproot | rootless. It lays out stories that tell of personal, societal, political and cultural journeys--of painful uprootings or feelings of loss through rootlessness. The audience will follow the journey of the characters or social actors as they navigate through time, hustling their way to find meaning in living within a community – or not. The 3 screenings will be guided by the following thematic approach: House, Land and People.

A 14-day durational performance that takes place in a co-living space, and live-streamed to audiences on the Substation’s Instagram page during SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless. A man enters a room that seems to be filled with the relics and detritus of another world. He spends his days here all by himself, excavating the past, practising for the present. At night, he performs for those who watch him. He remembers another time, another space. He searches for another artist, another reason. Do you want to see him? Would you have him rehearse and re-enact your fever dreams and buried desires? This work presents a meditative study of the human body and soul in a state of quarantine and isolation, while trapped in a world of relentless virtual connection and viral infection.

Online

Friday, 16 September 2022 onwards

The Substation’s website and YouTube channel

Onsite

Friday, 16 September 2022 – Sunday, 18 September 2022

Friday, 23 September 2022 – Sunday, 25 September 2022

11:00 am – 7:00 pm

A Performance Video by The Blue Statesmen, presented for SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless

Written and Directed by Bryan Tan

Visual and Sound Design by Casey Lim

Dramaturgy and Research by Robin Loon

Videography by Joanne Tan

Performed by Ranice Tay and Serene Chen

In 2012, The Blue Statesmen (comprising theatre artists Bryan Tan, Robin Loon and Casey Lim) presented the play BluePrince, an homage to the founder of The Substation, Kuo Pao Kun (1939 – 2002) for SeptFest 2012. A decade later, the collective reunites for Descent, a performance video that draws on concepts and concerns in Kuo’s seminal play, Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral.

Descent uses Kuo’s play as a platform for the contemplation of our society’s cultural values and contemporary beliefs. As a counterpoint, a young actress wanders through the city and performs a ritualistic summoning of the Chinese sea goddess, Mazu, invoking her blessings for the vulnerable individuals in our country – just as she once protected Zheng He and his armada during a storm at sea, or so folklore would have us believe.

Frequencies is a group presentation featuring Arron Teo, Joanne Lim & Smiha Kapoor, curated by Bridget Tay, presented as part of SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless. This exhibition calls upon the interconnectivity of structure and constructs with each of the artists’ works presenting itself as an endeavour to approach the construct of the body that projects perceptions of the cultural, political and sexual. Ideas that are evocative of bodies and their relationship to the environment float through the works as they intermingle and intersect with each other and the space.

At the confluence of two territorial waters, that which passes through such a liminal line must necessarily be a bridge that spans the breadth between two foreshores separated and yet so curiously intertwined.

Across Narrow Waters is a presentation curated by John Tung, and comprises a trio of artworks by Anthony Chin and Andrea Danker that concern themselves with the connections between Singapore and Malaysia. The show is presented in conjunction with SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless. The works unveil evolving circumstances between the two countries and their impact on lives. Delving into the infrastructural, systemic, and inter-personal connections that perforate this border, the concise presentation makes apparent how each of them is far from distinct and underscores their relationships with each other.

Yet beyond an examination of these connections alone, the artworks also intimate alternative means of evaluating distances both physical and immaterial. In providing a humane take on rationalising these expanses of tangible, cognitive, and emotional spaces, the artists reiterate an enduring hope of being able to meet midway.

Declutter Me is a one-to-one performance session, presented with SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless, where a single audience member gets to choose 1 out of 3 boxes, each containing an object (or objects) from the artist. Based on the items in the box, a personal experience will be shared, which will offer a better understanding of an Indian person, providing insights into their identity, culture and the myths that surround them. Every object of possession has a story behind it. How did we obtain it? What does it mean? Why do we still keep it? Some serve as a reminder of the past or path that we have travelled. While others just serve a purpose. Declutter Me hopes to initiate and provoke a two-way discovery between the performer and audience.

In Singapore, there can be no public performances without a script first being sent to the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA). The script is then read by an IMDA officer who approves it for a performance license and gives it a rating.

The Death of Singapore Theatre as Scripted by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore is a performance lecture that traces the history of how theatre has been regulated in Singapore, from the colonial period to post-Independence. It is a chronicle of how moral panics, culture wars, bureaucratic language and political elites have shaped the Singaporean censorship landscape.

Hosted in the foyer of 72-13, Tensity is a solo presentation by Rofi, curated by Bridget Tay, which ponders over the symbolic relational dynamics between power and men within the world, presented in conjunction with SeptFest 2022: uproot | rootless.

Using human figures as extensions in a thematic narrative, Rofi’s depiction of figures features bold colours, strokes and textures that capture tensions relating to issues in our current global socio-political climate. His works are presented in states of flux, with the figures transposing into metaphorical tension between power and its causes.