Launched in conjunction with Discipline the City activities is a series of chapbooks that provide diverse responses to the theme.
Edited by Adeline Chia, Associate Editor of Art Review Asia, formats range from essays to photography and illustrations. Content includes topics as specialised as the architectural and urban planning aspects of spatial organisation, to the cultural and social aspects of discipline, such as how bodies and sexualities are policed.
Issues are released monthly from May – September 2017.
Stockists
The Substation
45 Armenian Street Singapore 179936
Basheer Graphic Books
Bras Basah Complex
231 Bain Street #04-19 Singapore 180231
BooksActually
9 Yong Siak Street Singapore 168645
OBJECTIFS
155 Middle Road, Singapore 188977
Issue 01 - A Public Square
Author: Adeline Chia
Issue 01 reveals a glimpse into the creation of the gold foil staircase by the artist Priyageetha Dia, the ensuing response by both the public and authorities, and what these reveal about the nature of public art and public space in Singapore.
Issue 02: Spectacular Liberal Exception
Author: Ho Rui An
Issue 02 features an essay, 'Spectacular Liberal Exception', by Ho Rui An. It uses the example of Speakers Corner and Pink Dot SG as a space of liberal exception: "a space of belonging for those who do not belong; by that logic, it is also the enclosure that maintains the space outside as one of exclusion."
Issue 03: Jurong, My Love
Author: Dan Koh
Issue 03 features a personal essay, 'Jurong, My Love', by Dan Koh. Using the route of the no. 99 bus as a guide, the personal and the historical are inextricably linked as the essay charts Jurong's development as a neighbourhood intertwined with anecdotes from the writer's own personal history.
The book also features family photographs from the writer as well as charming illustrations by Tay Kaiyee.
Issue 04: Fat Shame
Author: Joel Tan
Issue 04 features an essay that explores the fixation by contemporary culture on fat as an object of shame, the mythic connection between the body and citizenship and the possibilities for resistance.
The book also features portraits of the author in drag by Crispian Chan.
Issue 05: Thermotropics
Author: Atelier HOKO
Issue 05 continues the Chapbook series's unpacking of ideas of discipline and space through the lens of adaptive behaviours that bodies living in the tropics develop.
The book also photographs and illustrations by Atelier HOKO.
Issue 06: Sand
Author: Clarissa Oon, Faiz bin Zohri & Joshua Comaroff
Issue 06 features three explorations of "sand" and its relation to Singapore as a city-state.