Lee Sze-Chin

When Words Fail: Journeying alongside dementia through art and metaphor

26 November 2020 (Thur)
7pm–9pm
Online workshop on Zoom 
Pay as you wish (Register via Eventbrite)

In the wake of the pandemic, many of us are struggling with “not being able to go back” to the normal we once knew. For Persons Living with Dementia (PLD), this is part of a reality that they face every day. How do we move forward in time and space when our personal and collective memories have become fragile and fragmented?

Join art therapists-artists Lee Sze-Chin, Ng Jue Ann and Karen Koh as they introduce the art of life journals (using an origami book format) to capture PLD’s journey of living with dementia. Learn about how this documentation method helps to preserve memories, document the present, and express hopes and wishes for the future. Workshop participants will also get the opportunity to be part of a virtual exhibition in January 2021.

Shaiful Risan

Post Punk

21 & 22 November 2020
6pm–9pm
The Substation Theatre
Free admission via registration (Peatix)
Limited to 10 pax at any one time

Technology has taken over communication. Zoom parties are becoming the rave. Humans are locked down in their own homes. But are we more connected than ever? Or is human connection somehow...lost? 

Curated by Shaiful Risan of Prohibited Projects and Zerox Zine, Post Punk is an interactive chronicling of letters written and replied to him during the turn of the century. The artist invites us to “come around” to the value of humanity and personal touch through interaction with analogue ways of communication, materials from the past, and intimate readings of physical letters from all over the world.  Can these methods of communication from the past reshape our relationships with one another in the future?

Shaiful Risan

B.A.C.A.

10 & 11 October 2020
4pm–9pm
The Substation SAD Bar
Free admission (Registration at the door)
Limited to 8 pax at any one time

Baca (“read or to read” in Bahasa) is a social gathering of sharing and reading independent literature. Through a series of books, zines, and periodicals, punk artist Shaiful Risan takes us on a journey through time across generations and countries from the ‘90s to present day. The gathering creates a space for us to question where is the endpoint that we are all heading to, in today’s mechanical world, which continually emphasises on efficiency and progress. Perhaps preserving the subcultures of our world can almost serve as a counterpoint. In this gathering of independent authors and zine-making, we look back at what once was as a way to steer forward to the future.

Shaiful Risan

MEET & READ

4 & 5 December 2020
6pm–9pm
The Substation SAD Bar
Free admission via registration (Peatix)
Limited to 10 pax at any one time

Immerse in an hour of con-text-ual chaos! Curated by Shaiful Risan (Erasure, Post Punk, Another Way Social Centre and B.A.C.A.), MEET & READ is a gritty imagination of what a literary event could look like. Rooted through the optics of punk rock, this intentionally-vaguely-described event presents a smattering of punk literature, old zines, books and original writings and even a few letters and cassette tape inserts; all of which are open to reading–either to yourself or aloud.

The programme also includes an open mic segment where attendees are welcome to read their original works (or an excerpt of any selected work) and guest speakers at 7pm each night:

• 4 Dec: Michael Chua (Maid In Singapore)

• 5 Dec: Steve Lodge (The Hall of The Shepherd's Pie)

GroundZ-0 原。空間

E:Den 依：窩 

8–16 January 2021 (Closed on Mon)
12pm–8pm 
The Substation Gallery
Free admission

Eden is a name synonymous with paradise or a place of perfection. But what are the underlying realities beneath this facade of utopia? In these times of crisis, E:Den 依：窩 exposes the hidden ‘den’, where waste is discharged and disposed of. It invites participants to see beyond the repulsive and repugnant, and instead question how waste also acts as seeds for potentialities and possibilities.

Stephanie Chan (Stephanie Dogfoot)

To Malaysia With Linebreaks

28 November 2020
8pm–9.30pm
The Substation’s Facebook & YouTube
Free admission

What does a Southeast Asian spoken word community look like, as online platforms break down the physical distance and geographical borders? The pandemic has changed the way live poetry is produced and performed in Singapore and all around the world. In the rubble and confusion of all this, online streaming platforms have created opportunities for the regional community of writers and performers to forge deeper connections. 

As part of Spoke and Bird, a regular spoken word series organised by Stephanie Dogfoot, To Malaysia With Linebreaks is the first of a two-part series that brings together 6 poets from Singapore and Malaysia. These poets will come together to premiere newly-created works that are a unique response to one another’s shared histories, shared borders and shared seas.

Singapore: Dustin Wong, Margaret Devadson, Wahid Al Mamun
Malaysia: Dhinesha, Lily Jamaludin, May Chong 

Shaiful Risan

Erasure: The World Tournament

8 January 2021
7.30pm–9pm
The Substation Theatre
$8 for audience (Peatix)

This is the world's first Eraser Wrestling event. Professional Eraser Wrestlers across the globe are invited to compete for the title of World Champion of Eraser Wrestling!  

Those of us who grew up in the '80s and '90s would be familiar with flag erasers. Some of us may even have collected the range of rubber erasers with different flags printed on them. Eraser Wrestling Matches may be a thing of the past, but the world in the present is still caught up with complex geographical and political conflicts. If these conflicts between nations could be navigated and negotiated through an Eraser Wrestling Match, what kind of world would that be? After all, who is to say which nation is better than another?

To sign up as a contestant: visit: bit.ly/competeinerasure

Chu Hao Pei

Withering Rice, Flourishing Sovereignty

21 January–10 February 2021
The Substation Box Office
Free admission
Mixed media installation

Withering Rice, Flourishing Sovereignty highlights a collection of rice farming practices and its interwoven relationship between rice and politics in Southeast Asia. A staple consumed in the region, rice has become more than a food product but a symbol embedded within our Southeast Asian cultures. Through a constellation of textures and material, the work explores the production and consumption of rice as borderless produce, and how it is or can be used as a socio-political tool to reimagine the boundaries between countries in Southeast Asia.

Stephanie Chan (Stephanie Dogfoot)

To Philippines With Linebreaks

23 January 2021
8pm–9.30pm
The Substation’s Facebook & YouTube
Free admission

What does a Southeast Asian spoken word community look like, as online platforms break down the physical distance and geographical borders? The pandemic has changed the way live poetry is produced and performed in Singapore and all around the world. In the rubble and confusion of all this, online streaming platforms have created opportunities for the regional community of writers and performers to forge deeper connections. 

As part of Spoke and Bird, a regular spoken word series organised by Stephanie Dogfoot, To Philippines With Linebreaks is the second of a two-part series that brings together 6 poets from Singapore and the Philippines. These poets will come together to premiere newly-created works that are a unique response to one another’s shared histories, shared borders and shared seas.

Singapore: Karisa Poedjihardjo, Lune Loh, Tysha Khan 
Philippines: Carla Nicoyo, Leandro Reyes, Ralph Fonte

contrary wagon

Part\wh

30 & 31 January 2021
2pm / 3.30pm / 5pm
Various locations (Meeting point: library@orchard)
Pay as you wish (Peatix)

\where is the Container you are looking for?
\what are these Instructions?
\when will You complete them?
\why does It matter?

Part\wh is not theatre, not a game, but an experiential construct which shifts and re-imagines the boundaries between the art, theatre, and the internet. The participant’s last choice drives each construct. The work asks how each choice that we make, whether conscious or otherwise, affects us and others around us. contrary wagon breaks the boundaries of the art mediums we are familiar with, in an experiment to create new forms of making. Because time and space is undefined, and unconstrained in a post-Covid world where the digital can be experienced anywhere, and everywhere.

Mok Cui Yin

producers.sg/directory

January 2021
Online at producers.sg

As we rethink the artist’s role in a fast-changing world, it is timely to reimagine and reshape the boundaries between different roles in the arts community.

producers.sg/directory is an online database and directory of independent producers and arts managers working in and across Singapore and the region, created to increase visibility and awareness of these practitioners and the diversity of their practice. The directory will be launched in January 2021, and will enable artists and producers to seek out conversations and collaborators locally and internationally.

Admission

Admission to all programmes is free, unless otherwise stated.

Proposal for Novel Ways of Being

The Substation is proud to be one of the 12 local art institutions, independent art spaces and collectives coming together for Proposals for Novel Ways of Being. Led by National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, Proposals for Novel Ways of Being is an unprecedented collective response by the visual arts community to present a series of exhibitions and programmes, both physical and online. Its title references an earlier name of the virus, i.e. '2019 Novel Coronavirus', which serves as a reminder that we need new ways of being as we grapple with a new reality brought about by this pandemic.

To learn more about the programmes of other participating institutions, visit: www.novelwaysofbeing.sg