Courtesy NTU CCA Singapore

Part of contemporary art practices in Singapore since the 1980s has been the exploration of the suppressed and less privileged, addressed by former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 1999 as “heartlanders”, who live in the city-state’s public housing erected upon the tabula rasa of the razed plain in Singapore. Independent film from the 1990s in particular displayed uneasiness with the enclosure of Singapore’s nanny-state modernity, as it is often described. Some filmmakers notably took public housing to be a more enclosed space distinct from the swish commercial and business downtown. In attempting to map an urban space capable of yielding knowledge of non-elite people, filmmakers attempt to delineate the interiority of a major part of Singapore’s city space. This presentation will examine the similar and contrasting means by which some filmmakers present the city-state as a palimpsest of suppressed urban cultures.

Venue: NTU CCA Singapore

When: 4 Nov 2016, 7.30pm - 9pm

By: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore)