Dear reader,
Events. 6pm, March 24th at the Book Bar. I’ll be in conversation with Tay Kheng Soon, veteran architect, about his latest book, Future of Singapore?; his call to decentralise governance here; why he feels we’re not short of land; and much more. I’m sure the upcoming GE will also feature. The event is free for members, supporters and patrons, but space is limited. Register here.
The Jom tote. Yup, it’s finally on sale on our webshop. Free local delivery. Buy it now.
- Why aren’t our migrant workers fed nutritious food?
- Those mobility scooter riders who don’t really need them
- High-tech history with PORTALS at Sentosa
- Edwin Tong woos Lady Gaga. Apparently.
- Natalie Hennedige’s final directorship of the Singapore International Festival of Arts
- Salesforce in Singapore
And more, in our weekly digest. Read it now.
Commentary: “How did I get here? Gerrymandering in Singapore.” This week’s report by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee sets the stage for Singapore’s next general election, which must be held by November. My commentary opens:
“To understand what might be peak geopolitical absurdity in the six-decade long, SimCity-like machinations of a paranoid ruling party, we need to contemplate the latest bout of gerrymandering not only through the lens of electoral tactics, but also public housing.”
The piece examines gerrymandering’s impact on opposition parties and electoral dynamics, but also the profound sense of bewilderment expressed by many Singaporeans this week, waking up to find themselves in a completely new district.
Essay: “‘Yee I-Lann: Mansau-Ansau’: not all who wander are lost.” Our arts criticism at Jom is often published after the fact, more post-mortem than prelude. Exhibition and performance windows in Singapore are narrow, and our writers need time for their interrogations of artistic works. But every now and then we’re able to do both: engage you in deep thought for something you can still go see.
So, in case you missed it, there’s an incredible survey show on at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), featuring the works of Yee I-Lann, a Sabahan artist. It runs till March 23rd. Our arts editor, Corrie Tan, has today written about her experiences visiting the exhibition three separate times.
“‘Mansau-ansau,’ the Sabahan artist declares, shivering with delight, ‘is the route of the kampung chicken.’ That indigenous free-range fowl found in Malaysia and Indonesia wanders all over but always knows how to get back to its perch…Mansau-ansau is the Kadazan-Dusun term for wandering without a fixed destination, then returning at the end of your walkabout.”
Like the kampung chicken, we wander with Corrie through Yee’s immense body of work: the eponymous “dizzying, dazzling weave”; “a luminous map of maritime, rather than terrestrial, cartographies”; “a stacked textile triptych evoking the design of the kain panjang, or ‘long cloth’”; “a series of digital collages”, featuring Gaddafi, Tun Mustapha, the Marcoses, played out “on the seascapes shared by Sabah and the southern Philippines”; and much more.
I was particularly drawn to Yee’s metaphors of the tikar (woven mat) and the meja (table). The tikar is the indigenous seat, “laced with multigenerational knowledge”, and its embrace is an attempt to repair sociocultural memory, to connect with the “Bornean communities who are illegible or invisible to political and social administration”.
The meja represents colonial “modernity”. “It isn’t an army that arrives, brandishing cannons and guns, but a battalion of surveyors, census takers, teachers, and photographers cloaked in black,” Corrie writes. “They’re armed with measuring instruments, cameras, and lots of umbrellas to shield them from the equatorial sun. And what they bring is a slow violence that continues to persist.”
Singaporeans probably didn’t realise that this week, we’d be reminded of the power of our contemporary mapmakers. For those trying to make sense of it all, or even just catch a breath before election season, consider spending a few hours at SAM amidst Yee’s meditations on similar strands of belonging and identity in a vastly different context.
“Mansau-ansau,” Corrie ends her piece. “We’ve wandered away from who we are, a journey choreographed by forces both familiar and imperceptible. How might we return to ourselves?”
Jom fikir,
Sudhir
Editor-in-chief, Jom
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