Art N' About Singapore Designs for More

Author: Joyce man

Singapore, or S'pore as it is affectionately called, is home of the gum ban, mandatory military service and the resplendent Raffles Hotel. But this metropolitan city is trying to add something else extraordinary to its national menu. Right now, Singapore Fashion Week is bombarding the largest venues at Suntec and Raffles City Shopping Centre with runway shows. Come November, Singapore plays host to an overflowing array of design activity, with the Singapore Design Festival, DesignEDGE Conference, Young Asian Designers Awards (YADA), Creative Industries Summit, Red Dot Design Award and the AdASIA Summit.

Of late, Asian art has been cropping up everywhere to international attention. Japan native Takashi Murakami's multi-chromatic redesign of Louis Vuitton's classic Monogrammed Canvas sent those leather bags flying off the shelves in 2002. This past summer, his fellow countryman Chinatsu Ban's giant yellow diaper-clad elephant sculpture stood on display at the Doris C Freedman Plaza, face to face with New York City's grand Fifth Avenue. Chinese oil painter Zhang Xiaogang's haunting avant garde "Big Family" portraits have infiltrated the Western art world just as Wong Kar Wai's film "2046" brought the Hong Kong director back into spotlight. At the Venice Biennale in July, some very innovative works were delivered by Korean-American artists Michael Joo and Do-Ho Suh and Taiwanese photographer Chang Chien-Chi.

So it comes as no surprise that Singapore should vie for its own spot in this Asian art boom. But can S'pore really be more? Its most recent claim to fame is its participation as the only ASEAN country in the Venice Biennale's 9th International Architecture Exhibition, but beyond that, it has yet to enter the rising ranks of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

And yet, SingaporeDesign, the national initiative for design creativity which was created by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts has been pumping out enough events and competitions to literally alter the state of this small island. Most importantly, like Beijing in 2003 and Moscow this spring, Singapore is slated to host its very own international art biennale next September. In other news, President Sellapan Ramanathan's Design Award, which will feed up-and-coming local artists into international recognition, was just announced on Sept. 2.

November sees the German Red Dot Design Museum bring one section of its highly-coveted product and communications innovation awards to S'pore soil for its 50th anniversary celebration. DesignEDGE's amalgamation of talents, both native to Singapore and from the U.K., the U.S.A., Japan and Australia, looks like a well-sponsored event that takes artistic cool seriously. The Young Asian Designers Award appears a smaller event with less recognition, but nonetheless, YADA is wide in geographical scope. As we speak, its international panel is online, judging entries from Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and India. A week later, the Beyond 2005 Global Summit for Creative Industries brings together the big guys, including Saatchi and Saatchi's Creative Director Bob Isherwood, Editor-in-Chief of popular design magazine "Wallpaper" Jeremy Langmead and seven-time Oscar, twelve-time BAFTA award nominee Shakhar Kapur. Late November in Singapore's Suntec City, ADASIA 2005 presents a flurry of seminars and workshops to professionals from all over the continent.

All these events, driven into action by SingaporeDesign, certainly have not propelled this trading port into design central. But as Florence Oh, Executive Director at the Designers Asociation Singapore, told The Middlebury Campus from her Fortune Centre office in the city, they are certainly giving it a shot. "Singapore is trying presently to be the creative hub in this region," she said. "Due to [our] efficient infrastructure, cosmopolitan environment and the support of the [Government], I think Singapore will play a prominent role in the arts and creative scene." Well, then, as their national motto goes, Majulah Singapura! Onward, Singapore!