Pooja Nansi was appointed festival director for the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) in 2019. During her tenure, Nansi bolstered the outreach to a diverse demographic, which included young people and individuals with special needs. She has enriched the multilingual aspect of the SWF with literary groups dedicated to various mother tongues. When the pandemic hit, Nansi brought the festival to the digital space.

With 2023 being the final year for Nansi as festival director, we conducted an exit interview of sorts about her time at SWF, guilty pleasures and the challenges of parenthood.

(Note: This interview took place last year. Nansi was recently awarded the Knights of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture to celebrate their "significant impact on cultural cooperation" between Singapore and France.)

ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: Was five years always on the plan for you?

POOJA NANSI: I think the typical tenure is four years but with the pandemic and because the festival moved from being housed within National Arts Council to the Art House Limited, I was asked to stay on, just to help stabilise things. That’s why five years. It’s much longer than I expected.

ESQ: What do you feel you have accomplished during your tenure?

PN: I mean, we can only do what we can do with the time that we have. There’s always more to do, right? I had two big goals I needed to see fulfilled because I knew this tenure was always limited. I wanted to increase the space to include a variety of participants and audiences. And to draw in young people who never came to the festival before. So I definitely think we have achieved that to the best of our capacity. If you ask me, there’s always more that can be done. But I am proud of what we’ve achieved in five years.

ESQ: What was the pandemic like for you?

PN: Can we not talk about the pandemic years? [laughs]

ESQ: Was anyone even in the mood for a lit fest?

PN: It was weird because there was very little time to be reflective, right? In the early days of the pandemic, we all thought that this was happening somewhere else. No one imagined that the whole world would shut down. Sometime in April, the decision was made to go digital. And I remembered the team and I going like, we have no idea what that means. A festival is a gathering of people, right? It’s a physical gathering of bodies. So, at the time, we were thrown in the deep end and there was a steep learning curve to overcome.

Whether everyone was in the mood is a good question. But I think it was sorely needed. Props to the Arts Council for realising that because people needed to hold on to something right and writers and thinkers of our time are what people would return to when things get difficult. People needed to connect with other people and the festival provided a space for that. It turned out to be quite a necessary space.

ESQ: Esquire used to work with Yong Shu Hoong and he’s the next director for SWF. Were you involved in the selection process?

PN: I’m not actually involved in the appointment so I can’t speak to that. That’s all done by Arts House Limited and the National Arts Council.

ESQ: Any advice for him?

PN: I’ve known Shu Hoong for a long time because we are both poets in the scene. And, of course, I’ve been to many of his SUBtext sessions as a young poet, he’s always been very generous to me. I don’t believe in giving advice. I think Shu Hoong is more than equipped to take this on and he’s going to give it his own stamp. So it’s not so much advice but I hope he enjoys his time as much as I did.

ESQ: So what will you do now?

PN: I’ve been working on my PhD, which had been on hold for a long time owing to the pandemic. And I had a baby two weeks before the festival during the pandemic. So that was an... interesting year... working everything out. I’m taking a bit of a break from that. So my immediate goal is to focus on the PhD and complete it.

And I would like to return to my writing. I really missed that and then going back to some level of teaching creative writing. I wanna spend time with my daughter and learn to perfect making my mother’s dal. Y’know, things that I haven’t had time to do before.

ESQ: Does having a kid change you as a person; as a writer? I have a child and now, at the movies, I can't bear to watch scenes of children getting hurt.

PN: Yeah, it's a biological thing.

ESQ: Yeah. Because we're hotwired now to protect our young, right?

PN: How old is your child?

ESQ: Four in two months.

PN: My daughter just turned three. So, how has she impacted me? Thanks for asking that. People always ask how being your mother made it more difficult, which carries a lot of presumptions. I'll be really honest, I had a lot of anxiety when I found out that I was pregnant. I was really concerned about how having a child would affect my ability and my freedom to work as a writer and a thinker. But I can honestly say it's just expanded me as a human being beyond my wildest imagining. The clichés are true. Being a parent is the hardest and best job in the world. Your capacity to love expands, your empathy swells. You've become invested in a world that your kid is gonna grow up in.

ESQ: Do you think that has something to do with your openness to provide a space for a younger crowd?

PN: I conceptualised the youth fringe in 2019 before I had my daughter. I think that comes from just being a teacher at heart. I used to teach full-time for 10 years in MOE. I've worked with teenagers for my whole working life; I love working with young people because they're going to take over the world.

ESQ: Do you feel that the younger crowd aren't given the credit they deserve?

PN: The "younger generation"... that's a huge demographic. Some people have far more resources than others. It's not a monolith of young people that we're talking about. Some young people go to certain kinds of schools or come from certain kinds of families and backgrounds and have a lot of access and exposure to the arts. And then there's an entire demographic that, people seem to think, does not need exposure to the arts. That has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Literature teaches you how to know things. It teaches you how to learn. And I feel that we all deserve to have those tools regardless of where we come from. The art scene is potentially, one of the most democratic spaces we can offer a young person, if we come at it correctly and with the right intentionality.

ESQ: Like the Youth Fringe segment for the Singapore Writer's Fest.

PN: It wasn’t about, oh, let’s have a programme for young people. Very early on, I was very clear with my programming team that we cannot presume what young people want. That happens a lot in schools, where we prescribe to young people what they should be reading, what they should want. But what I wanted to know from young people is, what do you want to see in a literary space? Why aren’t you coming and what would make you attend?

We did a bunch of focus groups where we went into schools and asked young people about what they are reading, what is exciting to you? We collected all those data points and gathered youth curators who suggested programmes for us. The trick with that was to trust them, even though the programmes seemed outlandish.

ESQ: What seemed outlandish at the time?

PN: Wattpad. A lot of us were like, what on earth is Wattpad? But that’s what young people are writing and reading on. Even though we didn’t have any idea what it was, we had to trust that this was what young people were excited about. It was kind of magical because they came in droves. Yesterday, I was at an event and we had to turn people away. I was really upset but the book signing was packed. A stampede of young kids ran down with their little origami hearts to give to the author. I see things like this so it’s absolutely untrue that young people are not excited or that they’re apathetic. It’s just that half of the time, we don’t listen and we don’t meet them at where they are. And by that, I mean the average 14-year-old today won’t pick up Great Expectations. They’re engaging in the digital book space, like Booktalk, BookTube... it’s changing the literary landscape for the better.

ESQ: I heard there was a complaint about the inclusion of AI.

PN: Oh yes. For the Opening Debate. [Editor’s note: The festival kickstarts with an Opening Debate with topics that are tongue-in-cheek. This year’s topic was, “This House Believes AI is the Better Writer”.]

ESQ: I understand that the debate is meant to be facetious but people took it the wrong way.

PN: I dunno if it’s taken the “wrong way”. I think those views are valid. But if I’m understanding you correctly, it was a kind of outrage about the fact that a literary festival would feature ChatGPT, right? Someone wrote that AI is unethical because it mines other people’s labour without compensation. That it’s exploitative and unethical. How can a literary scene for writers give space to ChatGPT?

So we responded that the entire premise of the debate and the concern of the debate is precisely that. And we always believe in letting writers have the last word. So we wanted to let writers speak on it. And the plot twist of the debate was that ChatGPT was operated by a writer. If people had come to the debate, they would have realised that the debate was really funny, really clever and actually really poignant.

To me, AI is inevitable. It’s going to be a part of our future. There is anxiety but I think it was a beautiful thing for us as a community of writers and readers to sit with that anxiety and it was comforting to hear writers say, how can we learn to coexist and still use this technology to make our lives better rather than be controlled by it? That was the entire ensuing conversation.

ESQ: I always look at it as a good jumping point for discussion. Instead of just-

PN: Shutting it down.

ESQ: Precisely. We can talk about it. Maybe set up parameters for the use of AI.

PN: How are we going to collectively as a species navigate issues if we don't allow ourselves to talk about it? Maybe I'm growing old. I think social media is important but I do find a lot of the conversations very oversimplified and binary. Like there's only one right thing to say and a few buzzwords that you need to use and if you don't see it exactly like that, then you're wrong. I think that's damaging. That's why a space like a lit fest is precious because it's one of the few spaces where we can listen to each other talk. I mean, how many spaces do we have that allow that?

ESQ: Speaker's Corner?

PN: Yeah suuure. I'm a fan of talking about it no matter how difficult it is. There's no point in shutting it down.

ESQ: What is your guilty pleasure?

PN: I have none any more because I’ve embraced all my trashy loves. They turned me into who I am today. But... when I was a kid, I used to read Sweet Valley High. Now when I look at it, it’s terrible. Francine Pascal created the series but now it’s produced by a team of ghostwriters. It was so formulaic and bad but I was hooked on it. In retrospect, it taught me so much.

I’ve also watched so much trash reality TV. I just finished the latest season of Selling Sunset. I’m very fascinated by the dynamics of that show and its weird feminism. I could write an entire essay for you about that.

ESQ: Is it your PhD?

PN: PhD is not about Selling Sunset, unfortunately. Yeah.

ESQ: What about music? What’s your guilty pleasure?

PN: Oh, this is a hard one to admit but I still listen to Kanye.

ESQ: Old Kanye?

PN: I listen to a lot of old Kanye because I miss the old Kanye. It troubles me. I didn’t get off the Kanye train for a long time. Even when a lot of people dropped off, I was still kinda hoping that Kanye would say something that would redeem himself, but yeah. It’s really hard to justify it but I believe in listening, reading and watching things in the context. So, I listen to old Kanye and I don’t feel guilty. I feel conflicted about who he’s become and what he’s saying, but old Kanye’s music came from such a pure place actually, like some of those songs are so pure, that sometimes I’d cry listening to “Hey Momma”... they pull at my heartstrings because you can hear his hope, naivety and his emotions.

I can’t listen to Justin Timberlake the same way any more either. Like after all of the things that have come out, you know. It’s really hard to listen to him in the same way as before.

ESQ: Does your daughter know what you do?

PN: She’s very recently figured it out. I told her that, oh, mama runs a festival and she came to the festival this weekend and really enjoyed it. I left her with Denise from Closet Full of Books for about 40 minutes. She reads every book that she comes across. Sometimes when I tell people that my daughter loves books, they’re like, oh, of course she’s your kid but I’ve never met a kid who doesn’t like books. Because children are born curious, right? If you present them with something and you let them explore, that love for it will grow.

ESQ: Can she read?

PN: My daughter loves being read to. Every night is a battle about how many books we're going to read before she sleeps. It's a bit of a negotiation because I have energy for two and then she'll come into the room with four books. If we go to a bookstore and she picks something, I will let her buy it. Even if it has too many words. Maybe she won't understand it but I'll let her buy it because she'll get into it.

ESQ: Do you control what she consumes?

PN: I think, there’s a difference between gently nudging her towards new things and saying no. It’s different for every child and every parent but for me—and I know this is going to be a controversial statement—I’d rather she engages with difficult things with my knowledge. So that we can have that conversation.

I’m not saying it’s easy; it’s really difficult, especially when explaining big concepts to kids. But I’d rather we try and grapple with the issue together. A good example is when she was missing her grandparents one weekend and—she has big feelings—burst into tears. I tried to compromise with her, it’s ok. You know, you are going to see your grandfather and grandma tomorrow. And then she asked me, do you miss your grandmother? It took me aback. I said, yeah, I missed her a lot. And she said, oh, but it’s ok mama because you can see her tomorrow.

That was the moment when I had to make a choice, right? Because the easy answer is to dismiss her and think she won’t know any better. But I said, I can’t see my grandmother tomorrow because she is gone. She’s gone up to the sky to be with God, you know? And my daughter looked terrified but I assured her that it’s not scary. I may miss my grandmother but she’s always in my heart.

ESQ: I had several deaths in the family this year and my kid was asking questions about it. Like you, I came to a crossroads about talking to him about death and dying. I told him that Grandma died and now she's in a better place and I thought that he understood. Then, a few months later, he started saying that he hoped I'd die.

PN: But he's hoping that you'll get to a better place.

ESQ: Yeah. It sounds flippant but, weirdly, it came from a good place. You'd want to protect them from all that.

PN: I did not come to this interview thinking that I was gonna cry with you, but yeah.

ESQ: I'm still not sure if talking about death is too early for him. I do want him to be emotionally secure if either of his parents dies.

PN: There is no correct way to parent. We do the best that we can. And it's not the exact quote but I go back to Philip Larkin-

ESQ: "This Be The Verse".

PN: Yeah, we're gonna do it. But we try our best not to.

ESQ: Speaking about death, can we talk about Adrian Tan? He sadly passed and this is the first year you’re doing the debate without him.

PN: For the festival’s Opening Debate, yes. It’s really one of those things that hit me harder than I thought. The reason for that is that I’ve never seen Adrian without a smile on his face. He has always been so kind, so supportive, so generous with his time and his energy.

Ever since I took over the festival and when I doubt myself for a decision that I’ve made, Adrian would be like, if people are a bit pissed off, you’re doing it right. And, this is kind of morbid but, he added, don’t worry, Pooja. No one’s gonna die. That’s Adrian. He never takes anything too seriously.

ESQ: Did you know about his illness?

PN: I knew he had been ill for a while but in true Adrian fashion, he never called attention to it. He never made anything about himself. I might get the timeline wrong but I think as early as February or March, when we had an online meeting, I saw him and I didn’t think he looked too well. But I wasn’t expecting that he would go so soon. That was hard.

We talked about how we wanted to celebrate him at the festival... and I intentionally used the word “celebrate” and not “memorialise him” or “eulogise him”; that’s just not in the spirit of who Adrian was. He always enlivened the party. We didn’t want to do a moment of silence because Adrian would have hated that. So, we decided to dedicate the debate to his memory.

ESQ: Given what you know, if you were asked to return to lead the Singapore Writers Fest’s programme, would you?

PN: Not immediately, I would like a little time away from it. I haven’t had time to reflect on what we’ve achieved and where it’s moved to. Some distance is important for reflection, right? But if I have the chance to work with these people again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s been a privilege of a lifetime to work with these people.

ESQ: Are we good? Is there anything else you want to talk about?

PN: No man. We already talked about kids and death and Kanye. I think we’re good. 

Photography: Shawn Paul Tan
Styling: Asri Jasman
Photography Assistant: Xie Feng Mao
Hair and Makeup: Nicole Ang at THE SUBURBS STUDIO using DUNGÜD and DIOR BEAUTY

From 15 to 21 April 2024, Moncler transforms the Milano Centrale railway station into a spectacular creative hub. The station will turn into one of the world’s largest galleries with an immersive exhibition titled An Invitation To Dream.

“Dreams are what have been moving myself and Moncler forward since day one, because we never stop dreaming about what is possible, and how we can inspire and be inspired by others around the world. Always aiming to not only do new, but to do better,” says Moncler chairman and CEO Remo Ruffini.

Curated by Jefferson Hack, the theme of the exhibition heeds closely to the brand’s values. An Invitation To Dream is filmed and photographed by Jack Davison, and features a lineup of visionaries that are the cultural leaders of today. They include Daniel Arsham, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Isamaya Ffrench, Laila Gohar, Jeremy O. Harris, Francesca Hayward, Julianknxx, Ruth Rogers, Ruffini, Rina Sawayama, Sumayya Vally, and Zaya. 

“The curated community represent some of the finest creative visionaries across culture who dare to dream for us. They are today’s reality-shapers and they were invited to participate as their work carries with it new hopes and possibilities. It’s the deeply transformative aspects in their work and practice that makes them essential artists of our time and essential for us to bring into this project,” Hack explains.

Without a doubt, the station is one of the city’s busiest travel hubs. But not only that, it also represents the pivotal moment for those daring enough to pursue their dreams. Billboards and screen-based advertising sites featuring imageries and quotations from the artists stand amidst the station's bustling environment. These large-scale text pieces and slow-motion portraits serve as powerful yet silent invocations. An Invitation To Dream celebrates those who embody passion and belief.

Arsham tells us more as he reflects on the concept of dreams and manifestation, and how it might help him in his creative processes. From childhood inspirations to the subconscious realms where ideas germinate, Arsham's narrative offers a glimpse into the inner workings of a visionary artist.

ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: Do you consider yourself a dreamer? Are you a dreamer?

DANIEL ARSHAM: Yeah, I believe in the power of manifestation. When I was younger, I didn't fully grasp this concept or its reality, but looking back, I see how I've manifested many opportunities in my life. For instance, when I applied to Cooper Union, I wasn't accepted initially, but I kept pushing for it until it happened. Similarly, working with Merce Cunningham was a dream I actively pursued.

ESQ: You have a lot of notebooks and that you sketch a lot. It's interesting how dreams often start in the mind before taking tangible form. How do you document your process of manifesting ideas? Do your dreams directly influence your work?

DA: There's that 5- to 10-minute period right before you fall asleep where you're kind of in between sleeping, lucid dreaming, where you're partially in control of the vision that you're having in your dream and part of it's taken over by your subconscious. And you can’t differentiate what’s real and what’s imaginary. I often find inspiration in that liminal state right before sleep. There are moments, especially during air travel, where I enter a state between wakefulness and sleep, and ideas emerge. I rely heavily on note-taking and sketching to capture these fleeting thoughts.

ESQ: It's interesting how much our subconsciousness can help recontextualise the conscious mind in a way it can be a freer space. You know, you have an idea, you sketch, you look at ideas, but then when you're in that kind of dream world, you're able to kind of rethink things, or things are presented to you without bias.

DA: Yeah. Ironically, I sometimes do this thing to document an idea where I'll text it to myself. I woke up the other morning from a dream and saw this text I wrote to myself and it said, "Have you ever woken up out of a beautiful dream 30 minutes before your alarm, and you really just want to get back into that dream? Make your life feel like that."

ESQ: Creative flow and dreaming share similarities in their meditative nature. Do you experience a flow state while creating?

DA: Yeah. My studio practice feels like capturing an existing idea rather than inventing one. The idea behind it has already passed. So it's about capturing an idea rather than implementing it. I don't know how exactly to say this, but when I'm painting, It's almost as if the idea is kind of already there and I'm just finding it. Does that make sense?

ESQ: So are you able to kind of paint and not think about what you’re doing? How would you describe that, that feeling of being in a flow state?

DA: I've been making paintings now for 30 years, and I've gotten into a process that almost feels, I wouldn’t say mechanical, but it's very regimented. I know exactly where all of my paint is, the types of brushes that I like to use, and I've refined all of that, even down to the point where I only use a specific kind of paint now.

ESQ: It's interesting because I think that that kind of discipline and rigour is akin to a meditation practice where you're doing something very mundane, but you're doing it very precisely, over and over again, like raking the Japanese garden in your big installation.

DA: Yeah.

ESQ: It does something to the mind. It does something to the creative mind, that practice...

DA: That's why we call it studio practice, because you're constantly trying things out. You're still learning and there's routines that get built up within that that I think are productive, actually, even if they feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. But, you become better at those things through that kind of practice.

ESQ: Has there ever been a kind of an epiphany moment in that studio practice where you've just done a left turn or you’re shaking things up and thought, okay, I'm going to re orientate what I'm doing here?

DA: I often find it really difficult to trace the origin of particular ideas in my work because they flow from one another. They're kind of iterative. And, I recently started this new series of paintings that are these kinds of split face paintings. We were talking about them earlier and somebody was asking, where did the idea originate from and I can't even remember. 

ESQ: So very much like a dream it's fragmentary, right? You know, it could come from the past and could come from, a moment in history or another life and it could also be a premonition of the future, something that you're projecting or wanting to manifest?

DA: Right.

ESQ: I think by saying I don't know where my ideas come from, I start to question whether they are from me or are they from another kind of source in a way that I'm channelling. Have you thought much about that? Where does inspiration come from in general for you?

DA: I think every artist is a product of the era they live in. It is the artist’s job to interpret and reveal new potential things within that reality that often go unseen or overlooked. Oftentimes when I create a work that has a big impact, it feels as though it already existed in the world, waiting to be expressed. This sense of inherent presence gives the work a significant impact and a sense of purpose fulfilled.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Moncler (@moncler)

ESQ: There's definitely recurring symbols and motifs in your work. Are there recurring symbols and motifs in your dream world?

DA: Oh, I have tons of recurring dreams. One of them that's very strange that I can remember going all the way back to high school is, being in a kind of empty landscape with a single tree and there are these cylinders floating in the air and as I go to grab them, they shrink down into a pencil and then just disappear. Then I often have dreams where I'm in my childhood home where I kind of relive my childhood memories.

ESQ: And how does that make you feel?

DA: It's a beautiful thing to go back to your childhood. And, I could probably draw a very accurate floor plan of it even today. I haven't been in that house in over 30 years, but I know it very well. Space has a way of influencing our psychology that I think imprints a lot in childhood.

ESQ: In what way?

DA: I think your childhood bedroom or the space that you spend a lot of time in as a child imprints on you differently than the way an apartment in your 30s might. There's just a different character about it.

ESQ: I'm just imagining younger you in your childhood home, dreaming of what you might be in the future. What were some of the things that you were looking out for that gave you a sense of inspiration or confidence about taking the path of being an artist?

DA: I grew up in a really suburban neighbourhood where all the houses are literally identical with the same floor plan. They might do a mirror image where the house is in reverse of itself. I started getting into photography around age 10 or 11 when my grandfather gifted me a camera. One of my early artistic endeavours was a series of photos capturing the doors of these houses. Even though the houses were the same, the doors ended up being different. The paint of the door. Some people put a flower pot outside their door, or a cross, or something that gave that sameness a unique character. This experience sparked my recognition of an artist's ability to capture the distinctive aspects of everyday life that others may overlook.

ESQ: It's amazing because I can imagine you sort of looking through the frame and then it altering your sense of reality and perspective on the world. I'm really interested in this idea of how you think about reality and perspective. Obviously, our dream world allows us to play with one of those concepts because it is nonlinear, experimental. It's an unreal world. In some cultures, they would say the real world is an illusion and the dream world is the world. But obviously when you're making art and your artworks are also about world building and creating alternate worlds for yourself to inhabit, I wonder if this idea of reality shaping is something that interests you in your work.

DA: Yeah, I think for most people, they accept reality at face value and they accept the limitations of that. Right?

ESQ: The literal physics.

DA: It's not just about the physics; it's about where we're born, the options presented to us, and what we believe we're capable of achieving. For me, the essence of creating art goes beyond a career; it's about realising the potential to bring my visions to life authentically. It can be unsettling to recognise that much of what we perceive as reality are human constructs. Somebody made them, you know. I have my two young sons, Casper and Phoenix, and I often emphasise to them that behind every design decision lies the possibility for change. There's a lot of potential in realising that reality is malleable.

ESQ: So your motivation is about looking at the world and seeing how you can improve on it or change it. Or is it more about seeking some kind of answers to unrealised questions?

DA: Yeah, I think making art is more about trying to find the answer to something, but actually it's really revealing more questions in some ways.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ARSHAM STUDIO (@danielarsham)

ESQ: That's super interesting. I like that we talked a lot about childhood and your children as well. I think also part of it seems to me that you are always open to change and new possibilities. You said earlier, always learning is also a little bit about staying in a childlike state?

DA: Yeah. Children have this unique ability to perceive things differently.

ESQ: How do you maintain that sense of freshness and openness to new experiences? What are some of your techniques?

DA: I try to relive my own childhood through my sons. This is a bad example, but they've been wanting to get these go karts. Obviously, cars are a big part of my life, so I got them these really fast gas go karts that are probably not even legal today. I have a paved area behind my garage and you can fully drift these things. They kept telling me ‘you're going too fast’ and I was like ‘I got it under control!’ And eventually, like a child, I pushed it over the limit and fully flipped the thing, tore up my arm and knee, and it was funny. Casper, who's the older one, said ‘you know, I told you not to do that.’

ESQ: How have you showcased "pushing the limits" in your work?

DA: As an artist, we often engage in series, and the public often perceives artwork through repetition. It's like pages of a book that you're putting together, but knowing when the book is finished and how it progresses to the next chapter or book is a constant consideration. I often have too many ideas that I'm always waiting to realise. I don't know if that really answers the question. But yeah, I always have too many things on my list to make, too many ideas.

ESQ: Was there an experience, an artwork that's made such an incredible impression on you, the kind of impression you hope your work would have on the public when they encounter it?

DA: Right around the time that I was shooting those photographs, when I was 10, 11, 12, there was a hurricane in Florida that completely destroyed the childhood home that I grew up in. The house was reconstructed back in exactly the way that it had been before, except obviously, the wallpaper was different. The tiles on the floor were different. The furniture was different. But it was the exact same space. It also gave me the experience of seeing how architecture was put together. The structure, the electrical lines, the plumbing, the drywall, the paint. Understanding that, yeah, somebody thought about that, somebody made that, it was a considered idea. I think that really had a major impact on the way that I think about everything. Something being destroyed, something being reconstructed. The use of different materials for different possibilities and its manifested in my work in so many different ways.

ESQ: That's a great story. Last question, what’s an unrealised dream or ambition for you?

DA: Ummm.. an unrealised dream? Film is certainly something that I've played with in the past and I think never really realised in its full potential. Made some short films. But I think at this phase in my life, I keep coming back to the most interesting things that constantly draws me back. I have made a big return to painting after almost a decade. It's become not only a part of my art practice, but also a significant aspect of my daily life in the studio.

We know Gillman Barracks as a colonial barracks and then as an arts cluster. But there are more to the area than just contemporary art galleries. For one, there is The Southern Depot, where it's all about crafts, cycling, wellness and lifestyle.

The Southern Depot seems like a prime pit-stop and landmark in-line with Gillman Barracks' vision as a vibrant creative arts enclave. Painting itself as an event space, The Southern Depot hosted a slew of activities and workshop when it opened in early March. It was a weekend event that featured vendors like Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee, KultBespoke, HeartyPlayFam, Re-store and more.

Embracing the ethos of "Cycles, Craft, and Community", the creative hub fosters dynamic partnerships with local lifestyle brands and carefully curates eco-conscious workshops. Aside from weekend craft markets, visitors can also visit the DIDI Lifestyle area, where you can peruse a wide array of two-wheelers in their showroom (hell, try for a test ride!) or patronise their on-site partners like Weber Grill Academy (getcher grilled meats on!), Kaffa Bella (getcher caffeine on!) and Little Island Brewing Co (getcher beer on! Responsibly!).

Tune in for more curated programmes and installations from weekend markets, seasonal pop-up events and co-working spaces. Goh Kian Sin, Executive Chairman of DIDI Group and owner of The Southern Depot says, “We have many programmes and partnerships in the pipeline, and are looking forward to introducing a unique experience for visitors to discover the limitless potential of The Southern Depot.”

So, if you feel fatigued by the art (or the GD sun), step into The Southern Depot for a spell. Have a drink or some food and even partake in one of their many cultural events.

To hear Ng Seok Har and Michelle Lim talk about pottery is to experience love. They wax lyrical about how a vase is made, from the kneading and throwing of the clay, to bestowing it a form on the wheel, till it’s baptised by fire in the kiln.

Lim points to a blood-red bowl. “Do you know how this ox-blood glaze came about? Before the Song Dynasty period, China was the only country that could get this level of red. As the legend goes: the imperial potter was so stressed that he couldn’t get the particular red hue that he leapt into the kiln to die. But in doing so, he finally got the desired red. Apparently, bone ash was key in achieving that colour.”

The material, clay, holds history. It comes from the ground upon which humans, animals, vegetation have trodden and interred for centuries. There is something existentially mind-blowing about this very idea.

“It’s humbling to know that, in the grand scheme of things, you’re just a speck that’s still learning,” says Ng, “That’s what appeals to me.”

It’s the act of creation, where the alchemy of earth, water, fire and air can give birth to a ceramic piece.

“Innately, every human being longs to create,” Lim says. “And even if you don’t do it yourself, watching another person do it is rather satisfying. We feel very lucky to be able to make pottery by hand. And we’d be happy to keep on doing it.”

The passage from Ecclesiastes comes to mind: “Of earth, they were made, and into the earth they return together”. It sums up the women’s singular vision—one that was forged individually even before their paths crossed.

Ng’s first dalliance with pottery occurred when she worked in the foreign exchange market in Japan. When she returned to Singapore, she traded in her banking life for one in ceramic making. Lim’s path was more linear, with her studying pottery at the Australian National University and becoming a full-time lecturer at Singapore Polytechnic.

They first met at a non-profit ceramics festival called “Awaken the Dragon.” Organised by Lim, the festival was to raise awareness about the historical significance of Singapore’s last two remaining dragon kilns. The chance meeting also awakened the idea of reintroducing handmade ceramics into the homes and dining spaces of Singapore. This led to the formation of Mud Rock Ceramics.

There was never an official long-term goal for the business. “We didn’t think that far when we started,” Ng says. “We just looked ahead and continued walking.”

Now Mud Rock Ceramics celebrates its 10th anniversary with Clay Camp, which offers guided museum tours, lectures and masterclasses with veteran ceramicists like Iskandar Jalil and Janet DeBoos.

Over the decade, Ng and Lim also amassed a cumulation of ceramics. As their collection grew, so did its rarity and value. They haven’t sold off anything, citing that each piece holds too special a significance to part ways with. Ng shows us an earth-coloured vase from Hagi, Yamaguchi. “I collected this to remember my visits and what I’ve learnt from my stay.” The ceramics fill their house, many of which are not kept in storage but remain in use. Friends who come over are asked to choose from a selection of tea cups to sip from. Daily, vases are filled with flowers. “You feel more joy in using them than packing them away in safe storage,” Lim reasons.

One is reminded of the Jewish folklore about the golem. Made from clay or mud, it is brought to life through incantations written on paper that’s placed in its mouth. In this instance, the ceramic vessels are like tiny golems: fully formed and purposeful as pieces of utilitarian art.)

Miraculously, Lim says that she hasn’t broken a single ceramic from the collection (at the admission, she raps her knuckles on the surface of her wooden table). “Sadly however, I have had guests who have broken stuff within 30 minutes of their visit.”

As to the criteria of the pieces that make it to their collection? “There needs to be an instant attraction,” Ng says, “because we are ceramicists, we are aware of the work that goes into a piece and the value of it.”

Lim extends a pair of nondescript mud-coloured cups with dark brown speckles. “These were made by Yuri [Wiedenhofer], a hermit who lives up on a mountain in New South Wales. You can’t buy his creations anywhere. When we visited him, these cups were a present from him.”

She holds them reverently, caught in the charge of a quiet air. Her finger traces a minute chip in the rim of one of the cups. A lamentable accident but one that is eclipsed by what the cup represents, instead of what it is.

“It is quaint experiences and little stories like this that make the pieces we have so special.”

Photography: Jaya Khidir
Art Direction: Joan Tai

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ケリー 〔kelly limerick〕 (@kllylmrck)

Lately, with fibre craft on the rise, knitting and crocheting have been the new trend. The laborious craft requires huge dedication and commitment from craft artists. But the final results are testaments to the artists' passion and creativity.

Prominent local crochet artist, Kelly Limerick, is celebrated for her alternative take on the ancient craft of crochet. She was chosen to collaborate with LOUIS XIII to create an artwork called "100", which took four months to complete. Limerick journeyed to the LOUIS XIII Domaine du Grollet Estate in Cognac, France for inspiration for her art. There, she delved into the heritage of LOUIS XIII Cognac, allowing her to comprehend the values that the House holds. She became enthralled by the House’s timeless heritage.

“The sense of history in the old town was unmistakable, and... I grasped why LOUIS XIII is steadfast about its origin and identity,” Limerick noted. “There's an evident pride in the meticulous approach, a serene and unwavering dedication to savoir-faire passed down from one cellar master to the next. Ageing the eaux-de-vie holds an element of unpredictability... It falls upon the cellar master to trust their palate, sampling the diverse eaux-de-vie to craft the familiar blend of LOUIS XIII that we recognise. These two elements—trust in the unknown and confidence in personal skill—resonate with me and have inspired me greatly.”

"100" was unravelled and reworked 100 times to illustrate the progress in time. With its tedious craft-making process, "100" is meant to emphasise the similarity to the laborious production of LOUIS XIII. Limerick confessed that "it involved four months of daily dedication; more time and effort required than if I did 100 individual pieces."

The Work

The final sculpture resembles a vessel with a double-walled bowl within. Crafted as a single piece without joins or internal structures, like a fountain, the sculpture remains hollow. By holding soil from Cognac, it encapsulates the flavourful layers of LOUIS XIII as it ages. This is a cognac that could only be tasted decades later.

Anne-Laure Pressat, Executive Director of LOUIS XIII Cognac shares that “We are honoured to collaborate with Kelly Limerick, having her join us in exploring intertwined concepts of time and preserving artistic heritage for future generations..."

"100" represents THE DROP, the latest product by LOUIS XIII. An embodiment of a new generation that reinvents luxury codes through ownership, THE DROP fosters a unique 'art-de-vivre' akin to Limerick's approach toward art. Coming in a 1cl bottle, THE DROP retails at Tatler Bar at SG$288 and SG$1,440 for a pack of five 1cl bottles. The add-on lanyard accessory with a leather bottle case is priced at SG$168. 

The Stripper Index has been making the rounds on Twitter again. If you missed it, this index lauds the strip club as a leading recession indicator. The economy is wobbly if exotic dancers, who rely on daily cash tips to make a living, are seeing lower earnings. The original online oracle (@boticellibimbo) is a stripper and graduate student from Columbia University. Heralding the current unofficial recession via a tweet in May 2022, she shared that she would check stock alerts to decide whether or not it would be worthwhile going to work that night. Her recent tweets bring hopeful tidings for the American economy—her old clients are back in the clubs, flush with discretionary dollars for their favourite dancers.

As an arts advocate and longtime self-employed person in the entertainment sphere, it's heartening to hear of consumers directly and enthusiastically supporting their local artists, especially in an economic downturn. After that ignominious Sunday Times survey was published in June 2020, where 71 per cent of respondents picked “Artist” as the most non-essential pandemic job, I’d like to see a little more appreciation and yes, money, coming our way.

ARE WE REALLY IN A RECESSION?

I’m not an economist but wiser minds agreed that we've been at risk for a technical recession since February 2020, when Covid-19 did its thing. We remember the lockdown and the things that kept us sane. We ran with our music blasting; we streamed shows; we connected with other isolated humans online and we doom-scrolled beautiful photos on the ’gram. All these mental health essentials that the average person relied on to survive the Circuit Breaker, they continue to rely on to enhance their present lived experience daily. Strangely, it seems that many (at least 71 per cent of the people who took The Sunday Times survey) don’t realise that the progenitor of the music, the shows, the video games and the images that they consume, is an artist.

Being a creative isn't the same as having a hobby. And having a “cool” job in the arts doesn't insulate you from needing to pay bills. Whatever economists want to call the downturn we’re in, it’s hitting artists especially hard. Art does not appear, fully formed, from the ether. Even if the gear needed to create art is a fixed cost, the experimentation needed to get to a finished art product is a frighteningly variable cost… and the bills pile up fast.

At the start of the troubles in 2020, peer-to-peer sale sites like Carousell were awash with photographers selling camera lenses and musicians offloading instruments. It was sobering to realise that artists were flogging the tools of their trade. As an erstwhile lawyer, I will now take a Harvey Spectre dance break: Even if someone were legally declared bankrupt and creditors are at the gate, the law recognises the need for the bankrupt to earn a living. The bankrupt’s tools of their trade cannot form part of the bankrupt’s estate (aka what is allowed to be sold to satisfy their creditors), otherwise the bankrupt can't earn any income at all. Many artists, like gig musicians, were prevented from earning any professional income during Covid-19 but the bills still needed to be paid. Making the decision to sell their gear and being unable to buy their way back in, led to highly talented creatives exiting the industry in favour of quicker cash generating options like food delivery. We might be paying for this creative brain drain for a while.

DO WE EVEN HAVE ANY ARTISTIC BRAIN TO DRAIN?

As much as we wryly bemoan the alleged cultural desert we live in, Singapore does have an artistic brain trust to defend. The Forbes 30 Under 30 list regularly features Singapore musicians, including an act I used to manage, The Sam Willows. Nathania Ong is presently treading the boards on the West End playing Eponine in London’s second longestrunning musical Les Miserables. Sam See has headlined comedy shows in 25 countries and is a regular on the Edinburgh comedy circuit. Sonny Liew’s graphic novel, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, won a slew of awards, including the Eisner Award for Best Writer/ Artist. Shavonne Wong is an award-winning fashion photographer who pivoted to creating her own models and minting them as NFTs, amassing celebrity fans that include Idris Elba.

"But NFTs aren’t real art!”, I hear some naysayers gripe. In October 2022, the Singapore High Court published the first written judgment in Asia that protected a non-fungible token (NFT). It was a case involving one of the more famous NFTs, a Bored Ape, and in it, the Singapore Courts acknowledged that NFTs can properly be regarded as property. Cryptobros and a Discord of NFT art collectors throughout the island breathed a collective sigh of relief at the recognition of their investment as real property.

Both digital and traditional Singapore artists are pushing boundaries and working hard. And these efforts have been recognised by independent, international bodies. I paraphrase the television show franchise and declare, Singapore Has Talent, and these talents deserve to be appreciated.

BUT DOES THE INVESTMENT PAY OFF?

In 2014, I hopped on a train to the old Hougang bus interchange for the 100 Bands Music Festival. Beyond the eponymous 100 indie music acts that were scheduled to play, there were also booths for food and merchandise. One of the visual artists exhibiting at the music festival was selling limited prints of her work, including a piece she had created as the album cover for the debut EP of post-prog rock band, 7nightsatsea. Today, that same original work by Allison M Low, “Warboat”, goes for SGD1,431 on her Australia gallery’s website. Back in that heaving, humid bus depot festival of 2014, I bought three of Allison’s prints for less than 10 per cent of that, purely because I thought they were cool.

If there is a non-braggy point to this anecdote, it isn’t (just) that diamond-handing the art pieces for nine years has got me an on-paper 10-times return. Granted, what I bought is a limited edition print and what she’s now selling is the original. I bought the pieces because I liked them and have genuinely loved being around them all this time, even as I moved from my parents’ place to my own. Do I get a small frisson every time I see the artist’s name in the media and the public sphere, knowing she’s on the ascent? Yes. It’s nice knowing an international art gallery is managing her and a growing chunk of the world agrees with my subjective art preferences. But more than that, it’s gratifying to know that my 2014 decision to invest even a tiny amount in a specific artist has turned out to be a “sound” investment. Most importantly, I still think the pieces are cool.

SO NOW WHAT?

Art creation is not free, so stop being cheap. The next time you go to a bar and make a song request, send the band a tip. The next time you forward your friend a TikTok or a reel, follow the creator and subscribe to their Patreon. While you’re waiting for your little man to walk forward on the screen to get you on the Taylor Swift registration list, take a moment to browse all the other live events that are happening in Singapore; round up the friend group and attend a show. Or go to a gallery or watch a recital. Whatever you choose, please pay for the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of the artist’s labour. There are so many ways for consumers to make like @boticellibimbo’s clients and make a direct and immediate cash contribution to your local arts scene. Pick the one that works best for you and invest in the creative and cultural scene you want to have. Creators are standing by to make money moves.