Events

This lecture is organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and jointly presented with support from T:>Works.

ABSTRACT

Is “public art” by, for or of the public? Dr Ong Keng Sen considers public art from the standpoint of performance not as spectacle or entertainment but as a process of relationality between people, communities and the powers that shape public space in various contexts. Public art creates spaces through which a community—at the scales of neighborhood, nation or region—might articulate itself, including its plural and contradictory dimensions. Participation, discourse, and consensus, rather than co-presence and mute spectatorship, mark the efficacy of public art redefined in this way.

Historically, public art has denoted iconic or monumental objects such as sculptures, buildings and man-made, urbanised landscapes that memorialise significant events or persons or represent the ethos of a nation, region or township. Since the early 2000s, influential theories on the cultural production of space and place made artistic and creative activity important in state calculations to elevate Asian cities—Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing among them—to global status through “creative industries” frameworks. Today, it is common for governments in Asia and elsewhere to invest public funds in creating institutions of arts presentation, such as museums, performing art venues, and annual or biennial festivals. Such place-making projects are seen to activate particular precincts, materialising communities through the shared experiences generated by arts-related activities. Complicating these definitions, this event interrogates the public-ness of public art, defined by something more than its visibility and market potential in publicly held space. Moving beyond the notion that investment in public art can beautify or activate public space, this discussion considers what an evolving culture of integrating processes of public deliberation in art-making processes might look like.

Discussions will engage in articulating research directions for the study of culture, creativity, and arts in relation to their increased integration into state and market pragmatics in Asia.

PROGRAM

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Ong Keng Sen has been the Artistic Director of Singapore’s T:>Works (formerly known as TheatreWorks) since 1988. He holds a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University and was the founding festival director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), 2013-2017. His productions have been seen in major theatres around the world, the latest being Trojan Women, which played at BAM Next Wave Festival in New York in 2022 and Edinburgh International Festival in 2023. In 2022, Ong was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Arts London and was the Valeska Gert Guest Professor at Freie University Berlin.

T.C. Chang is a social-cultural geographer with research interests in tourism and urbanisation in Asia. His specific research interests include arts, culture and heritage in cities; urban tourism and gentrification; and tourism development in Asia and Critical Asian Tourism Studies. He received his PhD from McGill University in 1997 and has been an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore since 2003. He is the co-author of Joo Chiat: A Living Legacy (with Lily Kong; 2001), and the co-editor of two books on Asian tourism, Interconnected Worlds: Tourism in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2001) and Asia On Tour. Exploring the Rise of Asian Tourism (Routledge, 2009).

Lilian Chee is Associate Professor of Architectural Theory and Design at the National University of Singapore, where she co-leads the Research by Design Cluster. She also serves at the NUS Museum as its Academic Director. Her work includes Architecture and Affect (2023), Art in Public Space (2022), and Remote Practices (2022); the films Objects for Thriving (2022) and the award-winning 03-FLATS (2014). She leads the Social Sciences Research Council-funded Foundations for Home-based Work (2021–24). She writes on affect, architectural representation and domesticity.

Raka Maitra is a Singaporean performing arts practitioner exploring through her work the notion of ‘Asian Culture’ through her own language of contemporary dance. Maitra was the co-artistic director of The Substation Singapore from 2020-2021. Maitra founded Chowk Productions in 2014, funded by the National Arts Council’s highly competitive Major Company Scheme. Her works have been regularly commissioned by The Esplanade, Singapore and have travelled extensively abroad, including the Melkweg in Amsterdam, Les Hivernales in Avignon, 10 days in the island at Tasmania and the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C, besides numerous platforms in South and Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE ARI ASIA TRENDS SERIES

ASIA TRENDS is the Asia Research Institute’s (ARI) signature talk series. It features insights from ARI’s research on social, cultural and political issues facing Singapore and Asia. The series aims to bring together scholars, stakeholders and members of the public to share knowledge and exchange ideas on the trends and challenges affecting society today.

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