tropics, a many (con)sequence | an exhibition with Kent Chan by NUS Museum

TROPICS, A MANY

(CON) SEQUENCE

an exhibition with Kent Chan

exhibition period 25.10.19 30.06.20 01

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Some tropical films

By Siddharta Perez

“A nature uncultivated,/ is absent culture.”/ I say, “At least, we unfold / in vivid colour.” 01

The emergent of the tropics was brought into discourse because of European exploration3. As an imagined region, it hinged on anxieties toward “unfamiliar” worlds. The tropical zone was defined foremost as a geographic contrast; this meant that it demanded systems of settlement and development that would be dissimilar to the management of temperate regions. The tropic is mostly an invention of non-natives and such representations were defined by views from the outside. These differences are displayed even at the onset of image-making where the tropics were held as subject matter. The parallel approaches consisted of transposing European forms into foreign landscape alongside scientific renderings of indigenous flora and fauna. The tropics, for a very long time, was constructed under experiences of travel and was glossed over The first film set in what Kent Chan calls the “primaeval forest” was shot in between North Luzon showers. In one scene, the actress Hazel Orencio approaches a projection of a moving image in a dark, rainwashed evening. Clips of John Torres’s Lukas the Strange1 (2013) were seen to be playing. A portion of Kent’s film preceded this act with a portent from Lukas rolling on the screen: “Lukas, in the middle of the film, the actress will pay a visit. You’ll fall in love with her.” This work was titled Image of the Dark2 (2014), and it proposed a self-referential approach to cinema with this encounter of a film within a film. This meeting converges in a wilderness that simultaneously transformed into a site of invention and a site

with terms such as lushness, “Eden”, disease and “primitiveness.”4 Managing these zones meant studying its habitat, its language and its people. The dominion over land meant a naming of all possible components that would, in turn, become subjects to these kinds of efforts. The complexities of such desires, expressed through written documents and correspondences, were something Kent interpreted in the film To the Eastward (The Line Divides)5. However, this very work introduces a proposition that constitutes this discursive core of Kent’s series of projects that he has been since 2013. A third, inanimate major character emerges from the verdure. This painting6 also cruises down a

of screening. Chan takes the frame of cinema to task with this work and proceeds to develop a series of projects that distinguishes the tropical imaginary as shaped by other artists and filmmakers. In a way, other artists or their artworks become the figural bodies that are placed in the tropical environment.

stream. If film was the allegory of modernity

and the canopy take turns with close-up shots

in Image of the Dark, art was the object of

from inside the bumboat and or the protagonist

inquiry in To the Eastward. The apparatus

trudging through the densities of tall grass,

of modernity – Cinema and Art – is put into

and taller trees. The film covers the many

inquiry, challenging their mechanisms in

possible cinematic views of the tropic; the

perpetuating representational tropes. Locating

trite fantasies that perpetuate coloniality as

these modern structures within the discursive

the centre of gravity are being spoken back to:

bounds in the film is alway a way to hark back

“A nature uncultivated,/ is absent culture.”/ I

to complex occasions of culture that have been

say, “At least, we unfold/ in vivid colour.”

subjected to composite, homogenous visions of the tropical8. The tropics surround these mechanisms of

In passing, the interpretation of film with such a solitary main character, often veers towards the interpretation of glorifying

othering, indicating the invitation to look at

a man who sought to establish a legacy. After

tropics as a site of art rather than a subject

all, newspaper articles that lauded this

matter. In To the Eastward a painting makes a

event often rationalized its importance, not

cameo, rigorously propped amidst potentially

just through the orientalist delight that

unmanageable elements of nature. A stream

art from Malaya was uniquely possible. The

carries it by the time the narrative takes

accomplishment was also valued for what has

us to the middle. Seni (2018 – 2019), on the

been repeatedly stressed that Ho Kok Hoe

other hand, stages an entire exhibition in the

“sacrificed”9 his first trip to England to make

forest. The story that inspired this work is

the exhibition possible. The speculation of

Ho Kok Hoe’s sojourn to Europe to set up an

this journey is projected as half-lament, the

exhibition of 90-odd works. Deemed as the first

script ending with Pavi singing:

exhibition of Singapore Art Society and held at the Imperial Institute in London on July 1955,

Ho Kok Hoe looked on,

reviews from Malaya and English newspapers

these grand ambitions,

expressed that by this introduction of Malayan

proud as could be

artists to the Britain public, it fostered a

An intent,

promise of better cultural ties the UK and its

an independence,

colony.

an act of authority. A fictionalized Ho Kok Hoe is followed

Yet somehow gave power / Yet somehow gave

in Seni, his time on the sea and the tropical

credence to the very coloniality. /

forest. Panoramic, aerial views of the ocean

to the powers-that-be. a distant past in our brief history. Perhaps Ho thought it’d leave a legacy, sowing the seeds of our autonomy. Colony, cultivate, culture their shared Latin etymology Little did he know, we’d become, by now a Western facsimile.

The conundrum to reading this film,

the “white cube” or the museum (and their

while understanding the historical questions

ideologies). What happens when the exhibition

about the event, is also the key to Seni. It

is mounted within the tropical landscape? The

lies in that the cast of other characters

parallel exhibition-making occasions hinted

around Ho Kok Hoe who too minor to take up

in Seni run parallel to one another to create

the task of being the antagonist to his

a dialectical proposal to thinking about the

protagonist. However, as most things go for

tropics. More than an illustrative motif, the

Kent’s films, the relationships between the

anecdotal inspiration from the “Paintings by

fictionalised subjects are never precisely the

Singapore Artists” at the Imperial Institute of

point. The matter is this: the tropic is the

London occurs with the staging of an exhibition

film’s worldmaking. It is the protagonist to

in the forest to situate the tropic back to

which figures in history play up a theatre of

the heart of action and representation. The

claiming, exhibiting, and circulating their

antithesis to modernity is found not in the

specific imaginary. An exhibition exists

gestures of autonomy to herald a Malayan art

with modernity’s display structures, such as

vernacular. It is the tropics.

This work was produced

and Donna Ong’s

be interpreted as an

a story of an awkward

Lukas the Strange is

as part of Kent’s

collection of lithograph

image of paradise for

teenager coming to grips

residency in the

prints.

the image-makers that

with his own initiation

Philippines in 2012.

into manhood just when there is a movie shoot

were remote from it. 5

This 2014 film imagines

A concise history of

a based on writings

in his neighbourhood.

the tropics as discourse

between Raffles, his

Singapore Tiger Standard

The story opens several

is Paul S. Suther’s

superior and his various

(July 20, 1955), The

nights before, when

paper “The Tropics: A

associates with a focus

Straits Times (September

Lukas is told that he

Brief History of an

on the characters of

13, 1955). The latter

has a tikbalang (half-

Environmental Imaginary”

Raffles, Farquhar

article’s subheading was

horse, half man) for

(2014) published in

and Tungku Long. The

titled “SACRIFICE.”

a father. His father,

The Oxford Handbook of

narrative centres on

Mang Basilio, disappears

Environmental History.

the tropical forest

from his life the next day. Soon enough, Lukas’

as the motivation of 4

The proposition to

colonization.

body reddens, and he

look at translating

wonders if he really is

the tropical landscape

half-beast. The village

through occasions of

Jeremy Sharma, though it

is in a frenzy when

travel or empirical

is unnamed in the film.

the film crew arrives.

study was a frame for

Everyone tries to have

a previous NUS Museum

a part in it. The film

exhibition, Five Trees

screen culture is part

is told by Lukas’

Make a Forest (2016).

of the region’s long

friend, Lorena, who

The essay “Truths

history (such as shadow

is fascinated by this

and Tropes in Visual

puppetry, wayang kulit

strange boy who thinks

Representation of the

and open-air cinema in

he is a tikbalang. Its

Tropics” by Simone

temples and shrines).

world premiere was at

Chung is substantial

the International Film

deconstruction on

Festival Rotterdam.

Charles Dyces’ paintings

This work is painted by

As an example, animistic

8 Paintings of the tropical landscape can

Refer to dailies such as

Chapter 3: Empire 05

Scene 5 Trudging-through-the-forest – Day

Ho Kok Hoe (HKH) is now dressed in contemporary

CUTAWAYS 01

attire with a blue parka amidst the forest.

Cuts to archival images that’s mounted

Calmly, the camera follows HKH from behind

vertically along the tree trunk, camera pans

as he walks. The sound of the forest abounds.

across the images:

Directions (Peter): Less a portrayal of HKH the person, and more a character that is guiding the narrative. Wide shot of the forest belatedly, HKH walks into shot and wanders across the frame and stop. Pavi (singing): Little is known of this first trip. North to Scotland, the continent, America and back. Third world to First, Old World to New. Sketches, paintings, photos, what little records that remain.

Medium close up of HKH as he sits on a discarded sofa. He is browsing through items in his hands, but we cannot see it in the frame.

Scene 6A Trudging-through-the-forest – Day

CUTAWAYS 02

(playfully)

(Extreme) close ups of flora as well as the

Perhaps… Maybe…

jungle floor. The images are shot to look flat,

He hadn’t questioned

as if they were printed patterns.

Western hegemony. (spoken 35s) Clueless was he, our protagonist, foot upon London, that land much vaunted. Rumor has it that in tow was some 200 artworks. Yet till then did a venue elude he. Now his person in Empire, had left his confidence asunder. He couldn’t help but wonder nor try to predict if people would grasp what is it their art depict?

CUTAWAYS 03 Cuts to the forest ground, with scattered photographs of artworks by the artists from the 1955 exhibition. Light shining through the foliage creates light and shadowy patterns upon the images.

Pavi (singing): Months spent away from home, the birth of his first son he knew he’d miss. Why was it so badly he had to go? Play the role of a Western artist. A pilgrimage of sorts, was his career incomplete?

Chapter 4: The Tropics 08

Scene 6B Trudging-through-the-forest – Day

The rain has stopped. Backpack in hand, we see him move through the rainforest. Wide landscape shot of HKH alone trudging through the jungle. Pavi (narrating): Now as he crisscrossed this grey expanse of a city in the days since he arrived, tux and paintbrush at the ready the many people he had met and spoken to could barely hide their surprise. Pavi (continues): “The colonies!” “Terra Nullius, No One’s Land.” Far from the equator, Ho Kok Hoe, No one was he. “Singapore!” “The shiny pearl sitting in the Orient.” “The thriving port, exemplar of the colonies!”

(singing) Tropical paradise! Lush, opulent, splendorous green, abundant, wild teeming with life. Generous, the earth so giving, free from care, the air so thick and humid one could not think. HKH is by now perspiring. Close up of him with beads of sweat accumulating upon his face. Close up: A bead of sweat drops onto the leaf of a small plant and rustles it. We see HKH’s feet move off. Music score comes in and after a moment, the leaves of the small plant rustles again. Perhaps from wind, though the rustling of the plant picks up as if dancing to the music.

Scene 7 Object-in-the-forest – Day

Wide shot: HKH’s pace quickens as he continues trudging through the forest. In the distant background is Aaron and Sharon. They are dressed casually in colour that allows us to spot them in the distance. They are carrying a sheet of clear acrylic and comes into view ahead. They greet each other as their paths cross. Sheets of acrylic are left standing in the area.

Pavi (narrating 105s):

(singing gathers speed 15s)

Amidst these trappings,

“Can we not think of art,

Aaron would find he.

and the tropic?

A fellow artist of

Its warmth, it’s humid,

a shrinking empire.

it’s un-museologic.

Though as Ho would find out

Much life, much death

long in London he had been.

that is its basis.

For traces of provenance

Unlike a museum,

offered little evidence

time is not a stasis!”

of any supposed origin. On the side of the frame in the foreground is Ho enjoyed the company,

a peculiar object (artwork) nestled on top of a

for he recovered his swagger.

thick bush. HKH is somewhat surprised to find

“Did you not think to stay longer?”

the object. He walks towards it and dwells over

Aaron would ask he.

it before moving on.

Surprised, Ho would offer, “Here in London,

Cuts to Pavi: He is now standing up, eyes

my appearance are

determined (30).

of a place imagined. What foundations would

Pavi (continues):

that possibly be?”

Alas, the West speaketh of Kant,

To which Aaron utters,

Enlightenment,

“Well, I’d hope these

this all in one breath. / in the same

imagined faces here

breath.

could mean a

Their humanity

plural community.”

our humidity. I say no point is the sun

Pavi (provocatively 15s):

closer than the equator.

“Now, what does this mean,

Now we understand that,

for art of the tropics

but do we stand

(their image formal

understood?

though somewhat bucolic)?

From here in the equator,

Amidst this cool British air,

we sent our artist-curator

surely they weren’t

You say,

merely anthropologic.”

“A nature uncultivated, is absent culture.” I say, “At least, we unfold in vivid colour”

Talking The Tropics: A Conversation With Kent Chan By Jamie Lee

JAMIE: I first encountered Seni in June 2018,

And I feel that all of my forest series has

in a programme by the Asian Film Archive titled

always been towards showcasing a series of

Screening the Forest. At that point in time,

works within a narrative.

you described the film as a work-in-progress and now, it’s become an exhibition here at the

The basis of these films are as exhibitions

Museum. Since then, you could say that it’s been

- they are a different way of making an

transformed from a purely cinematic experience

exhibition. In 2014, I made a film called Image

to one that incorporates and curates different

of the Dark, and it featured an onscreen – and

forms of art to create something new.

real-life – exhibition, in the form of a film screening in the forest; these are all attempts

Could you describe this process of

at claiming the tropical rainforest as a site

transformation? What is the difference between

of art, and hence a reclamation of the tropical

creating a film as a part of a whole, versus

imaginary as a historical, colonial construct.

formulating it as a stand-alone work, and how did the different elements of the exhibition

The medium of film is useful here in that if

come together?

you can’t imagine artworks in the tropical rainforest, then I’m here to offer those images

KENT: The starting point of my films are

to you.

exhibitions, not simply in the sense that they’re meant to be in an exhibition, but

JAMIE: With the opening of tropics, a many

literally - this film is based on a real-life

(con)sequence, it’s safe to assume that Seni

exhibition. The whole way the film is structured

has ceased to be a work-in-progress. On a

is intended to lead up to an exhibition within

personal level, what would you constitute as

its diegesis.

indicators of a finality with your work – what would you consider an end-product for a film

I always half-jokingly say that I curate within

that is being screened in a film programme

fiction. Throughout the film, Seni moves towards

as compared to a film that is part of an

simultaneously presenting an exhibition in the

exhibition installation?

moving image medium, as well as in the physical tropical forest. And while the exhibition is

KENT: Deadlines matter the most, on a very

staged, it nonetheless did physically occur as

practical level. If you have to show something,

well.

you have to show something.

In the case of Seni, I suppose you could say

Otherwise, I think it comes down to a matter

that this staged exhibition scenario is further

of satisfaction or exhaustion. No one really

conflated with the historical overlap of the Ho

ever makes the work they set out to make at the

Kok Hoe’s staging of an exhibition in London.

start - the work has a say in its own shaping.

What I could do is try to get as close as

concern (knowingly or not) was always driven

possible to what I have in mind, but alas, the

by this idea that the tropical rainforest

work has its own persuasions. I think the same

could as well be a site of art, and not just

logic applies whether the work is meant for

its subject. I often speak of the tropical-

screening or exhibition format. You stop when

imaginary and there is a very historical and

you’re sufficiently satisfied and/or exhausted.

aesthetic need to expand on what that imaginary

That, or you simply run out of time.

comes to be.

JAMIE: Seni falls under this larger body of

Maybe it’s a kind of historical, conceptual

work that you’ve been developing over the

and intellectual reclamation of the tropical

years, where each individual project looks at a

rainforest, but in less pompous terms, I suppose

different facet of the tropics every time.

you could just say that it was me trying to put images of artworks in the tropical rainforest

You say you now know why the tropical

out there into the world.

rainforest is important to you - can you elaborate? Do you find that your works have

JAMIE: If filmmaking and your body of films

found their niche within the larger canon of

has allowed you to comprehend and rationalise

films where the tropics is the background or

the tropics, how do you then foresee yourself

the subject matter?

exploring other emergent or upcoming issues regarding it, especially in relation to its

KENT: It’s the setting of the tropical

politics of display?

rainforest underpinning these works that is the most important to me.

KENT: Actually, I’ve been thinking that I’m done with looking at the tropical rainforest

I’ve always thought of the white cube as the

for now. That said, I had the same thoughts a

aesthetic endpoint of modernity of sorts. And

few years back prior to starting on Seni.

the tropical rainforest conversely then would be its conceptual and aesthetic obverse. For

So, I’m not sure if, when, or where to take such

all the white cube’s geometric, rational and

a step next. Much of how I’ve looked at the

white colourless-ness, the tropical rainforest

tropics was through the lens of historicity.

is wild, abundant, vibrant...

However, the tropics with its evocation of heat does take on a rather different light in this

As the old adage that colonialism being the

moment of the climate emergency, so perhaps

midwife of modernity would suggest, the

it’s time instead to look at what the tropics

white cube is very much a form of aesthetic

might come to be in the near future.

offshoot to the tropical rainforest. For all the historical and racial myths and evocations

JAMIE: We’ve discussed quite a bit about

surrounding the tropical rainforest (of its

how you’ve created images of the tropical

untamed, unintelligible, uncivilized natives),

rainforest in your past and present work, and

the white cube as a site for art was the result

it might be interesting to shift the focus from

of a long historical demarcation against the

the visual to the auditory. I wanted to take

former.

the opportunity to ask about music and sound.

And here’s where Seni and the rest of the films

Ambient noise features heavily in most of your

come in. I think at the heart of it all, the

‘forest series’ – that is, general forest

sounds like rustling leaves, cicadas and birds

JAMIE: Is there anything that you’d like

chirping. This imbues your films with a rather

to include that you feel would enhance an

meditative, atmospheric quality. However, this

audience’s experience?

time around, in Seni, you’ve utilised an actual film score, as well as Pavi’s singing, of course.

KENT: I think what would be interesting would

How do you relate these different forms of

be your opinion - what do you think about

sounds conceptually?

working on the exhibition? The starting point of Seni always goes back to working on an

KENT: I think I’ve used music for only one other

exhibition. That’s literally what he did. So,

film - To the Eastwards.

what has your experience been, working on this exhibition? What do you think?

JAMIE: And for Seni, you had George Chua work on the score. George is someone who’s been around

JAMIE: As someone who wasn’t calling the shots,

since the nineties and is pretty well known

I would say I felt doubtful about the boundaries

locally for experimental and electronic music.

I was allowed to cross, or the decisions I was allowed to make, you know what I mean? Mostly

KENT: For this one - yeah, I mean, I’ve always

this experience of working on this exhibition

wanted to work with George. He works in a very

has been one of self-doubt. You feel like don’t

particular way - he doesn’t score in advance, he

know what you’re doing sometimes.

watches the film with me and scores on the spot. A lot of what we score is based on five minutes

KENT: That’s kind of like what I felt was

of conversation.

happening to Ho Kok Hoe, to some extent. I don’t exactly think he knew what he was doing,

Generally, I’m not a big fan of music in films,

either.

even. I feel like there’s a lot that it can give that I don’t appreciate. I don’t generally

JAMIE: Are you referring to the character

like it but I can appreciate the fact that it

in your film (played by Peter Sau) or the

does something. I don’t like how music is used

actual, historical figure? How did you go about

to heighten drama. A lot of my works are not

adapting a historical figure for your film?

dramatic too. I don’t make that kind of film. I think when it’s atmospheric, I can live with

KENT: The historical figure. While I think

that. So many of my films are so wordy already -

Ho Kok Hoe had a plan – that is, to put up an

how much more can we stomach?

exhibition of Singaporean art in London, he didn’t necessarily know what he was doing.

I very often fear that my films start becoming

Maybe he did, but it didn’t seem like he had

like a karaoke. I mean, this one already seems

everything – the venue, dates, or even specific

like karaoke, at some point.

artworks – confirmed before he went there. I believe he was advised to approach the Imperial

JAMIE: And what about Pavi’s singing? How does

Institute when he got there and that certainly

that figure into the way that you conceive of

seemed like the most fitting place for such an

music in film?

exhibition at that time. It’s a site of imperial politics and Ho Kok Hoe was an incredibly well-

KENT: Narration works differently - it’s

connected individual politically. The finer

informational, which is different from how most

details probably involved simply going with the

music is used. That’s the crux of it.

flow of things.

And on that note of adaptation, I think neither

experience, you get a feel of how to do things

myself nor Peter was particularly sure how

better, but no one’s ever completely sure.

to approach the character of Ho Kok Hoe in the film. The fault lies with me, of course,

Just a month before the opening of the

and Peter would probably tell you that I

exhibition, I was still talking to Sidd for

wasn’t always very convinced myself with the

an hour and a half trying to decide whether

directions I was giving him.

to print the vinyl wall sticker or not. I was like, “Can I really convince myself to do

Take Act 1 (the boat), for example, which was

this?”

filmed much earlier than the other parts of the film - you see Peter dressing up in period

There’s a reason why this whole thing took two

clothing, suitcase in hand as if embarking on

years. People make much longer films in two

a journey. I think I literally wanted Peter to

years.

play out Ho Kok Hoe’s trip to London and to put up a whole exhibition with the tropical

JAMIE: I mean, people take longer than two

rainforest acting as ‘London’. I wanted to

years to make films, too.

have history played out. Altogether, that’s an incredibly awkward scenario to begin with,

KENT: That’s true. But ultimately, I feel like

especially if you took it too literally, which

‘not knowing enough’ doesn’t mean that you

it really did!

can’t have an opinion.

So I conceived of Act 2 (the rainforest) and

JAMIE: To conclude our conversation - were

3 (the exhibition) instead, and we decided to

there any other films in particular which you

drop the period clothing. I dropped the whole

saw as an inspiration, or a base for your own

narration from Act 2 and I told Peter that

works to react to?

basically he’s playing me, playing out Ho Kok Hoe. Which then meant having him play Ho Kok

KENT: Oh this one’s easy, [Werner Herzog’s]

Hoe as someone neither of us really knew.

Fitzcarraldo and most of Apichatpong [Weerasethakul]’s films.

JAMIE: It seems like much of the film was improvised, and maybe born out of selfdoubt too, which indeed parallels Ho Kok Hoe’s character in real life and on screen. This experience of improvisation - or, to put it more bluntly, ‘winging it’ and just going with the flow is quite a universal one. While working on this exhibition, I sometimes felt like I never knew enough. In those circumstances, ‘winging it’ becomes a sort of

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

method to madness.

Jamie Lee is an Honours-year Southeast Asian Studies student at the National University

KENT: Oh, I feel that way too. But very often,

of Singapore who has worked closely with NUS

I have to try to convince myself. Which to a

Museum, Asian Film Archive and the National

certain extent, is also me trying to wing it.

Archives of Singapore. Her passions include

I don’t think I have everything thought. With

film photography and Asian cinema.

SENI FILM CREDITS: Film by Kent Chan

CAST Peter Sau Pavithiren Prestian Anna Lovecchio

AUDIENCES IN FOREST Ana Sophie Salazar Jeremy Sharma Lai Yu Tong Tricia Lim Joel Chin Megan Lam Desiree Tham Nina Djekic

CINEMATOGRAPHY BY Russell Morton

DRAMATURGY BY Lim How Ngean

ART DIRECTION BY Kray Chen

COSTUME BY Chua Gui Ying

MUSIC BY George Chua

AUDIO POST PRODUCTION BY Teo Weiyong

EDITED BY Kent Chan Nina Djekic

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Lim Hak Tai

Renee Staal

Vicki Yang

Malay Wedding

Lynda Tay

Tan Bao Ying

Collection of

,CESWGNKPG *QȅPI 0IW[ΰP

(National Gallery

Carlos Casas

Singapore)

Gerard Ortin

GAFFER

David Ortiz Juan

Theron Seow Chen Chong Swee

Robert Zhao

CAMERA ASSISTANT

Kampong

Lu Xiao Hui

Valerie Sing

Collection of

Michelle Ho

(National Gallery

Annabelle Aw Hutchinson

Singapore)

Silke Schmickl

GRIP

Caterina Riva

Khairel Asyiq Bin Khairudin

Chen Chong Swee

Viknesh Kobinathan

Johnny Micay

Weaving

Dinu Bodiciu

Collection of

Chris Yeo

DRONE OPERATOR

(National Gallery

National University of

Ng Wugang

Singapore)

Singapore Museum National Gallery

Nina Djekic Cheong Soo Pieng

Singapore

Tend Cows

National Museum of

SOUND RECORDIST

Collection of

Singapore

Nur Bibiyana Binte

(National Gallery

NTU Centre for

Hussain

Singapore)

Contemporary Arts

SET AND WARDROBE

SKETCHES BY

SUPPORTED BY

Desiree Tham

Ho Kok Hoe

Mike Chang

Megan Lam Joel Chin

National Arts Council of Singapore

PAINTING BY Ho Kok Hoe

COSTUME DESIGNER

Collection of

Chua Gui ying

(National Museum of Singapore)

ARTWORKS BY Mike HJ Chang

Archival images Collection of

IMAGES

(National Gallery

Lim Hak Tai

Singapore)

Tanjong Rhu Collection of

SPECIAL THANKS TO

(National Gallery

Seng Yu Jin

Singapore)

Raphael Fonseca Ho Kah Keh

ISBN 978-981-14-4027-4 18