new directions in singapore studies
Posted in 6 the arts I on Mar 19th, 2010
Wong Souk Yee
The theatre company Third Stage was formed in 1983 by a group of drama dabblers who wanted to see life in Singapore played out on the local stage in all its glory and decay. They felt that drama in English in post-colonial Singapore had arrived at its third stage of development.
They traced [...]
Posted in 6 the arts I on Mar 19th, 2010
Jason Wee
Editors: this essay was originally written for the catalogue of Raised, a mini-art carnival that was part of the Singapore Art Show 2007 [see postscript]. See the Raised blog for documentation by the project artists, Amanda Heng, Shenu Hamidun, Siti Salihah bte Mohd Omar, Sriridya Nair, Nurul Huda Farid, Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and [...]
Posted in 5 detention on Oct 21st, 2009
Michael Fernandez and Tan Jing Quee at the ‘Detention-Writing-Healing’ Forum
Transcribed by Seet Wen Hao and Ong Pei Chey, edited by Loh Kah Seng
On 26 February 2006, an idea mooted by history teacher Lim Cheng Tju to his friends in the arts scene came to fruition: to have former political detainees break the silence and speak [...]
Posted in 5 detention on Oct 21st, 2009
Teng Qian Xi
An edited version of this article first appeared in Today, 9 March 2006.
What picture does the phrase “political detainee” conjure up for you? What picture does the phrase “political detainee” conjure up for you?
Posted in 5 detention on Oct 21st, 2009
Kevin Blackburn
This article was originally published in the Oral History Association of Australia Journal, no. 29, 2007.
On a Saturday afternoon, 26 February 2006, over 200, mostly young people, crowded into the Recital Studio of Singapore’s Esplanade Arts Centre to listen to ex-political detainees from the 1960s and 1970s give their side of Singapore’s history.
Posted in 5 detention on Oct 21st, 2009
Sai Siew Min
Sometime in June this year, a friend alerted me to Alex Au’s commentary on a book launch he had attended in Malaysia. The book in question was a poetry collection, Our Thoughts Are Free
Posted in 1 inauguration on Apr 10th, 2007
Tan Jing Quee
with a poem by Usman Awang and extracts from Said Zahari’s memoirs
Photograph of Linda Chen, December 1996, courtesy of Loh Miaw Ping
Linda Chen passed away peacefully on 29th December 2002, four days after she suffered a stroke at her home at Hua Guan Avenue on Christmas Day. She was cremated at Mount Vernon [...]
Posted in 1 inauguration on Apr 10th, 2007
Tan Jing Quee
Ho Piao’s life can be neatly segmented into three phases, all interconnected and evolving. He was born in 1937, the year the Pacific War began, with the Japanese incursion into North-east China, which eventually led to the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December 1941. Britain resumed its colonial control over Malaya following Japanese [...]
