SingartHappy Art-elicious Birthday, Singapore!
Whenever the Chinese New Year and the Hungry Ghost and Moon Cake festivals come along in Singapore, the kueh vendors will set up make shift stalls in the Novena malls. Come Hari Raya celebrations, the Malay vendors take over.
In all instances, business is always pretty brisk as the Nonya, Teochew and Malay kueh are an integral part of the traditional desserts Singaporeans enthusiastically relish during these festive celebrations.
Their added celebratory function in this part of Asia becomes, therefore, an obvious vital ingredient for Singaporean artist, Angela Chong, in concocting works of art for “The Art of Celebration” exhibition at Scotts Square for Wheelock Properties and LASALLE College of the Arts’ commemoration of the country’s National Day this year.
Its natural choice, in this 6th collaboration by the 2 institutions for their “The Art of Living” series, is made even more significant when Chong points out that kueh are not only much loved by all who call Singapore home, they are also traditional sweets that are the perfectly luscious palatable equivalent to the mouth-watering cakes the west whips up for birthday bashes for both the young and old.
And lusciously they come in multiple rainbows of sprightly hues and visually interesting shapes – both key to helping her select the 14 that become artistic representatives of the truly diverse and colourful local food culture in our tropical island paradise.
The resultant atrium wide installation of digitally manipulated photographic images of her chosen local pastries is aptly then an immense kaleidoscope of equally myriad tints, patterns and figures that span 3 levels at the Scotts Road mall.
Those displayed on the ground floor are ‘kueh-leidocycles’ – sculptures of multi-faceted shape and form that endlessly change when we fold and bend them – a fluidly seamless act of metaphorically ‘play(ing) with food’ that succinctly emulates Singapore’s continuing multi-cultural culinary heritage of preserving traditional kueh recipes while reinventing them; 1 that appropriately mirrors the joy of living harmoniously in a multi-national and multi-racial society as well.
Chong, who is a part-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts too, sums up her inspirational national and culinary muses as ‘a true melting pot of flavours and food… from Chinese, Malay, Indian and Peranakan communities among others… (and in which we) see… our nation’s cultural diversity…’
In this artistic creation, she does not forget about appeasing our curiosity of which 14 local kuehs she has chosen to photograph either: her suspended sculptures over the atrium carry their names; all of which we can only see when we look down at them from the 3rd floor.
Our compulsion to take this opportunity to get to the roots of her inspiration, thus, expands the experiential and interactive nature of Chong’s work. And in so doing we get to look at her overhung artwork from below, at eye level and with a bird’s eye view; gaining a new and different experience and perspective at each level.
These differences are made more pronounced as from the ground up view the ‘floating’ works of art appear like dazzlingly vibrant fireworks of floral blossoms bursting into bloom. At eye level, they seem as carefree as traditional kites fluttering, with long joyously ribbon-ed tails, in the ever-gentle breeze. When we gaze down at them from on high, they bring to mind paper heads of opened chrysanthemums or lotuses adrift on a calm lake; each with a generous pinch of ‘candled’ colour right in its very ‘heart’.
The remembered reference to slim sheets of materials made by beating linters of wooden pulp in water is subtly deliberate: choosing to create her ‘kueh-leidocycles’ and suspended sculptures from paper stems from a keenly driven metaphorical motivation: it is light and soft – just like icing, alight with candles, on birthday cakes.
And as it is ‘baked’ to celebrate Singapore’s 49th National Day this 9th August, Chong cleverly crafts these more than 60 aerially hung sculptures in a form that represents that very same number – as part of a jubilant festivity over the city state’s ability to remain a harmonious society defined by beauty and versatility: a fitting tribute to its years of nation building since gaining independence from the British in 1965.
Join in the fun at this “The Art of Celebration” exhibition at the Level 1 Atrium, at Scotts Square, 6 Scotts Road, Singapore 228209 before it ends on 31 August this year.
And for those left panting for yet more interaction, indulge in its ‘kueh-leidocycle’ making workshops:
Date: 16 & 17 August
Time: 12 pm to 8pm
Location: Scotts Square, Level 1 Atrium
Admission: Free for all, with materials provided
Feature & right photos: Angela Chong’s “The Art of Celebration”
Photo credits: Wheelock Properties & LASALLE College of the Arts
