What Does It Mean To Be Asian?
Female Singapore|November 2020
What does it mean to be asian? That question is so large, so vast, that answering it is nearly impossible. The truth is that Singaporeans today straddle multiple cultural identities: our own ethnic heritage, our place in the world as global citizens and our communal sense of a nation. So instead of trying to find an unattainable answer, we went in search of the particular. Image-making has the power of influencing how we view, imagine and define ourselves. Through their work and research, the three Singapore image-makers we spoke to here each deal with specific perspectives of asian-ness. All start unsurprisingly from some place (or something) personal then delve into bigger, more mercurial ideas: the dominance of eurocentric beauty ideals; the challenge of conceiving and creating a postcolonial identity; the fragility of heritage and history in a modern world. And in doing so, each offers a different viewpoint on what it means and looks like to be asian. Gordon NG goes in for a close-up.
Gordon NG
What Does It Mean To Be Asian?

ELIZABETH GABRIELLE LEE

“I’m interested in the notion of slow violence,” says Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee. The term, which was originally used to describe violence on the climate, has been borrowed by the 26-year-old to apply to postcolonialism and how it influences the spaces we live in. Space is an especially important part of this equation – Lee, a Singaporean, lives and works in London.

Her most recent and ongoing work, We’ve Got The Sun Under Our Skin, is a photographic series that inverts the colonial gaze. It’s based on colonial literature about Malaya from the 1800s by British ethnologists and anthropologists who were recording the region’s people, flora and fauna. “The language is alarming. Landscapes, women and people were fetishised,” Lee says of the texts she found.

She proceeded to tear pages from these source texts, scrawled out portions of it – leaving in relevant passages – then set to work lensing these subjects in her own way. “In a primal sense, it felt like I was trying to reclaim these landscapes and people,” she says.

This story is from the November 2020 edition of Female Singapore.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the November 2020 edition of Female Singapore.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM FEMALE SINGAPOREView All
Mind Your Own Business
Female Singapore

Mind Your Own Business

Yang Shuen Meets The Founders Of Art Again, An Online Platform That Puts Not Only A Chic, Consumer-to-consumer Spin On The Secondary Art Market, But Also Power Back Into The Hands Of Art Collectors.

time-read
8 mins  |
January - February 2024
NEW WORLD PLAZA
Female Singapore

NEW WORLD PLAZA

ITS SHUTTERS COME DOWN FOR GOOD ON JAN 27, BUT PEACE CENTRE HAS LIVED OUT SOME OF ITS BEST DAYS IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS AS A HAVEN FOR INDEPENDENT CREATIVES AND EVERYDAY ART-GOERS, THANKS TO THE UNCONVENTIONAL COMMUNITY PROJECT KNOWN AS PLAYPAN. IMRAN JALAL MEETS SOME OF THE FOLKS WHO HAVE FOUND A HOME, HOPE AND INSPIRATION IN A DOOMED MALL.

time-read
8 mins  |
January - February 2024
A CLASS OF THEIR OWN
Female Singapore

A CLASS OF THEIR OWN

IT SURE SEEMS LIKE AN EMPOWERING TIME TO BE STUDYING THE ARTS. THIS AUGUST, THE FIRST GOVERNMENT-BACKED PRIVATE ARTS UNIVERSITY HERE, THE UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS SINGAPORE, WILL WELCOME ITS INAUGURAL COHORT. ACCORDING TO THE STRAITS TIMES IN A SEPTEMBER 2023 REPORT, OUR COUNTRY WILL CONTINUE TO INVEST IN ARTS EDUCATION, WHILE THE NATIONAL ARTS COUNCIL’S LATEST POPULATION SURVEY ON THE ARTS SHOWED CONSISTENT GROWTH IN INTEREST IN THE SECTOR AND AT LEAST TWO-THIRDS OF SINGAPOREANS RECOGNISING THE BENEFITS OF ARTS AND CULTURE ON THE COMMUNITY. ULTIMATELY THOUGH, PURSUING THE ARTS AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE REMAINS NICHE THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE, COMMUNITY AND YOUTH’S SINGAPORE CULTURAL STATISTICS STUDY IN 2022 SHOWED YEAR-ON-YEAR DIPS IN FULL-TIME ENROLMENT IN TERTIARY ARTS COURSES BETWEEN 2016 AND 2021). HERE, SEVEN YOUTHS SHARE THEIR INTENTIONS, ASPIRATIONS AND LESSONS LEARNT IN HAVING EMBARKED ON THIS PATH LESS CHOSEN.

time-read
6 mins  |
January - February 2024
OPEN HOUSE
Female Singapore

OPEN HOUSE

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FELT LIKE THEY LACK THE SPACE AND FREEDOM TO BRING TO LIFE THEIR CREATIVE AMBITIONS, THERE NOW COULD BE A PLACE FOR YOU: LOCATED IN SCENIC JAPAN, RUN BY A SINGAPOREAN COUPLE WHO HAVE ARTISTIC SKILLS YOU COULD TAP, AND THAT COMES AT NO COST AND WITH NO EXPECTATIONS. KENG YANG SHUEN FINDS OUT MORE FROM THE FOLKS BEHIND THIS UTOPIA.

time-read
6 mins  |
January - February 2024
BTS REMIX
Female Singapore

BTS REMIX

FOR ITS LATEST ENTRY AT DESIGN MIAMI, THE HOUSE OF FENDI TEAMS UP WITH A WITTY DESIGN STUDIO OFTEN DESCRIBED AS \"ANTI-FASHION\" TO REVEAL A DIFFERENT SIDE TO IT AND LUXURY ALTOGETHER. NOELLE LOH REPORTS.

time-read
3 mins  |
January - February 2024
THE RAINBOW CONNECTION
Female Singapore

THE RAINBOW CONNECTION

INCLUSIVITY HAS BECOME AN INCREASINGLY HOT TOPIC IN THE ART WORLD, BUT FOR ACCLAIMED BROOKLYN-BASED ARTIST JEFFREY GIBSON, IT HAS DEFINED HIS WHOLE REPERTOIRE. AS A MEMBER OF THE MISSISSIPPI BAND OF CHOCTAW INDIANS AND OF CHEROKEE DESCENT, HE INTEGRATES ELEMENTS OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE (ALONGSIDE INFLUENCES FROM MUSIC, FASHION, AND CLUB AND QUEER CULTURES) INTO HIS KALEIDOSCOPIC, CRAFT-INTENSIVE POP ART-INFLECTED WORKS THAT SPAN PAINTINGS TO SCULPTURES. COUPLED WITH A PROCLIVITY FOR COLLABORATIONS (BE IT WITH CRAFTSMEN, OTHER ARTISTS OR EVEN THE PUBLIC), HE AIMS NOT JUST FOR MINORITY EMPOWERMENT, BUT ALSO FOR ART TO HELP BUILD A SENSE OF COMMUNITY FOR ALL IDENTITIES. ON JAN 4, HIS LATEST PARTNERSHIP HITS TOWN: TWO RENDITIONS OF THE LADY DIOR BAG THAT ARE PART OF THE ANNUAL DIOR LADY ART INITIATIVE BY DIOR AND CARRIED AT THE BRAND'S ION ORCHARD BOUTIQUE. HERE, HE GIVES US AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW ON HOW HIS WORK AND BAGS - BRING TOGETHER MANY.

time-read
3 mins  |
January - February 2024
Now Entering The City Of Angles
Female Singapore

Now Entering The City Of Angles

Home to Hollywood. The land of the fit and the fab. Sun‑kissed party central. No matter its facet or the era, Los Angeles invokes at once glamour, a playful charm and inspiration quite like no other city in the world.

time-read
6 mins  |
December 2023
ballroom is getting bigger
Female Singapore

ballroom is getting bigger

And if KikiHQ has its way, everyone is welcome to be a part of it. Keng Yang Shuen speaks to the barely-year-old Singapore collective that aims to spread the legacy, spirit and moves of ballroom culture where marginalised individuals find space to express their authentic identities through dance, elaborate costumes and performative battles - about how it's breaking even more boundaries.

time-read
9 mins  |
December 2023
dining here is an art form
Female Singapore

dining here is an art form

One of the most refreshing and sophisticated dining concepts to have emerged in Singapore this year is Senang Supperclub, a regionally focused dining series that involves two outliers of the F&B scene. The main architect is botanical design studio This Humid House while its first guest chef has been the baker, cookbook author and Southeast Asian food researcher Bryan Koh. Just what do these cultural mavericks think would give this glorious food city of ours even more bite? Noelle Loh gets Koh and This Humid House founder John Lim to chew on this.

time-read
8 mins  |
December 2023
a new cinema paradiso is here
Female Singapore

a new cinema paradiso is here

On November 28, one of the most unprecedented ventures in the local entertainment landscape opened in Cineleisure: Golden Village X The Projector, or GV X TP for short. Besides being mammoth in size (specifically, 41,000 sq ft covering six cinema halls and more), it's monumental in how it's a tie-up between essentially the David and Goliath of cinema. After all, compared to Golden Village - Singapore's largest cinema chain founded in the early 1990s - The Projector remains best known as the independently run, indie film-focused picture house that has captured the heart of the creative community here with not just its programming, but also its resilience and support for the arts. Keng Yang Shuen speaks with its co-founder Karen Tan and general manager Prashant Somosundram on what this new space means for The Projector, cinema-going and possibly Orchard Road.

time-read
6 mins  |
December 2023