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Art Scene Review: Singapore

Nizhen Hsieh

For Singapore, being a tiny red dot of an island at the equator with no natural resources and a small population, economy and money tends to trump the desire for a cultural identity. After all, our National icon, the Merlion (a hybridized creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish) was invented by the Singapore Tourism Board in 1966 with its only significance embodied as a statue projectile-vomiting water into the Singapore River. But it’s understandable considering there’s nothing indigenous of the country that is left. The fishing village that it once was became a strategic trading post along the spice route founded by the British East India Company in 1819. Since then, like America, we have grown into a land of immigrants – Chinese, Malay and Indians who have brought with them a potpourri of ethnicities, traditions and values. more...