Kyoto comes to the Flower Dome

From 22 Mar to 21 Apr 2024, the Flower Field in Gardens by the Bay’s Flower Dome, brings Kyoto to Singapore — with yet another dimension is added to what has become an annual Sakura floral display that is now in its ninth year. For the first time, the display features a day-to-night experience, as visitors can immerse in the Japanese traditions of hanami or cherry-blossom viewing, as well as a nighttime experience known as yozakura or night cherry blossoms. The display features the blooms of some 140 trees of over 40 varieties, including plum blossoms from Europe.

Kyoto’s famous Kinkakuji is being recreated, giving visitors a chance to also have the yozokura night cherry blossom viewing experience for the first time in Singapore.

This year’s theme revolves around the experience in Kyoto, and specifically the Golden Temple or Kinkakuji. The UNESCO World Heritage temple has been recreated for the display along with recreations of traditional Miyama Village style thatched houses, elements of Japanese gardens such as engawa, a veranda found in traditional homes, a sozu — a bamboo water fountain, the chozuya — a large basin with wooden dippers used to purify oneself at sacred spaces and the ema — small wooden plaques hung at shrines to offer one’s prayers.

At last evening’s launch.

Details:
Sakura, Blossom into the Night
22 March to 21 April 2024
9 am to 9 pm
Flower Dome
Gardens by the Bay
Admission charges to Flower Dome apply.

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Programmes and Promotions for Sakura, Blossom into the Night

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TOURING SPRINGTIME JAPAN
Flower Field Hall
Admission to Flower Dome applies on opening day on Saturday, 23 March 2024.
Admission is free on Sunday, 24 March 2024.

The rich tapestry of Japanese culture and cuisine is showcased at Touring Springtime Japan, where a line-up of activities relate to some of the best that Japan’s six key regions have to offer! Learn about each of the prefectures and the culture and food of these regions, as well as sample delicious snacks from Japan. Don’t miss the chance to experience the age-old tradition of mochi pounding, where a wooden mallet is used to vigorously pound flour into a sticky, delicious mochi cake.On Saturday, March 23, ticket holders to Flower Dome will be the first to experience these exciting cultural experiences. Programmes will then be open to all members of the public for free on Sunday, March 24.

23 March and 24 March 2024, 12.00pm to 7.00pm

Visit www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/touringspringtimejapan for details.

Cultural experiences / programmes include:
HIBIKIYA

Watch Japanese drum group Hibikiya play the recognisable beat of the taiko and other traditional Japanese instruments as well as perform traditional dances.

23 March 2024, 1.30 pm to 2 pm and 3.30 pm to 4 pm

YOSAKOI

Yosakoi is a unique Japanese style of dance and vibrant melange of tradition and modernity. Using a unique instrument known as the Naruko, clapping sounds are made to the beat when dancing.

23 March 2024, 5 pm to 5.30 pm

JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY

This traditional Japanese cultural activity, also known as Chanoyu or Chado, involves the ceremonial preparation and serving of matcha and a Japanese sweet.

23 March and Sunday, 24 March 2024, 10.30 am to 11 am, 11.15 am to 11.45 am, 1 pm to 1.30 pm, 1.45 pm to 2.15 pm

30 March, 31 March, 6 April and 7 April 2024, 11 am to 11.45 am, 12 pm to 12.45 pm, 1 pm to 1.45 pm, 2 pm to 2.45 pm

MOCHITSUKI DEMONSTRATION AND EXPERIENCE
Witness expert mochi makers demonstrate the age-old tradition of transforming rice into delightful mochi. Don’t miss the opportunity to take a turn at wielding the wooden mallet and pounding your own mochi.

23 March 2024, 1 pm to 1.45 pm, 5.45 pm to 6.30 pm
24 March 2024, 2 pm to 2.45 pm, 5.45 pm to 6.30 pm

Free public programmes:

KOTO
Flower Field Hall

Marvel at the lush sounds of Japanese koto by Koto Group of The Japanese Association, Singapore.
24 March 2024, 1 pm to 1.15 pm

JAPANESE FOLK DANCE
Flower Field Hall

Dance along with Minyo Club of The Japanese Association, Singapore as they showcase folk dances handed down from all over Japan.

24 March 2024, 1.30 pm to 1.45 pm

AIKIDO DEMONSTRATION
Flower Field Hall

Aikido, also known as “The Art of Peace”, is a Japanese martial art that embraces harmony. Instead of clashing head-on, practitioners learn to redirect and blend with an opponent’s energy, using throws and joint locks for self-defence without inflicting harm.
24 March 2024, 1.45 pm to 2 pm and 3 pm to 3.15 pm

SUZUME ODORI
Flower Field Hall

Often the highlight of the Sendai Aoba Festival, the popular Suzume Odori – which means “Sparrow Dance” in English – thrills audiences with its unique, birdlike movements and brightly-coloured fans and costumes. The performances are brought to visitors by the Japanese members of Sendai Suzume Odori Singapore.

24 March 2024 Time: 3.30 pm to 3.45 pm, 5.30 pm to 5.45 pm

JCC CINEMA: JOSEE, THE TIGER AND THE FISH
Flower Field Hall

In this heartwarming anime, Tsuneo is a university student and Josee is a young girl who has rarely gone out of the house by herself due to her being unable to walk. The two meet when Tsuneo finds Josee’s grandmother taking her out for an evening walk.

24 March 2024, 3.45 pm to 5.30 pm

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ANIME GARDEN

Make a return after four years on 30 and 31 March.

Includes appearances by regional cosplay artists and the popular Cosplay Singles Competition. There is also an exciting concert line-up of Japanese artists, including legendary anisong singer Hiroshi Kitadani, a marketplace offering merchandise and works by regional artists and creators, as well as a selection of Japanese food and drinks.

Details of Events for Anime GardenCOSPLAY SINGLES COMPETITION
Supertree Grove
Free

Cosplayers show off their costuming, armour-making, wig design, make-up, and even acting skills in a fun and friendly competition. The top three winners will receive attractive cash prizes.
Sunday, 31 March 2024, 6.15 pm to 7 pm

CELEBRITY COSPLAYER MEET & GREET
Flower Dome & Supertree Grove
There is no admission charge at Supertree Grove but a ticket is required to enter Flower Dome.
Limited to 100 pax at Flower Dome.
Queue starts 30 minutes before the session.

Take photos with Thames Malerose, Mikki, Baobao, and Xiaoyukiko at Flower Dome and join them for an autograph & Hi-Touch session at Supertree Grove! Bring your official merchandise to participate!

Saturday, 30 March and Sunday, 31 March 2024, Various timings

JAPANESE MUSIC CONCERT
Supertree Grove
Free

Japan Music Night
Featuring Hiro (MY FIRST STORY), TeddyLoid and WISE! (Teriyaki Boyz). This debut performance in Singapore also marks Hiro, TeddyLoid and WISE!’s first time performing together.

Features Japanese acts Hiro from MY FIRST STORY, TeddyLoid, and WISE! If you love anisong, check out these special live performances by Hiroshi Kitadani and NANO! Theme: Japan Music Night Performers: Hiro (MY FIRST STORY), TeddyLoid and WISE! (Teriyaki Boyz). It will see Hiro, TeddyLoid and WISE!’s first time performing together for the first time.

30 March , 8 pm to 9 pm

I Love Anisong
NANO, a Japanese bilingual singer with roots in New York, first captured global attention in 2010 by posting English covers of Japanese songs on YouTube, garnering widespread acclaim. After debuting in 2013, NANO marked a milestone with their inaugural live concert “Remember your colour.” at Shinkiba Studio Coast, where all 2,500 tickets sold out within just a day.

Hiroshi Kitadani, a legendary figure in anime music, is celebrated for lending his vocal talents to the iconic anime series One Piece, where he performed the first, fifteenth, nineteenth (in collaboration with Kishidan), twenty-second, and twenty-sixth opening themes.

31 March 2024, 9 pm to 10 pm

STAGE PERFORMERS
Supertree Grove
Free
Enjoy performances by incredible homegrown talents plus international performers direct from Japan!

30 March 2024, 4 pm onwards
Features: Sparkle Guitar Ensemble, Mike Miller, Allen 徐广利, Narutee, Ryoko, Kirameki FUTURE, DEARKISS, Golden Mix

31 March 2024, 4pm onwards
Features: Tokimeki JUMP, AIJOU, Rae Atrista, alt.titude, Dear Kiss

ANIME MARKETPLACE
Supertree Grove
There is no admission charge to Anime Marketplace but charges apply at the booths.

Relax and have fun at the Anime Marketplace! Treat yourself to yummy Japanese street eats and snag exclusive anime merchandise at the retail booths.

30 March and Sunday, 31 March 2024, 3.30 pm to 10 pm

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ANA X GARDENS BY THE BAY SAKURA GIVEAWAY

Win a pair of economy class tickets to ANYWHERE in Japan! Wander beneath a canopy of delicate cherry blossoms and immerse yourself in the ethereal beauty of Sakura season at Flower Dome.
Just scan the contest QR code at the Sakura floral display to answer a simple question and stand a chance to win!

This contest is brought to you by All Nippon Airways (ANA).

Terms and conditions:

Contest period: 22 March to 21 April 2024
The lucky draw is open to Singapore residents, 18 years old and above.
Only one entry per registered ANA member is allowed. Repeated entries will not be
considered.

For more information, visit www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/sakura.

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More photographs

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The case of the missing beach

Street names in Singapore often hold clues to the past. Names such as “Telok Ayer Street” and “Beach Road” for example, provide an indication of where the city’s original shoreline might have been. And just as there was originally a “telok” or bay along which Telok Ayer Street ran, there was also a beach by Beach Road.

Among the questions that come to mind are: what did the beach look like, and how far did the beach stretch? Well, we do know for a start that the beach was pleasant enough for Raffles to have the stretch along the beach reserved for the dwellings of the new settlement’s elite residents as part of the European section of town (see: Middle Road and the (un)European Town). Known as the “street of twenty houses” in the vernacular, a row of twenty large compound houses did actually take up the prime stretch of Beach Road fronting the beach.

Where the beach along Beach Road would have been — from a 1839 Map of the Town and Environs of Singapore.

To address the first question as to what did the beach look like, we do fortunately have more than just textual descriptions of it. A visual representation of the beach can be found in a sketch from 1847 that was made by Government Surveyor John Turnbull Thomson. Titled “View from Campong Glam”, the sketch shows a sandy beach with identifiable buildings such as The Arts House (ex-Parliament House and then Public Offices / Courthouse) and the former Raffles Institution.

J T Thomson’s 1847 sketch depicting the beach along Beach Road.

As for the extent of the beach, archeological evidence does show that the beach extended from the Singapore River (as is also seen in J T Thomson’s 1847 sketch) to Kampong Gelam. Excavations carried out in 2003 by Professor John Miksic and his team in the National University of Singapore have in fact revealed the existence of a layer of pure white sand under the Padang close to St Andrews Road dating back to the 14th century — the period when Sri Tri Buana or Sang Nila Utama established a port city in Singapore. Further excavations have confirmed that this white sandy beach stretched at least to the area fronting Istana Kampong Glam (Malay Heritage Centre). What is particularly interesting is that the white sandy beach, based on Prof. Miksic’s reckoning, may be the beach that drew Sri Tri Buana to the island, which is described in the Malay Annals as one with “sand so white that it looked like a sheet of cloth”!

Beach Road, late 1800s (G R Lambert)

Among the houses for the European elite fronting the beach was house number one at which Raffles Hotel would be established in 1887. By this time, most of the compound houses along the beach had disappeared and those that remained, had taken on a shabby appearance with the well-to-do having made the move to the more comfortable interior of the island. The area had in fact already morphed into Sio Po, the Chinese lesser town with the Hainanese community having established a temple dedicated to the protector of the seas, Mazu, at Malabar Street in 1857.

No 1 Beach Road at which Raffles Hotel was established in 1887.

It was soon after the establishment of the hotel, that it began to lose sight of the beach across Beach Road with reclamation works for what would later be known as the “Raffles Reclamation” beginning off the Esplanade — amid a blaze of rumours that sacrificial human heads were needed for work to proceed smoothly (yes, such rumours existed even then!). This would lead to an expanded Padang of the size we know today and the addition of land on the Beach Road side. By the early 1900s, the reclamation ground — which was used to dump mud dredged from the Singapore River — had become substantial enough to permit the ground to be used for polo and other sports. The old volunteer drill hall was also moved to it in early 1908 from its original site at Fort Fullerton.

The newer Drill Hall at Beach Road, which replaced the older drill hall that was moved over in 1908 from Fort Fullerton.

The reclamation site would also be where Singapore’s first permanent cinema halls were erected. Cinema first came to Singapore in 1897, just two years after the Lumière brothers exhibited the Cinématographe in Paris. Exhibitions were held either in halls and tents before the first permanent structures appeared on the Raffles Reclamation site in the 1900s.

Permanent cinematograph halls were among the first structures erected on the reclamation at Beach Road.

Further reclamation would take place through the 1930s, by which time structures such as Beach Road Camp and a newer Beach Road Police Station started to populate the reclamation site. The coastline would be altered further with the construction of Nicoll Highway in the mid-1950s and the development of what would eventually become Marina Bay, bringing us to where we are today.

1936 view of the reclamation.

Post-World War Two extent of the Raffles Reclamation.

Beach Road Police Barracks (built 1934) – demolished for Guocoland’s Midtown development.

Let there be light! i Light Singapore 2023

i Light Singapore, Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival, makes a return this June. Fourteen installations feature at this year’s festival, the theme of which, A New Wave, along with the festival colour choice of blue, places a focus on the relationship that we have with blue spaces. The use of energy-saving lighting and/or environmentally friendly material have been been central to festival installations. This year is no different, in the hope that festival goers and the general public adopt sustainable lifestyles and make eco-conscious choices of their own.

Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and presented by DBS, i Light 2023 also features a line-up of programmes during the three and a half week festival. The festival runs from 1 to 25 Jun 2023, with installations turned on from 7.30pm to 11.00pm daily and is extended to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. More information on the festival can be found at https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/.

Installations:

• Glacier Dreams
• Tree Man
• Blumiwave
• Moooooootion
• Symphony 1
• Block Party
• the things left unsaid
• Light Anemones
• Resonances
• Trumpet Flowers
• Aquatics
• Bleached
• Show III
• Prism

Festival Map

Programmes during i Light Singapore 2023:

• GastroBeats
• Lightwave: Turning the Tide
• Light Forum
• Light Wash
• Guided Walking Tour
• Rediscover Marina Bay Walking Tour

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Highlights of i Light Singapore 2023

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A quick overview

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cs4wax9ueiw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

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The fun stuff

Interactive installations that will bring the child out in anyone:

Trumpet Flowers
Amigo & Amigo (Australia) 
Clifford Square 

Step into a giant musical garden and be surrounded by an immersive jungle of light, colour and sound. At Trumpet Flowers, visitors get the opportunity to create a unique floral symphony using interactive keys that control the towering musical and light instruments. 

Inspired by gramophones, these super-sized flowers burst to life occasionally with a specially commissioned musical score by Otis Studio, accompanied by some of Sydney’s finest jazz musicians.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/trumpetflowers/

Résonances
Louis-Philippe Rondeau in collaboration with ELEKTRA (Canada)
Open Plaza, OUE Bayfront

Résonances is an interactive installation that embodies the inexorable passage of time. It seeks to reveal the limit between present and past.

As an arch of light appears in darkness, a temporal portal emerges. When visitors cross this threshold, their image will be projected onto the adjacent wall and seem deployed in time through the slit-scan technique. In this visual metaphor, the past constantly takes over the present, and visitors will see their own image fade inexorably into the oblivion of white light. The artwork emphasises that all light is the manifestation of events that have already occurred; the twinkle we see in the night sky is but a bygone snapshot of the stars.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/resonances/

Block Party
Jeremy Lin, Jedy Chen, Dexter Hong 
Plug & Play (Singapore) 
Entrance of Marina Bay Link Mall

The dynamic relationship between humans and the environment is explored in Block Party, where visitors can participate in collaborative placemaking through the playful medium of dance. 

Familiar public housing blocks in Singapore come to life as they react to movement prompts from visitors, taking on personalities of their own. As one bends and twists with the buildings, gardens bloom spontaneously over their facades. 

This interactive feature is a reminder of the power we wield to shape our surroundings and make a difference to the world. Through light-hearted interactions, participants are called upon to take responsibility for the environment and a sustainable future.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/blockparty/

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Visual Treats / Large Installations

Glacier Dreams
Refik Anadol
Refik Anadol Studio (USA) and Julius Baer
Façade of ArtScience Museum

Inspired by both the beauty and fragility of glaciers, Glacier Dreams is the result of a groundbreaking, long-term research project involving machine learning, environmental studies and multi-sensory media art.

Visual materials collated from publicly available data and institutional archives, together with glacier images personally collected by Refik Anadol in Iceland, are processed through machine learning algorithms and transformed into Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based multi-sensory narratives.

The artist, together with his Los Angeles-based team, hopes to raise awareness of climate change and rising sea levels through poetic glacier-themed experiences, and also contribute to the study of glaciers with their existing AI tools.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/glacier-dreams/

Aquatics
Philipp Artus (Germany)
Under Esplanade Bridge (near Merlion Park)

Aquatics is an interactive animation depicting sea creatures swimming around and interacting with one another. It explores the emergence of life through abstract shapes and movement. 

Using a tablet, visitors can design their own creatures and add them to the underwater world.  

By witnessing the beauty of animal locomotion in its natural habitat, participants are reminded of the urgent need to preserve biodiversity and ecosystems.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/aquatics/

Blumiwave
DP Design (Singapore)
Mist Walk

Blue energy is harnessed from the chemical potential of a salinity difference between the sea and river waters. Blumiwave is an interpretation of this renewable energy source.

Seen from afar, sculptural waves appear to crash at varying heights and directions. Upon closer inspection, these are in fact made of a carefully weaved fabric of safety nets and scaffolding — everyday objects that the interior designers at DP Design encounter at construction sites. Here, the team transforms materials normally perceived as unsightly into a space that invites multiple interpretations of the mundane and its possibilities.

All plastics used to assemble Blumiwave will be recycled by local social enterprise Magorium after the festival. Supported by DBS Foundation, Magorium converts plastic waste into a sustainable construction material called ‘NEWBitumen’ that can replace crude-derived bitumen to pave roads sustainably.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/blumiwave/

Symphony 1
Chan Wan Kyn, Linknito, Linez
The Grand Lowlife Orchestra (Singapore | USA | Morocco)
Mist Walk

Symphony 1 is a light-based architectural entity that inhabits space. Like a living being, its ethereal and translucent organic form populates any location.

Masses of twisting vine-like structures emit an icy glow to fill the space before sprouting into sprigs of crystalline flowers. The sprawl of its existence is a comment on nature and our relationship with it, contradicting yet also enhancing the brutal denseness of urban spaces it finds itself in.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/symphony-1/

Tree Man
ENESS (Australia)
Location: Event Square

Encircling a sapling in his arms, Tree Man provides sanctuary for a young tree while carving out an inner sanctum for visitors. The act of nurturing and connecting with our environment is emphasised in these whimsical light sculptures.

Emitting light with heads that are shaped like digital screens, the artwork invites reflection on humans’ insatiable preoccupation with devices, which could be detrimental to our circadian rhythms. As one enters the arms of Tree Man, light switches across a spectrum of colours, and sparse melodies on top of a forest-inspired soundtrack are triggered, leaving one to wonder if we can ever find a balance between the digital and natural world.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/tree-man/

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Other installations along the Media Preview route

Light Anemones
Malte Kebbel
Studio Kebbel (Germany)
The apex at The Promontory at Marina Bay

Light Anemones is a versatile light sculpture that evolves with time and space. It seeks to portray the captivating world beyond the water surface, where the mysteries of the deep sea and the wonders of underwater creatures come to life.

During the day, the sculpture’s surroundings and sunlight are reflected on the curved titanium-stainless steel mirrors. In the night, linear beams appear due to the play of light along the sculpture’s concave and convex structure with a rotating centre. As light from the three sculptures interact with one another and merge with mirrored silhouettes of neighbouring buildings, people and landscape, a complex symphony of light, sound and imagery is composed — as though from a different time continuum.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/light-anemones/

the things left unsaid
Brigette Teo
Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media (Singapore)
Breeze Shelter

the things left unsaid is a manifestation of the artist’s unspoken thoughts and feelings about growing up in a time of seemingly never-ending doom. Repeatedly confronted by news of a gloomy future and an impending climate catastrophe, the artwork acts as a refuge from despair.  

Comprising weaved sheets made of upcycled plastic bags draped across the space, the artwork exudes a sense of both comfort and unease, much like the mysterious phenomenon of bioluminescent algal bloom that inspired it. Above all, it is a quiet reminder of the hope and possibilities that still exist.

More: https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/installations/the-things-left-unsaid/

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Also being held in conjunction with i Light Singapore 2023:

Lightwave: Turning the Tide
(Ticketed)

The Promontory at Marina Bay

Timing
Weekdays: Sunday to Thursday – 7.30pm to 11pm (last experience at 10.40pm)
Weekends: Friday and Saturday – 7.30pm to 12am (last experience at 11.40pm)

Ticketing
Admission tickets are priced at SGD5 each and can be purchased from Klook.

Lightwave: Turning the Tide imagines a future where human exploits have damaged the world around us irrevocably.

Be transported to an underwater world, visitors are left to ponder: How have we come to this?

Through three unfolding chapters of thought-provoking multi-sensorial light experiences, explore how our way of life has impacted nature, and be inspired to make a change and turn the tide.

More on Lightwave: Turning the Tide

i Light i Pledge

Presented by Alibaba Cloud

As part of the festival, an effort is being made to get us to pledge our commitment to eco-conscious practices through small but impactful changes in our lifestyle.

Two separate pledges can be made:

The Switch Off, Turn Up (SOTU) pledge is one that calls for us to switch off non-essential lightings and
turn up air-conditioning temperatures during and beyond the festival period. SOTU has been a key component of i Light Singapore’s sustainability drive since the festival’s inception in 2010. The initiative has seen building owners, corporations and businesses around and beyond Marina Bay to reduce their energy consumption in lighting and air-conditioning, and this effort continues. Participation in the programme will also be extended to the public and schools for the first time this year.

The Be a Zero Hero pledge is to encourage us to adopt zero waste habits. This includes reducing
the use of single-use items and food waste. For each pledge submitted up to the first 5,000 pledges, All Clear – a sustainability enterprise providing offshore and ocean clean-ups – will remove 100g of waste from Singapore waterways. Up to 500 kg of waste will be removed as an outcome this effort. Pledges can be made online.

A visual, unique to each pledge submitted online, will be generated using Alibaba Cloud’s AI technologies and this can be viewed on i Light i Pledge’s website and as part of the last chapter at Lightwave: Turning the Tide. This initiative aims to demonstrate how a small step taken by an individual can contribute to a larger sustainability objective.

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A park with a view: Rifle Range Nature Park

The 66 ha Rifle Range Nature Park, which opened on Saturday, adds to Singapore’s growing list of wonderful publicly accessible parks that, placed on fringes of Singapore’s nature reserves, act as buffers to protect the forest reserves. These nature parks offer a chance for all of us in Singapore to do some forest bathing and take in some of Singapore’s natural beauty without adding to the pressures on our fragile forests.

The former Sin Seng Quarry turned freshwater wetland.

Singapore’s latest nature park takes its name from Rifle Range Road, which served as the access road to Bukit Timah Rifle Range. The range was built in 1924 by the Public Works Department, primarily to serve the Singapore’s volunteer forces. By 1930, the road was named after the rifle range, which later became the home of the Singapore Gun Club.

The former quarry and the viewing deck 31 metres above the freshwater wetland.

Rifle Range Nature Park, which is home to a wealth of biodiversity with more than 400 species of flora and 300 species of fauna (including the critically endangered Sunda Pangolin and Leopard Cat), features 7 km of boardwalks and hiking trails — the longest amongst all the nature parks. Some of its highlights is the former Sin Seng Quarry turned freshwater wetland, and, best of all, a wonderful viewing deck (Colugo Deck) that provides a breathtaking view of the wetland and beyond from 31 metres above!

For more information on the nature park and what it offers, do visit: https://www.nparks.gov.sg/gardens-parks-and-nature/parks-and-nature-reserves/rifle-range-nature-park.

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Rifle Range Nature Park offers 7km of boardwalks and hiking trails

The visitor pavilion, which takes inspiration from the baffles of a rifle range.

The roof deck of the Visitor Pavilion.

The rain garden.

On the Gliders Boardwalk.

A Malay Viscount.

A shelter — made of mass engineered timber.

Cleverly designed lightning conductors line the boardwalks, featuring the fauna of the park.

A Malayan Colugo, seen in the vicinity in October 2018. The species, which is known for its distinctive skin membrane — which inspired the design of the Colugo Deck, has a near-threatened conservation status.

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For the kids – the Forest Exploration Trail

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Colugo Trail, which leads up to the Colugo Deck

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Views from Colugo Deck

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More photographs from opening day, 12 Nov 2022

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Who’s the Murderer?

A social activity that has become quite a huge craze amongst the youth in China is jubensha (剧本杀). Interest in the game, which started off as a type of board game, or one played using a mobile app, seemed to have been sparked by a popular murder-solving celebrity reality TV series in China that is known in English as “Who’s the Murderer”. 明星大侦探 in Chinese, which translates directly into “Star Detective”, the series made its debut in 2016. The TV show was in turn, inspired by the Japanese manga series Case Closed or Detective Conan.

A game room.

How the game is played has since evolved into one that could see players dressing up to take on a role for the game. Some of the more elaborately executed games now also involved very fancily set up rooms. As an industry, jubensha has grown in leaps and bounds since its popularity started rising in 2017, with value of the industry in China thought to be worth in excess of US$2 billion in 2021.

Detective Conan in Chinatown, a mural by Yip Yew Chong. The Japanese manga character may have provided the spark for much more than this mural!

Jubensha‘s — the literal translation of which is “scripted murder”, is often referred to as a “murder mystery game”, and sometimes, “live-action role-play”. It is difficult to find a direct comparison of what the game is about and may be thought of as a take on the board game Cluedo or Clue, in that the game’s goal is to establish the character in the game responsible for committing a murderous act. Jubensha in China finds a following with a youthful crowd of students and young professionals. It seems to also be making inroads into Singapore. Some twenty jubensha outlets have been set up here in the matter of just two years since 2020. While jubensha here may initially have attracted students and young working adults arriving from China, there has also been a fair bit of interest from Malaysians working or studying in Singapore.

A jubensha script can involve some props.

With Singaporeans, the attraction seemed to have been a lot less at the start, which could be put down to a lack of mastery among Singaporeans of the Mandarin language. This is essential to in playing the various roles demanded by the games’ scripts in Chinese. To overcome this barrier, several outlets are looking to innovate by introducing scripts translated into English. This would certainly enable jubensha’s reach to be extended in Singapore. Well-written scripts form the basis of playing the game, with each character in the game having a different script. For the game, each player takes up a role with the number of players determined by the number of characters in the game. A dungeon or game master, who is a member of staff of the outlet involved, leads the game, which can last several hours. Besides players dressing up for the role, some outlets have specially decorated rooms to play the game in and props that can increase the immersive experience. One newly opened outlet even goes as far as having dedicated rooms to play each of its two script-based games with very real looking life-sized props and rooms that are appropriately decorated.

Inside a very elaborately decorated jubensha outlet.

To find out more about jubensha, what it is about and how it is played, the video clip below is of a visit to a jubensha outlet TopWE. Unfortunately, it was not possible to show parts of an actual game in progress due to the pandemic restrictions in force during the visit. Located at 195 Pearls Hill Terrace, TopWE is run by a group of jubensha enthusiasts, which includes a Singaporean, Sim Jun An, who takes us through the outlet and provides an explanation of how the game is played.

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Singapore Garden Festival 2018

The Singapore Garden Festival, always a stunningly visual spectacle, is back from 21 July to 3 August 2018. This year’s festival, the seventh to be held, includes exhibits from some 40 local and international garden and floral designers as well as a display of orchids in the Flower Dome – the Orchid Extravaganza – displayed in a Peranakan flavoured setting created under the direction of filmmaker Royston Tan. The Orchid Extravaganza, which runs until 22 August, features a huge display of 14,000 orchids of 120 varieties.

African Thunder – Fantasy Gardens Best of Show by Leon Kluge.

Highlights of the festival include 13 Fantasy and Landscape Show Gardens, 13 Floral Windows to the World, 1 non-competitive Floral Windows to the World Installation featuring a kaleidoscopic display of blooms created by Natasha Lisitsa and Daniel Schultz, 8 Balcony Gardens, a Learning Garden and an ASEAN Garden.

1 of 8 Balcony Gardens.

More information:

• www.singaporegardenfestival.com,
• www.facebook.com/SGGardenFest, and
• www.instagram.com/SGGardenFest.

Information on ticketing:

• https://www.singaporegardenfestival.com/Plan-your-visit/Ticketing.

A Landscape Show Garden.

Another Landscape Show Garden.

A Floral Windows to the World display.

Another Floral Windows to the World display.

Another Floral Windows to the World display.

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Orchids Galore at the Peranakan Themed Orchid Extravaganza

(and SOGA Orchid Show 21 – 29 Jul)

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The Sembawang sport and community hub

Standing at the top of the southeastern-most hill in the former Naval Base for much of its 78 years in existence, Old Admiralty House is set to part with the quiet isolation that it was intended to have when it was built to house the Commander of the British Admiralty’s then newly completed Naval Base. An integrated sport and community hub, “Bukit Canberra”, will soon come up around it, bringing the hill it is perched on more in sync with the Singapore that we have come to know.

Old Admiralty House and the quiet isolation that was very much a part of why it was there, with modern Singapore knocking on its door.

Unveiling “Bukit Canberra”.

The hub will include amenities that are much desired by the sports and healthcare facilities deprived residents of the area. These include a hawker centre, indoor and outdoor sport facilities, a polyclinic, a senior care centre, green spaces for community farming and lifestyle related amenities – all “within a lush and naturalistic environment”. The first phase of the hub is due to be opened in the first half of 2020. Subsequent phases will involve the integration of Old Admiralty House – a National Monument – after its current occupant, Furen International School, vacates it in 2020.

A model of Bukit Canberra.

Old Admiralty House from the ground.

The “lush and naturalistic” environment the hub will feature is being built around the retention of a large proportion of the hills existing trees, with some 1600 additional trees added. One that has already been added – during a family carnival held to mark the launch of construction on Sunday – is a Sembawang tree (also Semawang tree) from which the area got its name. A “Fruit Orchard and Food Forest” will also feature in which a variety of fruit trees and food plants some grown in the early days of Singapore will be planted. Here a community garden will allow planting to be carried out by members of the community.

Sembawang GRC’s MPs at the groundbreaking.

Planting the Sembawang tree.

Heritage (or history as the case may be) will apparently not be forgotten with heritage story boards telling of Sembawang’s history as a former naval base. Along with Admiralty House, other features of historic interest that would be retained include a gate put up during Admiralty House’s days as ANZUK House (1971 to 1975) and a bomb shelter built before the war. A swimming pool thought to have been built by Japanese POWs after the war will however be going based on model on display at the family carnival.

The front of the former Admiralty House.

More on the former Admiralty House:

• An ‘English country manor’ in Singapore’s north once visited by the Queen
• The last forested hill in Sembawang
• Admiralty House’s first residents (one a renowned soprano)

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About Bukit Canberra (from Press Release)

Bukit Canberra is an integrated sports and community hub to be opened in phases from first half of 2020, it will provide the community with lifestyle related amenities, such as a hawker centre, indoor and outdoor sports facilities, a polyclinic, senior care centre, and green spaces for community activities.

‘Bukit Canberra’ is a name that the residents can easily relate to given the history of the area. Many of the streets in Sembawang have links to Commonwealth countries due to the naval communities residing in the area. For instance, Canberra Road was named in 1937 by Rear-Admiral R.H.O Lane-Poole, a Commander of the Royal Australian squadron, H.M.A.S. Canberra, that was visiting Singapore. The Former Admiralty House, built in 1940 was also known as Canberra House (not so sure about this) when it was first completed, after the adjacent Canberra Road. The hub is scheduled to open in phases from 2020.

Site size: 11.86 ha

Key Facilities/ Features:

Sports

• A six-lane sheltered swimming pool, an eight-lane lap pool, a wading pool and a fun pool for children
• Indoor sport hall with 500-seat gallery for sports like basketball and badminton
• Inclusive gym, an outdoor forest gym and fitness studios
• Running trails
• Active Health Lab & Active Health Nutrition Studio

Greenery & Heritage

• Community Gardening
• Fruit Orchard
• Food Forest
• Heritage story boards

Healthcare

• Polyclinic
• Senior Care Centre

Food

• Hawker Centre

 

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Landscape design (from Press Release)

The landscape design for Bukit Canberra will leverage on and enhance the existing greenery, topography and heritage of the site to create unique experiences for visitors. Taking into consideration the existing site conditions and character, the landscape design for the site is divided into three zones: Forest, Agrarian and Hilltop. The landscaping will help to strengthen ecological links for biodiversity, allow users to enjoy the hub’s features in a natural setting and connect the community with flora and fauna.

Overview of landscape design for Bukit Canberra (Courtesy of SportSG).

Forest Zone

In the Forest Zone, the focus is on restoring habitats for fauna and enriching biodiversity. Existing healthy mature trees and vegetation will be retained and more native forest species will be added progressively to recreate the natural rainforest structure. Bukit Canberra is at the intersection of existing NParks Nature Ways and the species planted within the Forest Zone will include those found along the Nature Ways to help increase ecological connectivity.

Agrarian Zone

The existing vegetation in this zone is less dense and several community spaces are planned for within this zone, including the Food Forest, Fruit Orchard and community gardens. The landscaping surrounding these features will be themed similarly.

Hilltop Zone

The key feature at the Hilltop is the Former Admiralty House. The landscaping will frame the frontage of the building and provide an open and unobstructed view of the surroundings. The area around the house will be an open space suitable for a wide range of recreational activities, from events to picnics and gatherings.

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Reflections at dawn

Reflections at dawn, Kallang River, 6.54 am, 16 June 2017.

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Kallang River, 6.54 am, 16 June 2017.

Singapore in untypical light

What defines Singapore isn’t just its well photographed icons of the modern age, food, its colourful festivals and its now ubiquitous blocks of public housing flats. Lots go on without ever being noticed, including what these twelve untypical views of some of what makes Singapore, Singapore, depict:

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The darkness at sunrise

An incoming storm.

Rainstorms are very much a part of life in Singapore. They can be a nuisance, but are also welcomed for the cooler temperatures they bring. One storm system that is particularly dramatic, arrives with suddenness in the early mornings around dawn, bringing with it a fury of lightning, thunder and heavy rain. The squalls, which blow in from March to November, are known as the Sumatras – after the Indonesian landform they blow in from.

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The (once) shimmering shores

Sembawang Beach, one of the last natural beaches, illuminated by the lights of a celebration brought in by one of Singapore’s immigrant communities.

The Malay Annals, the chronicles of the kings of old Singapura, makes one of the earliest recorded mention of Singapore’s shores. In one of it more well-known stories, a glance at the shimmering white sands of then Temasek was all it took to have Sri Tri Buana or Sang Nila Utama sail over from Batam. Confronted by the sight of a magnificent looking beast that the royal party believed to be a lion, Sri Tri Buana decided to remain on the island and establish a kingdom that he named Singapura after the beast. Except for a vicious attack of sawfish – told in another of the annals’ intriguing tales, the shores provided calm. The British East India Company would see great value in the shores some 6 centuries after Sang Nila Utama and came to lay what would be the foundations for modern Singapore.

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Crossing at speed

Crossing MRT lines, as seen from a moving train.

Modern Singapore makes a huge investment in public transport infrastructure, a key component of which is the MRT. Construction of the first lines, which was initially resisted, began in the 1980s. Three decades on, Singapore is still in a frenzy of building a criss-cross of lines with a view to reduce the dependence on road transport in the longer term. In will also only be a matter of time before the MRT crossing into neighbouring Malaysia. Plans are in place to have the MRT run under the Tebrau Strait and into Johor Bahru.

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The lights do not go out on the shipyards

Working lights at Sembawang Shipyard at dawn.

Once thought of as a sunset industry, the shipbuilding and repair business continues to serve Singapore well. With a long tradition in the industry, it would only be after independence that the business came to the fore. The two shipyard giants, Keppel and Sembawang, have their roots in the post-independence era, built on facilities inherited from civilian and military facilities established by the British. Both were an important source of jobs in early years and together with other shipyards, have established a reputation for efficient turnaround repair times. One contributing factor is the effort put in by some of the hardest workers across the industries that keep the shipyards running 24-7 whenever that is needed.

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Upwardly mobile

Inner workings of a multi-level ramp-up logistic centre revealed by its illuminations.

The entrepôt trade, and what supports it, is one of the things Singapore has been built on. The arrival of the age of containerisation in the early 1970s, transformed the trade and also the ports and goods handling facilities. Like in public housing and in the light industrial landscape, goods handling has also now gone high-rise. Multi-level ramp-up logistics centres have become a feature of the industrial and suburban landscape over the last two decades with much more being built. The transport and storage trade, associated with these facilities, accounts for a significant 8% of the GDP.

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Offshore oil

The petrochemical complex on Pulau Bukom and Pulau Ular / Pulau Bukom Kechil, seen from an offshore patch reef. Pulau Bukom is the site of Singapore’s first oil refinery.

For the oil industry in Singapore, going “offshore” takes on another meaning. Singapore’s beginnings as a main refining centre was in 1961 when Shell opened the first refinery offshore on the island of Pulau Bukom. Singapore has since also ventured into petrochemical processing. Although there are some onshore facilities still running, much goes on offshore with a man-made island made from a cluster of islands off Jurong, Jurong Island, being a main centre. Petrochemical processing facilities have also sprouted up on an expanded Pulau Bukom and on the neighbouring island of Pulau Bukom Kechil (which now has Pulau Ular and Pualu Busing appended to it).

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The light brought by a moving dock

Inside the belly of a Landing Ship Tank.

One way in which Singapore plays its part as a member of the international community is in providing humanitarian assistance in the event of crisis and disaster in the region. With 4 locally designed and built Landing Ship Tanks capable of moving men, machine and cargo over large distances, the Republic of Singapore Navy is well equipped to provide support for such a response when needed – as was seen in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in Aceh.

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Corridors of sin and also of salvation

A corridors of sin and salvation. The lights are of a Buddhist Religious Centre.

Geylang may be a neighbourhood that has built a reputation for its association with several of the 7 deadly sins, gluttony and lust included. What is perhaps surprising about the neighbourhood is that it is also where the largest concentration of religious institutions in Singapore can found  (see also:Streets of Sin and Salvation).

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Islands of many tales and legends

Kusu Island at twilight.

The southern islands of Singapore, once inhabited by members of the Orang Laut community, have long been the subject of myths and legends. Handed down over the generations, the stories – of spirits and genies suggest how the islands were formed and how the islands acquired their names. Sadly, with the communities now dispersed, much is being forgotten. One that will not be forgotten as quickly is that of Kusu or tortoise island, which legend says a tortoise in rescuing two shipwrecked sailors, turned into the island. The island actually resembled a tortise at high-tide before land reclamation altered its shape. Chinese and Malay shrines maintained on the island, continue to attract Chinese devotees,  especially during the annual pilgrimage that takes place over the ninth Chinese month,

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Regeneration

The deconstruction of the 1973 built National Stadium in 2010, where two perhaps three generations of Singaporeans connected to during the days of Singapore’s participation in the Malaysia Cup football competition.

Regeneration of old places, neighbourhood and places Singaporean have grown to love, is very much a feature of life in Singapore. Many, especially from the older generations have had to cope with the loss of familiar places and the loss of that sense of home such places bring (see Parting Glances: Rochor Centre in its last days, Parting glances: Blocks 74 to 80 Commonwealth Drive and A world uncoloured).

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Light of a not so foreign land

Good Friday at the Church of St. Joseph – where the religious traditions of Portugal are most visible in Singapore.

With a large majority of the population made up of the descendants of the ethnic Chinese immigrants and also an influx of new immigrants from the mainland, and large minorities of Malays and those from the Sub-Continent, Singapore’s many smaller minorities tend to be overlooked. Over the years, Singapore has seen the likes of Armenians, Arabs, Jews, Japanese and as well as those from the extended Nusantara flavour the island. There is also a group that has in fact long had links with the area, the Portuguese or Portuguese Eurasians who feature quite prominently. Many have maintained the traditions of their forefathers and it is on Good Friday every year when some of this is seen in the Good Friday candlelight procession in the compound of the Portuguese Church.

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Where the light does not shine

Where the light doesn’t shine. Workers on yet another skyscraper construction project waiting for transport to their dormitories, many of which are located in faraway and remote locations, late in the night.

Work goes on on many construction sites, which employ labourers from various countries including China, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, without whom the skyscrapers of modern Singapore would not have been built. These workers, not unlike the shipyard workers, work extremely long hours and are housed in dormitories located in some of the remotest of locations in Singapore.

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The road to perdition

The relentless pace of development is fast catching up with the few bits of mainland Singapore that has been spared from the clutter found across too much of Singapore such as at so-called Canberra (displaced from Canberra Road from where its name would have been derived) at Sembawang. What was a wonderfully green open space just a few years back, is well on its way becoming more like the rest of Singapore: cluttered, overly built and concretised, and with all of its naturally occurring greenery replaced with orderly rows of trees planted in its sea of concrete. It is inevitable I suppose. The intent, as the rather unpopular 2013 Land Use Plan would suggest, is to fit a magical number of 6.9 million people into an already overcrowded Singapore – a future, given the strains the current population level is already putting on our mental well-being, that many like me, would not wish to contemplate.

The road to perdition.

“Canberra” in 2012.

Another view of “Canberra” in 2012.

Nights out during the ghost month

If you are not being kept indoors by what traditionally is a time of the year during which one hesitates to venture out into the dark, you should take a pause this and next weekend from trying to catch’em all to catch this year’s edition of the Singapore Night Festival. This year’s festival, revolves around the spirit of innovation with its theme of Inventions and Innovation and will be an enlightening experience with light installations and performances inspired by fantasy, and science fiction as it is be invention.

As with recent editions of the much anticipated festival, this year’s, the ninth, is laid out across five zones, each packed with installations and performances that will certainly light up one’s weekend. Besdies those I  had a chance to have a peek at listed below, there are several rather interesting installations, performances and goings-on during the nights of the festival. Installations and performances to look out for include: Invasion by Close-Act (Netherlands), A Kaleidoscope of Spring by NAFA (Singapore), The Story Box by A Dandypunk (US), Les AquamenS by Machtiern Company (France), Into Pulsar by Ryf Zaini (Singapore), and The Peranakan Museum Variety Show by Main Wayang (Singapore).

Members of Main Wayang.

Once again, a party atmosphere will descend on Armenian Street, the difference being that the roar of Harleys will be heard with Rrready to Rrrumble! by Harley Davidson Singapore, Mod Squad and Speedzone (Singapore) – recalling perhaps the roar of the hell riders who once tore down nearby Orchard Road and Penang Road.

There are also no shortage of opportunities to indulge in food and even shopping with Eat @ Festival Village and Shop @ Festival Village. The offerings by Steamhaus (Halal) and The Ugly Duckling, which I had a chance to savour, are particularly yummy. For those who like it sweet, sinful and frozen, do look out for Husk Frozen Coconut.

For the brave, there also is a Night Heritage Tour by National Parks Board. Registration is required for this. As of the time of writing, tours for the first weekend are booked up and only slots for 26 August are available. Along with these, there are also items being put up by the partners of the Bars Basah Bugis precinct such as PoMo, Prinsep Street and Rendezvouse Hotel, including a free Movie Nights at Rendezvous Hotel. There will also be a chance to go behind the scenes with some of the artists and participate in workshops  in Behind the Night.

The festival runs over two weekends on 19 and 20 August and on 26 and 27 August 2016. More information on the festival and programmes on offer can be found at at festival’s website.

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JOURNEY, Feat soundtrack by Ed Carter  | NOVAK (United Kingdom)

Front Lawn, Singapore Art Museum
19, 20, 26, 27 August 2016, 7.30pm – 2am | 21 – 25 August 2016, 7.30pm – 11pm

Journey by NOVAK, which is inspired by the world of Jules Verne.

A dynamic projection-mapping performance inspired by the world of Victorian novelist Jules Verne, known for his creation of a world reflecting the future of Victorian invention and fantasy. NOVAK reinterprets seven of his novels to create a unique adventure dynamically projection-mapped to fit the façade of SAM, including an exploration of Singapore’s art and culture. Highlighting the use of invention to enable adventure, the viewer will be taken on a magical adventure through a series of scenes, each depicting a different landscape, relating to the environments that feature so vividly in Verne’s classic novels.

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The Wheel House | Acrojou (United Kingdom)

Mainground (near National Museum of Singapore)
19 and 20 August 2016 | 8pm – 8.25pm, 9.25pm – 9.50pm, 10.50pm – 11.15pm

A “tender, post-apocalyptic love story”, The Wheel House is a unique, rolling acrobatic theatre show, which unfolds inside and around a stunning circular home as it travels with the audience walking alongside. The enchanting story is set in a gently comic dystopian future at a time where survival depends on sharp eyes, quick hands and, above all, friendship. Join these traveller-gatherers on the road to nowhere: treading lightly, enduring quietly and always moving onwards.

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KEYFRAMES | Groupe LAPS (France)

National Museum of Singapore Façade
19, 20, 26, 27 August 2016, 7.30pm – 2am | 21 – 25 August 2016, 7.30pm – 11pm

Through micro-stories weaved upon the stately National Museum of Singapore facade, KEYFRAMES offers narration in the city – urban stories where bodies and their movements play main roles. Part animation and part moving sculpture, the LED figures and their routine imbue static buildings with energy and excitement. This new installation – part of the KEYFRAMES series – brings glimmers of the past to life.

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HOUSE OF CURIOSITIES | Sweet Tooth by CAKE (Singapore)

(Ticketed Performance)

Cathay Green (field opposite The Cathay)
19, 20, 26, 27 August 2016 | 6pm – 8pm, 8.30pm – 10.30pm, 11pm – 1am

Tickets are available for purchase from 27 July onwards via SISTIC or at the door (while stocks last)
Adults: $16 (inclusive of $1 SISTIC fee) | Concession: $13 (inclusive of $1 SISTIC fee) Students (full time, with valid student pass issued by enrolled institution), senior citizen (60yrs and above, with valid identity pass showing proof of age), NSF (with valid 11B pass)

The House of Curiosities is an event featuring performance, activities and more. Based on the storyline of The Mechanical Heart, it is a story of adventure, curious man-made machines and the wonderful capacity of the human mind and spirit to discover and invent. Professor Chambers is a celebrated explorer and inventor. With his son Christopher, he builds a time machine that takes them on an expedition to find crystal caves in the subterranean depths. On the journey back, a monstrous octopus attacks them, injures Christopher and escapes. The devious octopus is a man-made contraption, but who is behind it? Find out in this exhilarating performance.

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:Samara | Max Pagel & Jonathan Hwang

Armenian Church
19, 20, 26 and 27 August 2016, 7.30pm – 2am | 21 – 25 August 2016, 7.30pm – 11pm

:Samara reflects on the duality of progress and sacrifice. What are we willing to give up in order to advance? Sometimes we regret accepting the cost of progress and try to recreate past experiences that have been lost forever. Inspired by the loss of the artist’s favourite tree, :Samara is an interactive illuminated tree sculpture created to give closure to a lost space. :Samara invites us to reflect on the authenticity of using modern technology to recreate what we lose in our fast-changing environment. At the same time, it gives us the opportunity to acknowledge and let go of these losses.

The tree, lost to development at Paya Lebar Central, that inspired :Samara. 

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Shifting Interactions | LASALLE College of the Arts

Glass Atrium, Level 2, National Museum of Singapore
7.30pm – 2am (dance performance at 8pm – 11pm) 21 – 25 August 2016 | 7.30pm – 10pm

Tying together electronic media, sculpture and dance, LASALLE College of the Arts presents Shifting Interactions, a performance installation. Dancers will traverse a dynamic performance space dotted with a series of static and animated objects. Conceptualised as a durational and improvised performance piece, participants will shape, change and vitalise the space over time through sound, light and movement.

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Singapore Night Festival 2016 ‘Tap to Donate’ | Xylvie Huang (Singapore)

Platform, Level 2, National Museum of Singapore
19, 20, 26, 27 August 2016 | 7pm – 12.30am 21 – 25 August 2016 | 7pm to 10pm

The Singapore Night Festival is turning ten next year and we would like you to join us in “building” the 10th Singapore Night Festival!

Come by the National Museum at level 2 from 19 to 27 August 2016, make a donation of $2 by tapping your ez-link card and you will be given a LEGO brick to add on to a wall installation of LEGO Bricks by Singapore artist Xylvie Huang. All donations go towards “building” the Singapore Night Festival 2017.

Help build our Singapore Night Festival LEGO Wall Installation (located on Level 2 of the National Museum of Singapore) with four easy steps:

1. Tap your ez-link Card

2. Collect your LEGO brick

3. Build on the wall installation of LEGO Bricks

4. Collect your Candylious candy and watch the wall being built

The first 250 festivalgoers who ‘tap to donate’, gets a generic designed ez-link card (of no loaded value)!

This programme is supported by Ms Xylvie Huang Xinying, Brick Artist, EZ-Link, Wirecard and Candylicious.

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The Singapore Garden Festival 2016

The sixth edition of the Singapore Garden Festival is back! Running from from 23 – 31 July 2016 at the Gardens by the Bay, this year’s event covering an area of some 9.7 hectares, is the largest ever. The highlight of the festival is probably at The Meadow. Here visitors will be treated to eye-catching creations by some of the world’s gardening greats including the nine Landscape Show Gardens, six Fantasy Show Gardens, fourteen Floral Windows to the World and five Balcony Gardens – all of which are crowd favourites.

My favourite landscape show garden – The Treasure Box by Inch Lim of Malaysia.

Modern Day Maui – a Fantasy Show Garden by Adam Shuter of New Zealand.

Another favourite will have to be the burst of colours in the Flower Dome provided by the Orchid Extravaganza. On display are a rich heritage of orchids that will provide an appreciation of what the world’s most diverse botanical family has to offer.

An award winning Rawdon Jester ‘Great Bee’ at the Orchid Extravaganza at the Flower Dome.

More unusual orchids.

A host of other displays and activities are also lined up for the festival including a Learning Garden, a Landscape Design Challenge featuring teams of students, the World Of Terrariums which sees more than 100 creative displays of terrariums put up by students, hobbyists and community gardeners. There is also a Vibrant Marketplace in the non-ticketed area to look out for. This sees over 100 booths offering both sustenance and items such as plants, gardening and landscape products and services, and arts and crafts.

A pineapple plant, one of the many useful plants – kitchen-wise at the Learning Garden.

The festival also features a photo and an Instagram contest.  The “Tropical Floral Wonderland” Photography Contest offers prizes such as a Nikon D750 kit set, Nikon D7200 (18 – 105mm) kit set and Nikon D5500 (18 – 55mm) kit set. To enter, photos should be submitted by email to sggardenfest@gmail.com by 1 August 2016. For mobile phone photographers, uploading a photo to Instagram with the hashtag #sggardenfest (post has to be set as public) or via the contest page on the SGF Facebook page during the Festival period, will qualify entrants for a chance to win Nikon COOLPIX S7000 cameras.

The festival runs until Sunday. More information, including ticketing can be found at the Singapore Garden Festival website.

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More photographs from the festival:

More Fantasy Gardens – Mystical Depths by Hugo Bugg of the UK.

A Garden in a Flower, a Fantasy Garden by Michael Petrie of the US.

Dare to Dream, a Fantasy Garden by John Tan and Raymond Toh of Singapore.

Another crowd favourite – Nature’s Resolution, a Fantasy Garden by Stefano Passerotti of Italy.

Power of the Earth, a Fantasy Garden by Katsuhiko Koga and Kazuhiro Kagae of Japan.

Another view of Modern Day Maui.

The Sugarcane Maze – a Landscape Garden by Kong Jian Yu of China.

Another view of the Sugarcane Maze – a Landscape Garden by Kong Jian Yu of China.

Back to Nature – a Landscape garden by a South African / New Zealand team.

Benny’s Sunflower Farm.

Gary’s Musical Flower Field.

Another view of Gary’s Musical Flower Field.

Winter Wonderland.

A Balcony Garden.

Galaxy Floristic – Floral Windows into the World.

Another Floral Windows into the World display.

A Celebration Floral Table.

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More photographs from the Orchid Extravaganza:

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A new day over a new world

A new day over a world made new, Kallang Basin, seen on 14 March 2016 at 7.06 am. The Sports Hub, with the distinct profiles of the new National Stadium and the Indoor Stadium can be seen against the backdrop of the lightening sky.

The basin in my younger days, where several of Singapore’s larger rivers spilled into the sea, was a hub of much activity with industries and several boat building and repair yards up the rivers. With also the mooring of wooden boats in the basin itself, the view one got of the basin was one dominated by the hulls and masts of the boats floating on its then malodorous waters.

Today, we are offered a much altered view of the basin. A ten year clean-up effort, which was initiated in 1977, has seen that the waters that now spill into it, smell much less. The boats of yesterday’s basin no longer colour its now clean waters. Reclamation of land and the closure of its only opening to the sea by the Marina Barrage, have cut it off from the sea.

As part of the city centre Marina Reservoir and the Kallang Riverside development, the basin has become a hub for a different activity. The boats that we see are one no longer intended for trade but are those used for sports and leisure.

 

A peek at i Light Marina Bay 2016

The sea of light that descends once every two years on Marina Bay, i Light Marina Bay, is back for a fourth time.

The 2016 edition of i Light Marina Bay, following which the festival will make its return on an annual basis, runs from 4 to 27 March. With 14 out of its 25 installations created locally along the lines of the festival theme ‘In Praise of Shadows’, this edition sees the largest turn out of local artists to date.

As with previous years, the festival invites visitors to take a walk of discovery around the futuristic Marina Bay area around which the installations are scattered. There will also be much to do beyond admiring the artwork with lots of fringe events and activities on offer, including the opportunity to indulge in one of Singapore’s favourite pastimes, eating.

Fringe events to look out for include a craft beer festival, CRAFT Singapore and the Singapore International Jazz Festival – both of which run from 4 to 6 March, PasarBella Goes to Town from 11 March to 3 April, flea markets, activities for kids including a kids fiesta and fairground rides with Uncle Ringo. Workshops and community activities will also be held during the period. More information on all of this can be found on the festival guide which can be downloaded at http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/-/media/Files/i-Light/Festival-Guide.ashx and also at http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Festival. More information on the festival and installations can also be found at the i Light Marina Bay event website.

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Some i Light Highlights

What a Loving, and Beautiful World by team-Lab (Japan)

‘What a Loving, and Beautiful World’ – a projection on the ArtScience Museum, which invites viewers to ‘swipe’ Chinese characters onto the museum’s facade using their mobile devices through a web application found at http://www.ilight.team-lab.com.

About the installation:

First carved in tortoiseshell, ox and deer bone, and bronzeware, Chinese characters were said to each contain their own world. Projected on the facade of the ArtScience Museum, viewers can participate by ‘swiping’ the Chinese characters onto the facade of the building using a web application. The result is a colourful, multi-sensory experience that continuously evolves as images are released from these Chinese characters, while influencing and changing each other within its own immersive, computer-generated world.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/What-a-Loving-Beautiful-World

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Lampshade by Snøhetta (Norway)

About the installation:

Lampshade is made of simple bamboo structures covered in photovoltaic cells to prevent sunlight from entering its interior in the day, while lighting up intensively at night with solar energy enough to power a thousand lamps. The installation challenges the perception of artificial light as an element that is dependent on its energy source, and invites visitors to discover links in harnessing sunlight and the eventual electric light.

Made to be both socially and environmentally friendly, the lamps used in this installation will be donated to off-grid communities after its display while the bamboo structure and its light fixtures will be recycled as construction scaffolding.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Lampshade

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Moon Haze by Feng Jiacheng & Huang Yuanbei (China)

About the installation:

Beyond its delightful representation of the full moon, Moon Haze also functions as a monitoring system for air pollutants, picking up and responding to the ambient air quality – the better the air quality, the brighter the installation. In the same space occupied by the moon, people and the environment, the collective effects of these individual parts on one another are integrated and expressed, showing their close relationship and inseparability.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Moon-Haze

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Shadow Bath by Loop.pH (United Kingdom)

About the installation:

Shadow Bath is a luminous inflated bathhouse with coloured light and air casting spectacular patterns inside and out, bathing visitors in dynamic patterned shades. The pneumatic form is a mathematical toroidal space, signifying the geometry of the universe.

During certain periods, visitors will be able to enter the bathhouse for a unique light show. During normal times, visitors can observe the form from the outside as it casts its patterned moiré shadows far and wide like a huge lantern.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Shadow-Bath

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Cycle House by Hafiz Osman (Singapore)

About the installation:

Cycle House is a mobile workstation combining temporary shelter and cycling. The mobility of this shelter represents a sense of nomadic livelihood of a wanderer, being adaptive to new environments and with a desire to search for new adventures. Two cycle houses have been created: the stationary house invites visitors to cycle to light up the piece while expressing their ideas of exploration by drawing on the canvas wall; the mobile house brings a more energetic, disco-themed performance to the bay.

About the More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Cycle-House

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TORRENT by Brandon Tay (Singapore)

About the installation:

TORRENT is a site-specific interactive installation that aims to transport users into a dreamlike landscape. As users walk past the screen, they find their movements reflected on a screen against an icy landscape, as if a virtual shadow with a swarm of trailing particles, with their motions mirrored but their forms vague.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Torrent

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Bolt by Jun Ong (Malaysia)

About the installation:

Inspired by the form and behaviour of lightning, the installation comprises an intricate network of LED tubes resting on steel legs that flare up when touched. Bolt not only mimics the ethereal nature of lightning, but also allows people to experience direct visceral connections, creating an emotional ‘spark’ that seems to be diminishing in today’s virtually-connected world.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Bolt

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Angels of Freedom by OGE Group, Gaston Zahr & Merav Eitan (Germany & Israel )

About the installation:

Five sets of giant, colourful wings invite visitors to come close and interact with the symbolic angels. This installation seeks to remind visitors of their true selves and to always remain connected to loved ones and those who matter.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Angels-of-Freedom

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Lightscape Pavilion by MisoSoupDesign (Taiwan)

About the installation:

Inspired by traditional Chinese lanterns, Lightscape Pavilion is made of simple, natural materials. Its bamboo lattice is designed to resemble a traditional lantern and its responsive glow serves to unite people under its canopy. The transparency and subtlety of the pavilion places emphasis and focus on the aesthetical beauty of its surroundings and inhabitants instead of its own self. As visitors move closer to its columns, its glow intensifies, as if to symbolically draw strength from the proximity of a human spirit.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Lightscape-Pavilion

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Groove Light by Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore (Singapore)

About the installation:

Groove Light generates geometric shadow patterns when a point light source is shone through five 3D printed lanterns, creating a carpet of light giving physical dimension – in the complex forms of the lanterns – to virtual projections. The suspended lanterns are positioned with precision to create a continuous lightscape which visitors can modify by moving the lanterns.

More at : http://www.ilightmarinabay.sg/Discover/Installations/Groove-Light

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Some other things to look out for:

Pop-up Royal Tea Salon by Häagen-Dazs at the Promontory

Must try at the Royal Tea Salon are Häagen-Dazs’ Spring collection of flavours including the Royal Milk Tea – a blend of fresh and sweet Darjeeling tea and strong, malty and honey-like Assam tea.

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KamPONG

An initiative by Innoverde that invites passersby to have a game of of ping pong on locally designed and custom fabricated tables. KamPONG is located at Mist Walk, close to where the Uncle Ringo rides are located. More information on KamPONG can be found at http://innoverde.com.sg/kampong/.

 

Carless in the city

It wasn’t a typical Sunday morning in Singapore’s Civic District. Freed of cars and the normal motorised traffic, claim to the streets was laid instead by hundreds of cyclists, joggers, walkers and roller-bladers for what was Singapore’s first Car-free Sunday.

The first of six car-free Sundays planned for the last Sunday of each month from February, the initiative aims to promote a car-lite culture in Singapore. Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in partnership with the National Parks Board (NParks), National Arts Council (NAC), Health Promotion Board (HPB) and Sport Singapore (SportSG), the event also saw a buzz come to some of the Civic District’s public spaces.

One public space that came alive was the newly completed Empress Lawn at Empress Place. The lawn, part of a Civic District public space enhancement drive initiated by the URA, was a venue for temporary food stalls  and mass exercise sessions – the food stalls perhaps a reminder of days when good and affordable food – now missing from much of the Civic District, had been one of the draws of the Empress Place area.

A closed St. Andrew’s Road at first light.

Representatives from the organisers together with Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Minister of Transport, Khaw Boon Wan and Minister for National Development, Lawrence Wong on the steps of City Hall for the flag-off.

Car-free Anderson Bridge.

Robinson Road, which was partially closed.

On Robinson Road. Minister Khaw Boon Wan and Minister Lawrence Wong who both cycled two rounds around a car-free circuit.

The dogs had their day too.

The flag-off for the Love Cycling in Singapore group.

URA CEO Ng Lang and Francis Chu of Love Cycling Singapore at the flag-off.

Temporary tables and benches set up at Empress Lawn.

The buzz at Empress Lawn.

Mass aerobics at Empress Lawn.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan at Empress Lawn.

Public art on the lawn – giant saga seeds.

A roller-blader, a jogger and a cyclist coming down St. Andrew’s Road.

Lost in the rising sea at Telok Ayer

It is hard now to imagine the sea coming right up to Telok Ayer Street where the original shoreline had once been.  The Telok Ayer Reclamation scheme of the 1880s moved the shoreline to where Shenton Way is today, adding some 1,808,028 square feet or 167,971. square metres of land where Telok Ayer Bay had been. A portion of the land, reclaimed at a cost of 51 cents per square foot, was sold initially (in 1896) for an average price of $1.13 per square foot.

One of the earliest structures to be erected in the land where the bay had been is what we now know as Telok Ayer Market or “Lau Pa-Sat” – meaning old market in the Hokkien dialect with pa-sat being a Hokkien loan word from Malay used locally. The “New Town Market” replaced a 1833 market that had been built along the earlier shoreline and would possibly be the only one of the reclamation’s early structures to have stood to this very day (it did disappear over a three year period in the late 1980s when it was dismantled to protect its structure from damage from tunnelling works for the MRT).

A National Monument, the former market and now a food centre, is a showpiece of exquisite Scottish ironwork. Although it still remains very recognisable for its distinctive octagonal plan and its clock tower, the old market has become a lot less noticeable now that it is lost in the new sea at the former Telok Ayer Bay; a sea not of water but of towering skyscrapers that has risen in the last four decades or so.

Lost in the sea of skyscrapers, the former Telok Ayer Market. This view of it is down Maxwell Link, running in between Robinson Road and Shenton Way, along which newer and taller buildings are now replacing the first generation skyscrapers of 1970s vintage.

When the air was much clearer – a view from Mount Wallich, which was soon to be levelled, towards the Telok Ayer Reclamation, possibly in the late 1890s, soon after the “New Town Market”, also seen in the picture, was constructed. The road closest to the viewer would be Cecil Street, with Robinson Road running parallel and what would became Shenton Way just by the sea.

Carnival time on the reclamation – the Manila Carnival during the Malaya-Borneo Exhibition in 1922 where Shenton Way is today. The market can be seen in the background (National Archives of Singapore Photograph).

 

Art Stage Singapore 2016

Southeast Asia’s flagship art fair, Art Stage Singapore, is back for its sixth  edition. The four day event, with an intended focus placed on contemporary Southeast Asian art, is being held at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention from 21 to 24 January 2016.

The sin-full creations of Kittisak Thapkoa at Number1Gallery.

A reflection on Qin Chong’s Evolving Ink.

For 2016, Art Stage Singapore brings the Southeast Asia Forum – an extension of the Southeast Asia Platform it introduced in 2014. The forum in its inaugural year is titled Seismograph: Sensing the City – Art in the Urban Age – and has an emphasis on urbanisation and will have both an exhibition and a talk component. The projects of 19 Southeast Asian artists, which relate to issues and sentiments in the wake of rapid urbanisation in their own countries, will be brought into focus. More information on the Southeast Asia Forum can be found here.

Takeshi Haguri’s Tengu, presented by Toki-no-wasuremono.

Entang Wiharso’s Feast Table: Undeclared Perceptions presented by ARNDT.

This year’s fair, the anchor event for Singapore Art Week, features 173 galleries from 34 countries with some 75% or 133 galleries from Asia. Art Stage Singapore 2016 will also see several public artworks being exhibited at public areas, a special exhibition of photographs and oil paintings by Hannes Schmid – best known for his iconic Marlboro Man series in the 1990s, and a return of Video Stage .  The fair runs until Sunday. More information on it can be found at http://www.artstagesingapore.com/.

Yayoi Kusama’s Kei-Chan and Reach up to Heaven ‐ Dotty Pumpkin (Black) presented by Opera Gallery.

Close-up of Pink Collar by Ma Han – a public artwork.

The $170.4 million sale in 2015 of Modigliani’s “Nu Couché” to a Chinese based collector points to the rise of Asia in the International art market according to Art Stage President and founder Lorenzo Rudolf.

Adam and eve

As anticipated, Adam stole the show with eve – New Year’s eve that is, bringing Singapore’s jubilee year to a rousing end at Marina Bay Countdown 2016. The event, – Singapore’s largest countdown event, saw the new year welcomed with a huge eight minute display of fireworks – some 4000 shots were fired compared to 2200 the previous year. The intermittent rain, which fell throughout the evening and into the new year, paused not just for the fireworks but also for Adam’s hour long performance, which went on for 30 minutes on each side of the fireworks display.

An eight minute long fireworks display lit up Marina Bay during the countdown.

The display also featured music composed by music director Julian Wong, with wishing spheres – a feature of the Marina Bay countdown event, lit to have their colours change in sync with the display of fireworks. As part of the celebrations, the façade of the Fullerton Building – Singapore’s latest building to be gazetted as a National Monument, become a canvas for a 3D projection intended to show Singapore’s multi-faceted cultural and architectural identity, the City in a Garden and its modern outlook. The projection was jointly developed by a Canadian-Singaporean team comprising of Aims from Singapore and Canada’s Symmetrica. Involving a total of 32 projectors – each covering a span of 120 metres by 35 metres, the show had been running at regular intervals from the evening of Boxing Day.

The 3D projection on the Fullerton.

The spotlight was very much on Adam Lambert, before ….

… and after the fireworks display.

Rain clouds over a Marina Bay dressed up for Countdown 2016.

Wishing spheres were lit to change colours during the event and during the fireworks display.

The National Gallery Singapore: a sneak peek

After five long years, the transformation of two of Singapore most recognisable National Monuments, the former Supreme Court and City Hall into the National Gallery Singapore, is finally complete. The new cultural institution, which oversees the largest collection of modern art in Southeast Asia, will open its doors to the public tomorrow – an event that is being accompanied with a big bash.

Visitors to the gallery can expect to see a display of Singapore and Southeast Asian art drawn from Singapore’s huge National Collection in the permanent exhibitions, Siapa Nama Kamu? – featuring close to 400 works of Singapore art since the 19th Century, and Between Declarations and Dreams, which features close to 400 works of Southeast Asian art from the same period.   There will also be two special exhibitions that can be caught from 26 Nov 2015 to 3 May 2016. One, Beauty Beyond Form, features the donated works of traditional Chinese painter, Wu Guanzhong. The other After the Rain, will see 38 works of one of Singapore’s leading ink painters, Chua Ek Kay on display. Also on display will be the beautifully restored interiors of the two buildings, and the stunning impact the architectural interventions have had on them (see also : The National Gallery, Naked).

More information on the National Museum’s opening celebrations and visitor information can be found on the celebrations brochure (pdf) and also at the National Gallery Singapore’s website. Admission to the National Gallery Singapore will be free for all visitors from 24 November to 6 December 2015.

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A Sneak Peek at the National Gallery Singapore

The former Supreme Court, which houses the galleries of the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery

Art in a former courtroom.

The former Courtroom No. 1.

Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Shocking Pink Collection.

Reflections on the Rotunda Dome.

The former Courtroom No. 1.

The spiral staircase to the main Supreme Court dome.

An art resource centre in the former Rotunda Library.

Inside the resource centre.

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City Hall, which houses the DBS Singapore Gallery, the Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery, the Wu Guanzhong Gallery and several education centres

The Keppel Centre for Art Education.

Chua Mia Tee’s Epic Poem of Malaya.

Liu Kang’s Life by the River.

The DBS Singapore Gallery.

Lots to think about …

City Hall Chamber.

The red SG50 Steinway.

Not quite a permanent display.

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Miscellaneous Views (see also: The National Gallery, naked)

The columns of City Hall.

Corridors of the former Supreme Court – the original rubber tiles, which contained asbestos, had to be replaced.

Another view.

The former City Hall Courtyard.

The roof terrace bars at City Hall …

… provide stunning views of the cityscape.

The view of the Padang, the Esplanade and Marina Bay Sands from the roof terrace.

 

 

Inuits will paint the town red this weekend

The highly anticipated Singapore Night Festival is back!

One of the highlights of this year’s festival has to be the appearance of the world’s smallest and perhaps the most lovable Inuits, Anooki (Anook and Nooki). The Inuits, the creation of David Passegand and Moetu Batlle, have come all the way from France to run riot and paint the town, of rather the façade of the National Museum of Singapore. red, green, purple and blue and put a smile on the faces of the the crowds that will descend on the museum’s front lawn on the weekends of 21/22 and 28/29 August.

The Anooki wreaking havoc on the façade of the National Museum of Singapore.

David Passegand and Moetu Batlle.

The Inuits, which are said to have taken the animation world by storm, will feature in one of several performances specially commissioned for the jubilee year edition of the Singapore Night Festival. The fun and energetic projection, Anooki Celebrate Singapore, will anchor the festival’s Night Lights – a popular segment that promises to be bigger and better this year. Night Lights also sees several other light installations colour the night in and around the museum. One, Cédric Le Borgne’s le Desir et la Menace brings the huge banyan tree in front of the museum to life with giant illuminated bird wire sculptures. Another, Drawn in Light by Ralf Westerhof, recreates sights typical of Amsterdam using rotating illuminated wire frames suspended above the ground.

Le Desir et la Menace.

Drawn in Light.

Inside the museum, Night Light offerings include And So They Say and A Little Nonya’s Dreams. The former is a documentary project that features interviews with 25 senior citizens that will also be seen at SOTA, DECK (at Prinsep Street) and the National Design Centre. The latter, sees three animators come together to individually interpret a little’s girls’ dreams.

And So They Say.

From A Little Nonya’s Dreams.

Playing with fire … and light over at the Singapore Art Museum, will be the Starlight Alchemy, an audience favourite and regular feature at the Singapore Night Festival. This year, sees the locally based group perform a specially commissioned Alchemy that tells of the reconciliation between Apollo from the world of Ethereal Light and Nuri from the world of Ethereal Flame, in another must-catch performance.

Fire ….

… and light meet at the SAM.

Other performances to catch include Goldies, who will take us back into Singapore’s musical world from the 50s to the 80s in a ticketed performance; Fields in Bloom, which sees flowers glowing in a spectrum of colours on the steps of SOTA and the Lorong Boys – 5 award winning Singaporean musicians who perform in both the concert hall and on the streets. Another interesting performance to catch is Lost Vegas, which features the giant puppets of Frank Malachi – an award winning puppeteer based in Singapore.

Meet Christine, who will be seen in Lost Vegas.

3 of the 5 Lorong Boys.

Fields in Bloom.

Goldies.

The Singapore Night Festival 2015 runs over two weekends (Friday and Saturday nights), on 21 and 22 August and on 28 and 29 August, from 7 pm until 2 am. The festival will be held across 5 zones, the National Museum of Singapore, Armenian Street (which will again be closed for the festival), the House of Glamour (at the field across from the Cathay), the Festival Village at SMU and the Singapore Art Museum and Queen Street (including the National Design Centre, DECK at 120A Prinsep Street), Waterloo Street and SOTA). Besides light and music performances, festival goers can also look forward to lots of food offerings. More information on the festival can be found at the Singapore Night Festival Website at which a Festival Guide can also be downloaded.

Singapore Night Festival creative director Christie Chua.