One Night Stand

Curated by Shawnz Neo, in collaboration with EMMAUS Greenwich, 'One Night Stand' is an opportunity to view some of Britain's forefront creative talent utilise some of London's filthiest furniture during the London Design Festival 2008.

With: Bethan Laura-Wood, Daryl Clifton, Zeel Design, Michele Edwards, Gemma Gore, Vincenzo Di Maria,Kieren Jones, Sanitas Pradittasnee + Visuallyod

Open Rehearsal in London

Have you ever wondered what happens backstage at the National Theatre? Or do you long to take part in a singing workshop with the BBC? Perhaps you'd like to get your film screened, or have some ideas for a musical?

Get closer to London's exciting cultural scene as the city's top venues open their doors, spaces, backstage areas and more, and invite you to take part in Open Rehearsal. For one weekend in September, London's Open Rehearsal festival lets you do all these things and more.

Highlights of this year's Open Rehearsal season include a world-first as The Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House together hold open rehearsals for the first time in the companies' long histories. In addition, there are events at both the Young Vic and the Old Vic, the Barbican, the National Gallery and more.

What are you waiting for? London's doors are open! Start planning your Open Rehearsal weekend now...

Click here to find out more

Diminishing Memories I & II

The Substation and the Asian Film Archive are glad to share with you a Singapore film that will open at The Arts House next week - Dimishing Memories I & II by Eng Yee Peng.

Diminishing Memories is an intimate and thought-provoking documentary about what Lim Chu Kang and kampongs mean to younger generation of Singaporeans like the filmmaker. If you have not caught it at the Singapore International Film Festival yet, you may want to check it out.

If you have already seen it and enjoyed it much like I do, I am sure the filmmaker would appreciate if you can help to get your friends to come watch it too. Eng Yee Peng, the director of Dimishing Memories I & II will also be graciously donating her proceeds from the premiere to The Substation and the Asian Film Archive.

Thirty-one-year-old filmmaker Eng Yee Peng is a former resident of Lim Chu Kang before this rural community was uprooted to give way to redevelopment. Gone are the good, old kampong days; and her childhood memories, once fresh, are fading. Diminishing Memories I & II are two thought-provoking and intimate documentaries, a tribute to Yee Peng's indelible memories of Lim Chu Kang. Follow Yee Peng's personal journey in her attempt to re-capture her lost childhood and her struggle in letting her beloved kampong go. Both films are narrated in Mandarin and subtitled in English, with interviews conducted in Mandarin, English and the Teochew dialect.

Synopsis
Diminishing Memories I (50mins)
takes you on a personal journey with Eng Yee Peng, the filmmaker, to recollect her childhood memories of living in Lim Chu Kang, a village that has already died and its spirit dispersed. Find out more about the former Lim Chu Kang community and landscape; with the use of archival photographs, old 16-mm film footage, interviews of former residents, and an animation that will piece together memories of kampong life that is almost unheard of today.

Diminishing Memories II (49mins)
Prompted by the Singapore government's recent announcement of a plan to turn Lim Chu Kang into an agriculture-cum-entertainment attraction, Yee Peng sets out to revisit vestiges of her haunting childhood for the second time. A new film with fresh content on interviews with the new investors and current tenants of Lim Chu Kang, Yee Peng is forced to face the deepest fear in her heart. Find out how she learns to accept the much-changed Lim Chu Kang community and how the evolving times have also altered its spirit.

Click here for Trailers & Reviews of the films

Film Screenings:
Fridays (19th September & 3rd October)- 7:30pm
Saturdays (20th September & 4th October)- 4pm, 7:30pm

Screenings will be followed by the director's Q&A sessions

Venue:
The Arts House, Screening Room
1 Old Parliament Lane, Singapore 179429
(Nearest MRT- Raffles Place)

Ticket Prices:
S$8.50 Full S$6.50
Concession (Students & Senior Citizens)

Tickets are available at The Arts House Box Office Only 75 tickets per screening, book early to avoid disappointment!

Ticket Bookings: The Arts House
Ticketing Hotline: 6332 6919 or email tickets@toph.com.sg
Bulk Bookings: 6332 6912 or email martini@toph.com.sg
Click here for The Arts House Website

Symposium on Singapore Cinema

The Asian Film Archive would like to invite people to their Symposium on Singapore Cinema.

The Asian Film Archive Presents Symposium series serves as an intellectual and practical nexus between filmmakers from the region, industry professionals, film scholars, and students interested in films and its industry. This year, the Symposium shines a spotlight on Singapore Cinema. The outstanding work of participants vying for the awards of Best Film Paper and Best Cineodeon Team will be showcased. Additionally, a panel session on Singapore Cinema will feature Sun Koh (Executive Producer, Lucky 7), Kenneth Tan (Director, Singapore Film Commission) and Dr Kenneth Paul Tan (Author, Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension). The Symposium on Singapore Cinema will culminate in the inaugural Asian Film Archive Young Jury Awards. These awards are voted by a panel of Young Jury members, as part of our Moving Minds Lab programme. The youths will honour film professionals in Singapore with prizes including the Best Film, Best Director, Best Performance, Best Cinematography, amongst others. The Symposium will be held at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium.


Date: 20 September 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 9:00am – 6:00pm
Venue: Singapore Management University,
Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium
60 Stamford Road, Singapore 178900
(located in the School of Accountancy/Law, situated beside the National Museum of Singapore)

More information on the programme and speakers can be found on the Symposium website:
http://www.asianfilmarchive.org/Cineodeon2008/AboutSymposium.aspx

To register, please contact them with the following details by 12 September 2008:
1. Full name
2. Institution
3. Email
4. Contact number

Contact Person: Jean Hair
Email: info@asianfilmarchive.org
Fax: 6543 1643
Tel: 6777 3243

An acknowledgement email will be sent upon receipt of registration. Lunch and teas will be catered. They look forward to seeing you at the Symposium!

Ming Wong - mononoaware

There are many foreign language words that are difficult to translate adequately, such as the Japanese term ‘mono no aware’ (‘the pathos of things’) and the German word ‘Sehnsucht’ (‘longing’).

Despite the disparity of their origins, both these words can well be used to describe the work of Singapore-born artist Ming Wong, which traces his efforts to adopt foreign languages, cultures and identities by re-creating his own ‘world cinema’.

‘Angst Essen / Eat Fear’ (2008), developed during his residency at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Kreuzberg, Berlin, is a tribute to German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘Angst Essen Seele Auf’ (‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’) (1973).
In his remake, Ming plays the German cleaning lady Emmi and her husband Ali, a Moroccan guestworker, along with other peripheral characters who fuel the crisis in the couple’s relationship with their xenophobic prejudices. The race, gender, age, status, nationality of individual characters become irrelevant as a 30-something-year-old foreign amateur actor of Chinese descent portrays all of the characters in a world of prejudice.

‘Four Malay Stories’ (2005) consists of re-enactments of four 'classic' films of the pioneering film industry in Singapore that flourished in the late 50s and early 60s. The producers were Chinese, who hired filmmakers from India to direct Malay Muslim actors in films that referenced Hollywood, Bollywood, European, Japanese and Chinese cinema.
On four adjacent monitors, the artist plays a total of 16 characters, male and female, young and old, repeating his lines in the Malay language, along with a transcription of the dialogue and a literal translation in English – as in a foreign language learning video, although the content is deliberately melodramatic and out-dated.

Also on display is ‘Filem-Filem-Filem’ (2008), a series of medium format Polaroid photographs of old cinemas that the artist found in Malaysia and Singapore.

Opening: Friday 05.09.2008, 18.00 h
Exhibition: 05.09. – 18.10.2008

MKgalerie – Berlin
Rudi-Dutschke Strasse 26 (former Kochstrasse 60), 10969 Berlin
Tel +49 (0)30 80618947
mk@mkgalerie.de
www.mkgalerie.de
Wed – Sat 11.00-18.00 h

MING WONG, born 1971 in Singapore, graduated from the Slade School of Art in London in 1999, currently lives and works in Berlin. Ming took part in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien’s International Studio Programme 2007/08.

This is Ming's first gallery solo exhibition in Berlin.

Exhibitions in 2008 include:
Vertraut oder Verdaut, ZKM Center for Art & Media, Karlsruhe, curated by Ludwig Seyfarth with Chantal Blatzheim; Das Piraterieproblem, Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam, curated by Astrid Mania & Gerrit Gohlke; Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Wendt + Friedmann Galerie, Berlin, curated by Marc Wellmann & David Keating; Kunstinvasion, Blumengroßmart Berlin, curated by Initiative Berliner Kunsthalle;
Film Programm, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, selected by Annette Hans; Damn! I Wish I’d Done That!!, 176 Project Space, Zabludowicz Art Projects, London, curated by Harold Offeh.

www.mingwong.org

SETCAST

The SETCAST collection is the result of a close collaboration between Voon Wong & Benson Saw and one of China's most distinguished manufacturers of bone china, Asianera, based in Tangshan, the porcelain capital of northern China. Together, the companies have developed a collection that makes the best use of bone china's excellent light-reflective properties and also moves away from traditional decorative tableware to focus on striking new typologies that make a bold statement.

The preciousness of the material has been combined with sculptural and architectural forms to create a series of exceptional objects intended to be used at the table. These objects are for everyday use but in themselves are small works of art. The collection comprises 7 new families of tableware items that reflect a more informal approach to dining: including trivets, candlesticks, condiment bowls and hors d'oeuvre dishes.

Setcast by Voon Wong & Benson Saw will be available at the Sunday&Rex - first Pop-Up gallery in London's East End from 30th August – 14th September @ TENT London.

For more information, visit
http://www.voon-benson.com/newsletter/rex.html
http://www.tentlondon.co.uk/