ampulets

view from from 2005 Us amps will be on our way to here tomorrow, and if I complete this essay on art markets by 2am later on (ah, a prospect growing dimmer by the minute!), we'll bring you some live coverage of Formosa over the next week. While we will, you don't have to miss this talk "Get yer ya-ya's out! The Rolling Stones in Singapore and other 'cartoon' adventures" tomorrow (22 November, 2.30-4pm, The Salon) at the National Museum on comics and political cartoons in 50s-60s Singapore, and the role of other "cultural workers" (pop bands, musicians) who were part of the "invisible republic" at the time of this island's independence. And if you do make your way there, you'll be near enough to a bookstore where you can pick up a copy of Liquid City , a collection of comics short stories by illustrators and comic artists in Southeast Asia. The book is sitting on our shelf at the moment. I've not had a chance to read it, b...

J made this image for magazine FL.ag #1's latest issue for world aids' day . Facts about HIV here .

holiday dreaming Friends have been asking me how's life been now that I am a student again. It seems indulgent to be saying this just two months after taking my year's leave from work and so soon after the trip to China, but I would like to have answered them "I need a holiday!". In the two months, I've managed to squeeze out 3 papers (1 more in the writing) and, together with J, made 6 commissioned illustrations that will actually appear on real-world mediums and not this blog (hoorah!). It feels just as busy as when I was working, only that I'm in jeans and the time seems more like mine to manage. But all in all, my usual answer to friends (i.e. "it's been good") is no lie. But I am also reminded that all this will come to an twelve months later. With this at the back of my mind, it become easy to grow selfish with time - and be lulled into thinking that it really is just your own. It becomes easy also to then take for granted the time spent...

All images in this post are taken by J ...the Beach Road Camp and Non-Commissioned Officers' Building. A mouthful? Obviously the developers who won the tender to restore and re-develop the site by 2012 figured they have a sexier-sounding (and in true Singapore fashion, unoriginal) moniker: "South Beach" . Despite being barely halfway through an essay on "Art Law" (*shudder*), J and I decided to take a less legalistic approach to the rest of the Saturday afternoon and continue our visit of the Singapore Biennale at the remaining Shigeru Ban and "South Beach" sites before the circus leaves town on 16 November. In a way, all Biennales or such large-scale art spectacles are as much about their host cities as it is about the art. The gesture towards the global loops round to the local or domestic. In this way, the 3 main sites for this year's Biennale in Singapore are telling of how this island sees itself as a city: 1. The historic < C...