Notes on ASEF’s Sustainability Guide series

from my last visit to Singapore. an ad for a sidewalk gallery cafe.

ASEF is producing a series of Sustainability Guides.  Entitled ‘Creative Responses to Sustainability: Cultural initiatives engaging with social and environmental issues’, it has already released 2 guides — for Korea and for Singapore.

I got to sit down and peruse both guides.  I found that the reports are well-structured — I could determine and easily find parts of the report that I am more interested in.  They are also well-written, kudos to author/researcher Yasmine Ostendorf.  The reports aren’t flooded with industry jargon.  They are engaging, and I think it is because a lot of responses from the interviewed local artists have been incorporated into the discussion.  It was refreshing to read honest and direct views of local artists about the workings of the art sectors in their countries.

‘No one is thinking about environmentalism in Singapore, there are just some cases of accidental environmentalism because things are so expensive. Take the example of cars, all young people want them, no one can afford them, that’s when people start to share. People operate from self interest, ’ – Veerappan Swaminathan, as quoted in the Singapore guide.

Now, here, a process called Transformaking is explained:

‘The change in the process of making and knowledge production is underlined by contextualised maker activity geared towards fuelling change, thereby challenging traditional modes of production and consumption, creative and cultural expression, structures of societal organization, ownership, access, intellectual property and copyright regimes, models of participative democracy, citizen science and civic governance in a process of Transformative Making or – what we [House of Natural Fiber] call – ‘Transformaking.’

Copies of the guides could be downloaded here.

A last note from the Singapore Guide:

Artists tend to have a more worldly perspective and are more willing to learn from each other’s practice. Networking is much stronger in the arts than in other jobs. ‘Because there’s so little money, we invite each other and support each other, we like to travel to each other’s country. There is a strong sense of solidarity in the international art scène because we are all struggling. This gives a sense of community.’

Tags: korea art scene, quotes and definitions, singapore art scene, study notes