While many artists, art critics and journalists in Singapore and around the world have lauded the nation’s recent push to embrace more creative freedom and stimulate the artistic community, some remain critical over whether there has been that much legitimate growth.
Ong Keng Sen, a popular presence on the stage and organizer of a Singapore, says that the very foundations of Singapore’s principles and beliefs may be holding the country back creatively. One example he gives is talking to a teenager who has decided to pursue a degree in math or science because the subjects are more objective than literature, all but guaranteeing a higher grade in Singapore’s current education grading scale. Due to the importance placed at this time on receiving the highest grades possible — as well as the way courses are marked — Ong believes that students wishing to study creative subjects like literature and art might be discouraged to do so.
Another deterrent to the pursuit of art on a full-time basis, Ong said, was Singapore’s high cost of living. Though he himself is a full-time practitioner of the arts, Ong said that if he were graduating today, he would be much more hesitant to embrace being an artist, instead preferring to enter the workforce in a more traditionally acceptable role and career.
Ong is for taking the economy out of Singapore’s artistic expectations; that is, removing the push for grants that artists must seek out to complete their works. He also proposes ensuring that Singaporeans want to pay to view and experience art, which must start at an early age, while still in school. Instead of receiving grades for their work in art and literature, students would be encouraged and pushed to use their imaginations to complete assignments, learning that the thought process is the most important thing, not the grade at the end.
A firm believer that the opportunity for art in Singapore to succeed is there, Ong continues to push the boundaries of expectations for art in his native country. He said that if he didn’t care about the fate of creativity in his country, he would leave to be an artist in another nation. However, he believes that, in time, constraints will loosen and more freedom will help the art scene in Singapore blossom and develop further, with artists unafraid to offend or question things through their art. Ong says he thinks that, through the removal of censorship in art in Singapore, artists and the public will be able to regulate themselves and foster a greater sense of learning and creativity in the process.
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Read the interview with Ong Keng Sen by going to http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ong-keng-sen-embarrassed/2214400.html.