Modern: Resonance II
A site-specific art installation, performance at Pasir Panjang Power Station, Singapore
by visual artist Alecia Neo (alecianeo.myportfolio.com)
spoken word artist/singer Deborah Emmanuel (deborahemmanuel.com)
and sound artist Li-Chuan Chong
Curated by Yeow Kai Chai
First presented by Goethe Institut Singapur in 2019
This presentation was part of SingLit Power House (singlitpowerhouse.peatix.com)
a programme under the #BuySingLit Movement 2020 (buysinglit.sg)
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Curator's note:
For more than three decades, the space was abandoned, a near-forgotten footnote in Singapore’s history. Now, step into Modern: Resonance, a multi-sensory experience which reintroduces the Pasir Panjang Power Station.
In the spirit of the centenary of the Bauhaus, an influential German movement which focused on minimalism and functionality, the event pays tribute to the station’s hardware and software, its utilitarian principles and generations of workers. Regarded as one of the nation’s first engines of industrialisation, the plant went into operation in 1953. Access to the high-security space was limited. Since its decommissioning in 1987, even fewer know, or have experienced the disused locale.
Join Singaporean artists composer Chong Li-Chuan; singer and spoken word artist Deborah Emmanuel; and photographer-videographer Alecia Neo as they awaken the Turbine Hall with a multi-sensory invocation using music, voice, lights, and photography.
In addressing the agents and processes of energy, this rare performance invites you to re-activate your senses. Smell the tang in the air. Take in the expanse of the raw, cavernous space, stripped to original steel pillars, concrete walls, and glass windows which let shards of light in and reimagine the environment as it once was.
Engage with the light-and-sound installation with the switches provided, and become part of its circuit of energies. Witness the serene, dreamlike portraits of the station’s past workers and family members, as their oral testimonies flit in and out of hearing, as the event culminates in an arresting vocal performance.
More installation view photos at Alecia Neo's portfolio site: https://alecianeo.myportfolio.com/projects