TeamBrackOn Friday, 20 March, Brack, with Arjuna Neuman and the Centre of Contemporary Art (CCA), will host a conversation circle for “Multicultural Dread”, a collaborative event and interactive sonic experience. The event will begin with a conversation circle on the topic of racial identity in Singapore. We’re including the synopsis of the event:
Singapore Unlimited calls for a shift in our paradigm from one of “Singapore is too small” to that of “There are no real limits or constraints in this new borderless world.”
— Masterplan 21, Singapore Tourism Board, 1996
Singapore identifies itself as having no borders and “no real limits”. This identity no longer depends on an Other, master nor slave, against which to take shape. This is twinned in the city-state’s single party rule and, more tangibly, in everyday experiences of race.
We invite you to think through and discuss together, the way race at a face-to-face level can be used as a lens to understand the different layers of social organisation in Singapore: from the everyday with its social interactions and subjectivities, to the government’s supposed non-ideological yet pragmatic position, to neoliberalism more generally.
The questions will include:
How is race understood at an everyday level? Why is race and racial categories perhaps stunted, or kept at a stereotypical level?
How is this “retarded” state of racial discourse useful to, or used by the larger organizational structures? By the Government? And by neoliberalism?
Why might these conditions of race be philosophically, politically or economically functional for those in power?
The conversation circle is moderated by Imran Taib, Founding Member of Leftwrite Center.
Please join us in the conversation circle!
The conversation circle starts at 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.
20 March, 2015
Block 38, Malan Road,
Artist Studio #01-06
This event is part of the programme for the Art After Dark party at Gillman Barracks.
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Email for inquiries | hey@brack.sg
See more images from the event on our FACEBOOK.