The Environment and Korean Women at Gillman Barracks

With Singapore Art Week in January approaching, many galleries in arts precinct Gillman Barracks are in preparation mode. But visitors looking for an arts fix to close out the year can still catch two small-scale exhibitions in the former military base.

At Block 7, non-profit The Institutum brings together the ochre works of Malaysian artist Cheong See Min and Singapore-based Marvin Tang and Madhvi Subrahmanian in an exhibition titled A Seed, A Shift And A Lost Pineapple.

All three, through various mediums, relook the region’s historical relationship to land and the environment, foregrounding colonial legacies of the rubber and gambier plantation trade.

Tang has reconstructed the Wardian cases the British used to smuggle rubber seedlings from Brazil to the Malayan peninsula. Cheong’s A Cart Of Lost Pineapples references the 19th-century export of pineapple leaf fibre, weaving the material with cotton and silk yarn, as well as linen, to recreate an archival image of a pineapple-laden buffalo cart.

Subrahmanian’s clay installation A Letter From The Past quietly takes up a whole wall. These cryptic, Jawi-esque shapes were moulded in the cracks and gaps of the interior of Guan Huat Dragon Kiln in Jalan Bahar, once fired fortnightly to forge the latex cups used by labourers for rubber tapping.

Over at Block 22’s The Columns Gallery, visitors can admire the crafty layering of hanji – traditional Korean paper made from mulberry tree fibres – by South Korean artist Jung Jong-mee in her portraits of historical women. Each tapestry is a painstaking collage of sculpted paper, embroidered silk and overlapping natural dyes – large-scale celebrations of an organic female aesthetic.

Where: The Institutum, 7 Lock Road, and The Columns Gallery, 22 Lock Road, Gillman Barracks
MRT: Labrador Park/Pasir Panjang
When: A Seed, A Shift And A Lost Pineapple till Dec 30, 11am to 6pm; Jung Jong Mee till Jan 13, Tuesdays to Fridays, 11am to 7pm; weekends, 11am to 6pm
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/iYvK and str.sg/iYvr

Arab Street Art Sale

Driven by a desire to create a more interconnected art community, Singaporean artist Zhang Fuming, known for his black-and-white woodcuts, has organised this year-end exhibition of 103 artists. Many of them are showing their works in public for the first time.

Zhang, 34, started an art supply store, Drawing Etc. Art Supplies, at Sunshine Plaza on June 22, an enterprise which gave him a chance to meet artists working in all major mediums, from acrylic to gouache to digital print.

He put out a month-long open call, receiving 542 submissions. A total of 110 have been chosen for this inaugural exhibition at 62A Arab Street, a space he is renting for three years.

He hopes it can become a creative space for artists to gather, and pledges to make this sale an annual affair. All proceeds from the sales go to the artists.

Where: 62A Arab Street
MRT: Bugis
When: Till Dec 31, noon to 6pm
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/iYvV

Reading And Open Mic Night

Five authors will be at Peace Centre on Dec 30 to read their old and new works, a little treat local publisher Ethos Books has organised in collaboration with Thryft, a retailer of second-hand books and clothes.

Poet Crispin Rodrigues will be giving a preview of his next poetry collection about his Eurasian heritage and monstrosity; while medical student and poet Tricia Tan will be reading from her upcoming debut collection of medical poetry, titled Patient History.

Recent recipient of the Swedish Cikada Prize Theophilus Kwek, new Ethos Books editor and poet Mok Zining and Prasanthi Ram, author of debut fiction work Nine Yard Sarees (2023), make up the quintet.

With open mic slots available at the door, it promises to be a fun-filled way to send 2023 on its merry way in literary company.

Where: Second Story: Peace Edition, 02-08 Peace Centre, 1 Sophia Road
MRT: Rochor/Dhoby Ghaut/Bras Basah
When: Dec 30, 7.30pm
Admission: Free with registration
Info: str.sg/iYvj