Art captures Singapore

A work by artist Toni Kanwa.

Near SAM's entrance is Malaysian artist Ahmad Abu Bakar's installation Telok Blangah. The work features a kolek - traditional fisherman's boat from Melaka - filled with 1,000 glass bottles inscribed with aspirational messages from male prison inmates in Singapore. The Malaysia-born and Singapore-raised artist says he seeks to address questions of land, identity and faith.

And in SAM at 8Q, Singaporean artist Royston Tan uses seats salvaged from Singapore's oldest theater - Capitol Theater - in a collaboration with Kuik Swee Boon and T.H.E.Dance Company to make a video installation.

From its opening in 1930, to its heyday as Singapore's premier theater, to its final curtain call in December 1998,Capitol Theater has been a collective memory to several generations of Singaporeans. It is currently undergoing restoration to become part of a new shopping and entertainment complex that will open in 2014.

Now, artist Tan chooses to focus on Capitol Theater again after approaching this subject in his documentary work The Blind Trilogy in 2004.But Tan insists he is not simply indulging in nostalgia, but also drawing on a fear of losing his own history.

"If I can no longer remember or recognize the places I grew up in, then can I still consider this my home?" he asks in reply.

Such tribute paying to a collective memory is also reflected in Indonesian artist Anggun Priambodo's Toko Keperluan.

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