Art & Poetry: A Spoken Word Trail

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Art & Poetry: A Spoken Word Trail (Free Art Tour)

Explore the President’s Young Talents 2018 exhibition through an art and poetry trail, led by poets Charlene Shepherdson, Christine Chia, Chua Poh Leng, Manickavasagan Ashmita and Shivram Gopinath. From scars to nostalgia and spirituality, delve into the artwork topics and themes through live readings of multilingual poetry, written in response to the artworks.

This programme is co-curated with Poetry Festival Singapore and aims to promote poetry and literary excellence in a multilingual, multicultural and multi-generational setting. Event Details

Featured artworks during the tour:

“An Exposition” by Hilmi Johandi 
“Pragmatic Prayers for the Kala at the Threshold” by Zarina Muhammad
“The scars that write us” by Yanyun Chen
“Soil Works” by Debbie Ding
“sft crsh ctrl” by Weixin Quek Chong

Featured poets during the tour:

Chua Poh Leng
蔡宝龙 Chua Poh Leng (Born 1964, Singapore) is Senior Lecturer with Fine Art Programme, School of Art and Design at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). He holds a MA in Art Education from University of Central England in Birmingham, UK, a MA in Buddhism from Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka. He began his artistic journey as an ink painter. He had participated in the 27th & 31st International Snow Sculpture Competitions in Quebec, Canada. Recent exhibition include the 2017 Taipei International Ink Painting Exhibition at National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taiwan. 

Christine Chia (Yueh Chin)
Christine Chia is the author of The Law of Second Marriages and its sequel Separation: a history. She is also the co-editor of the groundbreaking poetry anthologies A Luxury We Cannot Afford, A Luxury We Must Afford and Lines, Spark, Code. Her work has appeared in Washington Square Review, Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Unfree Verse, The Arts House and the W!ld Rice play Another Country.

Charlene Shepherdson
Charlene Shepherdson is a poet who uses language in written, performative and visual forms to bridge communities and empower voices. Her words have been published in anthologies by Ethos Books, Math Paper Press, World Scientific Publishing and University of the Philippines Press, including From Walden to Woodlands and A Luxury We Cannot Afford. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary project combining text with textiles.

Shivram Gopinath
Shivram Gopinath is a writer and spoken word performer. His poetry has been heard at the Singapore Writers Festival, Singapore Heritage Fest, Lit Up Festival, Neon Lights and more. His most recent work is Mein Shaayar to Nahin (I Am Not A Poet) - a collaborative project that combines spoken word and music from Tamil and Hindi cinema as a way of exploring the Indian experience in Singapore. He conducts poetry workshops structured around identity and community at the Haque Centre of Acting and Creativity, and is the 2015 and 2016 Singapore National Poetry Slam champion.

Ashmitha Manickavasagan
Manickavasagan Ashmitha is currently studying in Methodist Girls' Secondary School. She likes to write Tamil poems as a hobby and has joined many Tamil competitions since young. She finds joy in expressing her deepest thoughts and emotions through poetry as it is a platform that she can use to communicate her feelings to people around her without restricting herself. Through her poem, she hopes to voice out the opinions and the different perspectives of Yanyun Chen's artwork

President’s Young Talents Exhibition
Ongoing from now till 27 January 2019 at SAM at 8Q. Free for Singaporeans & PRs. Ticketing charges for Non-Singaporeans apply. Museum opening timings apply.

Cover image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.