M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2008: Art & History
Call for Applications

"A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

- Walter Benjamin

 

What is the role of Art in relation to History? Is Art a rendition, an interpretation, a record amongst many other records? Art allows us to document and respond to history. It is our logbook of the chain of catastrophes and travesties of the past, which we can refer to as we are swept off into the future.

Art has been used as a powerful medium to record what one regards as history. In the process of creation, more often than not, our interpretation with history works as catharsis and release, and we discover more about our individual beings.

What is the role of history, then, as we continue to be buffeted and engulfed by the storm of progress? History does not necessarily reflect reality, but rather what we are to believe as real. History too is an interpretation. It is not cut and dried nor cast in stone. It is malleable and can be manipulated by whoever holds power to perpetuate control.

In this sense, history serves to document and educate, but it also provides us with raw materials that we can apply to our template of the present-day, i.e. a postmodern interpretation of what used to be modern.

History is not necessarily about the past. Time and time again, humanity has exposed its folly and hubris by repeating its previous mistakes. Hence, as we investigate the role of history and its dialogue with art, we are also compelled to deal and contrast with its antithesis: the future.

In exploring the role and fault lines of history, we are compelled to cast ourselves into the future too, and contemplate on the concept of utopia – is it a concept that is meaningful in these times?

The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2008 unearths the myriad perspectives on ART & HISTORY. We hope that you will join us in engaging with the theme and its diverse interpretations.

Find out more about the application process and download the application form at www.singaporefringe.com

 

To download the application form, please click here.

Find out more about the application process here.