Autogenous Culture as Political Form: An Investigation Through Participatory Art with Communities in Singapore

By Felicia Low

In Singapore, the discussion of all things community is highly sensitive and potentially provocative. Artists who work with communities risk being politicised for various identitarian purposes. This book presents an auto-ethnographical account of three participatory art projects conducted by the author, with the incarcerated in a governmental disciplinary centre, a Non-Governmental Organization that supports sex workers and three young women in an independent art project in Singapore. It proposes a concept of autogenous cultural practices, which are defined by life practices that neither rely on nor protest the influence of the state on the site of the body and everyday life. Instead autogenous cultural practices establish their own forms of life and measures of value that are in no way dictated by predetermined institutional forms of social life and engagement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781490778693

Felicia Low

Felicia Low has been a practicing visual artist since 1999. Her projects have mostly been community specific as she works collaboratively with different sectors of society. Felicia is the founding director of Community Cultural Development (Singapore), which aims to provide a critical discursive platform for artistic practices that engage with communities in the region. She has a PhD in cultural studies in Asia. Her area of research focuses on the politics of visual art practices with subaltern communities in Singapore.

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© Copyright 2016 Felicia Low.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7868-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7869-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016918956

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Setting the Singapore Scene

Chapter 2: Participatory Art in a government institution

Chapter 3 Participatory Art With a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)

Chapter 4: The Independent Art Project

Chapter 5 Engaging Autogenous Cultural Practices Through Art

Bibliography

List of Images

Plate 2.1: Paintings displayed at public art show.

Plate 2.2: Writing on light box displayed at public art show.

Plate 2.3: Pot displayed at public art show.

Plate 2.4: Display of artwork at public art show.

Plate 3.1: Lee’s representation of sex worker Tarnie (pseudonym) in ceramics.

Plate 3.2: Lee’s representation of sex worker Tarnie (pseudonym) in writing.

Plate 3.3: Ling’s representation of sex worker Ann (pseudonym) in ceramics.

Plate 3.4: Ling’s representation of sex worker Ann (pseudonym) in writing.

Plate 3.5: Goh’s representation of sex worker Salmiya (pseudonym) in ceramics.

Plate 3.6: Goh’s representation of sex worker Salmiya (pseudonym) in writing.

Plate 3.7: Ang’s representation of sex worker Sunshine (pseudonym) in ceramics.

Plate 3.8: Ang’s representation of sex worker Sunshine (pseudonym) in writing.

Plate 3.9: Examples of drawings, a brothel in Geylang and Little India against coloured backgrounds.

Plate 3.10: Light boxes made from drawings.

Plate 3.11: Project X corner at the end of the gallery, with the petition and information about Project X.

Plate 4.1: Cover page of ‘The School Never Asked’.

Plate 4.2: Page 9 of ‘The School Never Asked’.

Plate 4.3: Page 16 of ‘The School Never Asked’.

Plate 4.4: Page 23 of ‘The School Never Asked’.

List of Diagrams

Diagram 1: Applied diagram based on Grossberg’s diagram (2010:234) and its accompanying legend.

Acknowledgements and appreciation go to Associate Professor Tracey Skelton, Professor Chua Beng Huat and Associate Professor Daniel Goh of the National University of Singapore, for their belief and support that an artist would be able to do this.

Acknowledgements also go to Project X, The Substation, Joy Ho and Xiao Yan for their contribution and support towards the art projects carried out for this study.

Introduction

Culture and Cultural Studies

Culture does not settle easily into a fixed form. Through culture, everyday life can be brought to a state of equilibrium, a state of social rest, a state of harmony. Yet also through culture, social life has the potential to create unrest and innovate, bringing itself to a rebirth of fresh ideas, hybridized across time, ideologies and actions. This book aims to investigate culture as form, a malleable form that has willed itself to fixity, given itself over to transformation and surprised itself with new discoveries. It puts forward the concept of autogenous cultural practices. The word ‘autogenous’ is related to ‘autonomism’, which refers to the movement towards autonomy. It is also related to the biological word ‘autonomic’, which refers to the part of the nervous system responsible for the control of breathing, circulation, digestion and other bodily functions not consciously directed, or in another words, are spontaneous self-generated actions. Autogenous cultural practices refer to body-everyday life (Grossberg 2010:234) practices that neither rely on nor protest the influence of the state on the site of the body and everyday life. Instead autogenous cultural practices establish their own forms of life that take its cue from everyday life transactions and exchanges, which no doubt are influenced by the state but in no way are dictated by predetermined forms of social life and engagement.

The definition of ‘culture’ in itself has been through much transformation, in response to the socio-political contexts of globalization and the state. It is useful to examine the original documents by Raymond Williams and Start Hall, to understand how culture, back in the 1960s were defined by the founders of Cultural Studies¹. Williams (1983:90) defines culture as firstly, an independent and abstract noun which describes a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development. Secondly, it is an independent and abstract noun, whether used generally or specifically, which indicates a particular way of life, whether a period, a group, or humanity in general. Thirdly, it is an independent and abstract noun which describes the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Williams asserts that the third definition, that of artistic activity, was influenced by the first definition, which lay out a path and point for intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development. He also denotes a complex relationship between general human development and a particular way of life, further suggesting that culture now refers to a complex of senses and a complex of argument about the relations between all three definitions of culture (1983:91). It is noteworthy that Williams, at the end of his article on culture emphasises a hostility towards definitions of culture that indicate a cultivated, superior way of life against a lesser version of popular culture (1983:92). This hostility takes into account general sentiments in the way people relate to their perceptions of varying ways of life and are particularly sensitive to hierarchical formulations. William’s article suggests that culture is something that is defined by the people and does not belong in the territory of high culture alone.

Tony Bennett (1998:90) in a critique of William’s definitions of culture, locates the importance of these definitions across the globe. From Australia, to Africa to the United Nations, culture is defined as a totality of human experiences and expressions, in another words, a totality of all ways of life and their associated artefacts of expression. In all of these statements, there is an implicit recognition of non-dominant cultures and an explicit demand that these ‘other’ ways of life be respected in their own right. While William’s definition of culture has contributed to global efforts aimed at recognizing cultural diversity, Bennett argues that his very definition has placed all ways of life under the scrutiny of policy. As a result, all ways of life, regardless of how high or low, big or small, now come under a field of cultural administration which use culture as a normative strategy of governance to effect a reformation of habits, beliefs, values – in short, of ways of life (1998:91).

Start Hall (1997:235) in his analysis of forms of regulation by culture, locates a form of regulation that regulates what kind of subjects we are. Hall asserts that culture is one of many technologies of self (Hall citing Foucault 1997:235) that effects change in a person’s behaviour through a process of self-regulation. This means of self-regulation is achieved by presenting individuals with new meanings and practices that are aligned to their own motivations and aspirations, thereby reforming and producing new subjectivities who reproduce and regulate within themselves the norms of a ‘way of life’. Hall does not delve into further details to explain the mechanics of how culture may come to produce self-regulated subjectivities. Much of Hall’s emphasis on culture remains in the realm of linguistics and semiotics, and Hall locates culture within every social activity, as every social activity and institution generates and requires its own distinctive ‘world’ of meanings and practices – its own culture (1997:225). The creation of meaning and its consequent practices, and the production of significance of the culture that surfaces form the ‘culture’ that Cultural Studies is interested in. Hall and the CCCS in Birmingham were in particular interested in notions of resistance through culture, investigating the possibilities of cultural revolutions through the ways of life of marginal social groups, such as working class lads in Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour (1977), or the Teds and Mods of Dick Hebdige’s Subculture (1979). The possibilities of resistance, in these cases, lie in the subversion of dominant modes of meaning created by the dominant class through the creation of new meanings and practices created by the oppressed. It was in excavating and presenting the cultural significance of these alternative ways of life that one could revolt against the assumed significance of the dominant classes, thereby creating a cultural revolution.

At the turn of the 21st century however, Bennett (1998, 2007) in his attempt to revive Cultural Studies suggests a different approach in understanding culture, outside of its now resistive norms. By focusing on the functioning of culture… as a means to act on the social (1998:92), Bennett aims to emphasize two points. Firstly, that culture, despite its potential resistive properties in the historical roots of Cultural Studies, is largely a normative concept that is used, extensively in cultural policies, to influence the social. The social, in this instance is defined in a modern liberal economy as the population in Malthusian terms (2007:94). Secondly, in attempting to prevent overpopulation, or an economically impotent population, culture has a developed a distinctively ‘governmental’ component, bringing with it a reformist disposition which doubtlessly now constitutes the cultural field (1998:92). Positioned as a normative concept, ‘culture’ can no longer rest on abstract and neutral linguistic or semiotic formulations. Moving on from the theories of the CCCS, the new norm of culture, asserts Bennett (2007:79), must take into consideration issues of governmentality in all ways of life and forms of expression, including the arts. Even in its resistive assertions of autonomy, these assertions are formulated in response to an initial position of governmentality. It is therefore the relationship, between culture, governmentality and the social that needs to be expounded, in order to further the pursuit of ‘culture’ in Cultural Studies.

From the above examples, ‘culture’ has been mostly defined within the actions of resistance or regulation which in turn give form to ways of life. The influence of both governmental regulation and forms of resistance to normative culture will be examined respectively through participatory art projects conducted with a group of sixteen incarcerated men and a non-governmental organisation who advocates for the rights for sex workers. Through a study of an independent participatory art project with three young women who were previous graduates of the Normal Technical stream, this book posits that a third definition of culture, that of autogenous cultural practices, exists outside of ‘state’ or ‘anti-state’ politics, escaping the boundaries of both regulative and resistive norms that have traditionally defined ‘culture’.

On a more theoretical note, Bennet (2012:227) suggests that Cultural Studies can no longer be defined along the lines of political divisions and movement. Instead, it needs to locate, engage with and explicate complex assemblages and networks coupled with equally complex demonstrations of agency through which cultural analysis and politics take form. In the following chapters I will explicate the institutional features of governmentality and non-governmentality that gives form to culture. I will subsequently move on to catch sight of a space ‘beyond governmentality’ and to ponder on whether such a space indeed does exist which in turn gives rise to forms of autogenous cultural practices.

Method

This study aims to unravel the politics of arts practices with communities, locating the problem-spaces and conjunctures that both the artist and community face within the power relations which contextualize the situatedness of each respective community. The contextualization of situatedness are located within three distinct areas: that of a regulated governmental context, that of a non-governmental context, and an independent context free of both governmental and non-governmental agendas. Three specific communities and the associated art projects I had carried out with them have been chosen for this study.

The first comprises of a group of 16 incarcerated men in Kellock Centre (KC)², a disciplinary centre. Art and drama sessions were conducted in KC over 2005 culminating in a public showcase of the artwork in 2006 at a local art gallery. The purpose of the art and drama sessions was to provide a space for the participants to explore their lives and to reflect upon their future. The series of art sessions carried out at KC had taken place years before I had embarked on writing this thesis. I had however kept the lesson plans, participant reflections, art show documentation and related newspaper articles that had emerged from this two year project. In locating a project that was specifically created and conducted within a governmental institution, I found the work at KC a suitable candidate for research scrutiny. In terms of the ‘margins of society’, the incarcerated occupy an extreme position of having failed to produce constructively for this country. Seen as a potentially destructive force, the state has had to intervene to involuntarily house them in a concerted and public effort at reforming their ‘wayward’ action. The act of incarceration was an act of placing them somewhere along the lines of mainstream productivity, in order for them to be ‘counted’ and accountable again. By situating the study in this extreme end, where the context was entirely defined by state police intervention and disciplinary measures, I would be able to examine how the community would come to present itself through the art, and how the authorities would come to represent them.

The research material from KC came from documents that presented the experience of having been part of the art and drama sessions over two years. They contained expressions of experience from myself in the form of my own reflective notes in designing and conducting the art sessions. Material was also obtained from a public art show that displayed artwork carried out my myself and fellow drama facilitators at the workshops. The newspaper articles contained testimonies which were indicative of an interview process carried out directly with the participants. The ensuing ethnographic impression of the KC experience was based on all of the above. Looking back, I can still hear the sound of the electronic steel gates opening and closing. I can still smell the men who had just taken a shower, entering into the tight space of the air-conditioned library to greet me. I can still remember the body positions we had to take, in making the art on the floor as we had no tables.

The second community comprised of 4 members of Project X, a non-governmental organization which supports the rights of local sex workers. The art project was conceptualized in 2012, for the purpose of this research thesis. An NGO was intentionally