Watch The First A&M Salon! The Past is in the Present

18 Mar

Dialogue with Alfian Sa’at, Sim Chi Yin, Dr. Ismail S. Talib and Robert Yeo
By A&M

A&M Salon is a regular gathering of creative individuals to talk about art at intersections with other disciplines. The first session, titled ‘The Past is in the Present’ is organised in partnership with Epigram Books. Taking the book ‘Robert Yeo at Eighty: A Celebration’ as its starting point, it focuses on the ways we remember the past through art and literature.

For this discussion, we are delighted to have Alfian Sa'at, writer, poet and playwright; Sim Chi Yin, photographer and artist; Ismail S. Talib, Professor, National University of Singapore and editor of 'Robert Yeo at Eighty: A Celebration'; and Robert Yeo, writer, poet and playwright. Watch our Youtube Live broadcast of the conversation here today at 6.30pm (GMT+8):

Reading List

The conversation includes many references to plays, artworks and literature books, and A&M has compiled a reading list for audiences to explore. Be sure to check out Alfian's recommendation of ‘Gemuk Girls’, a play written by Haresh Sharma in 2008, and Robert’s pick, Sonny Liew’s ‘The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye’, published in 2015! The full reading list is here, arranged according to their time of appearance in the first A&M Salon:

07:39 – Robert Yeo, ‘Routes’, 2011
08:18 – Robert Yeo, ‘The Singapore Trilogy’, 2001
09:28 – Sim Chi Yin, 'One Day We’ll Understand', 2015-present

12:28 – Tan Pin Pin, 'To Singapore, with Love', 2013
12:34 – Sonny Liew returning award from Creation Grant
14:15 – Alfian Sa’at, Faris Joraimi and Sai Siew Min, ‘Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History ’, 2021
14:43 – Alfian Sa’at, ‘Merdeka’, 2019
16:05 – Alfian Sa’at, ‘Hotel’, 2015
17:54 – Alfian Sa’at, ‘Tiger of Malaya’, 2018

22:43 – Robert Yeo, ‘The Eye of History’, staged in 1992
26:56 – Syed Hussein Alatas, ‘Thomas Stamford Raffles: Schemer or Reformer?’, 2020
27:02 – Tim Hannigan, ‘Raffles and the British Invasion of Java’, 2010
27:08 – Nadia H. Wright, ‘William Farquhar and Singapore: Stepping out from Raffles’ Shadow’, 2017

35:50 – Goh Poh Seng, ‘If We Dream Too Long’, 1972
35:54 – Robert Yeo, ‘The Adventures of Holden Heng’, 2011
36:32 – Ismail S. Talib, ‘'The Language of Postcolonial Literatures’, 2002
37:58 – Sim Chi Yin’s work at the Imperial War Museum
39:38 – Arrest of Kuo Pao Kun in 1976
39:42 – The Marxist Conspiracy
39:55 – The Catherine Lim Affair

40:56 – José Rizal, 'Noli Me Tangere', 1887
40:59 – Multatuli, 'Max Havelaar', 1860
41:27 – Alfian Sa’at, ‘Singapore You Are Not My Country’, 1998
44:08 – Catherine Lim, ‘The Great Affective Divide’, 1994
46:56 – Haresh Sharma, ‘Gemuk Girls’, 2008

50:58 – Suchen Christine Lim, ‘Fistful of Colours’, 1993
51:04 – Suchen Christine Lim, ‘A Bit of Earth’, 2009
51:26 – Lloyd Fernando, ‘Scorpion Orchid’, 2011
51:44 – Sonny Liew, ‘The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye’, 2015

Stay tuned for more sessions of A&M Salon!