In less than 3 month I’m all charged up entertaining my dream café/ pub/ gallery/ with books, magazine, sneakers, posters, flyers etc,

onistudio

This year is a full and very pregnant year. I have plans for July to be the launch of my one and only CD documenting some of my old acoustics songs which I’ve been playing for the past 5 years. I’m organizing ‘Conference of the Birds” in April while March a gig with Chee Wai, Koichi and Leslie. These are all part of ONISTUDIO projects. I will have 3 exhibitions touring Bangkok and Fukuoka Japan in June and july. And the list goes really full and rather scary.

Besides all this I have been rather attached to some new friends who seem to be operating under the spirit of DIY culture. They are mostly musicians and half the age of mine… angry, kind, jovial, serious, ambitious and searching for direction in a creative lifestyle.

Yesterday I have a meeting with the Art house to talk about how ONISTUDIO and them can work together, then I saw some red writings on the wall.

After I had finished reading it surprised me that they’re an old friend Kuo Pao Kun’s words. After I read the first line I did not continue but I read it again and again and only after 7th time I continued reading it ends like this:

"I see this as the only possible future for us in Singapore; you have to find a process to temper yourself and you have to look beyond, to all the cultures and civilizations in the world”

The first line is

"I was thinking for quite a few years about how can we in Singapore, living quite comfortably, and more and more wealthily, how can we produce art?"

Once I heard a joke about Pao Kun something like he has been a little isolated and did not shave. When he went to the toilet one day somehow he noticed a mirror. Looking at the mirror he told himself

‘this man looks really familiar.’

While we were rehearsing Zero001 in 2000, I told him that the story is really funny and his reply was “Zai someday it will happen to you too” and I think this is the day it happened but with some differences. When I read the first line I thought the writing on the walls is mine.

I think that is what I have been asking myself since I started ONISTUDIO. There is some worry for me to think of artist operating with extreme consciousness (if not dependence) of grants and sponsors. Many I know are seemingly sucked up by the system willingly, thinking there isn’t any choice, it is impossible to function without support from the NAC or other institutions. While I agree that it’s a necessity, my point and worry remains

“How do we take care and protect our own process?”

Definitely what I realized through Pao Kun’s words is that I have to give these two years thinking positively as to how I can make some efforts working with younger or older people whose spirit I like and to work hard to present their work. I will propagate certain issues and most importantly about thinking small, independence and care for the process artists take in developing their works.

With this web, the journey for us has just begun. I hope you can truly understand this point of view which I believe is the most simplistic manner to bridge people from different practice in the arts, get the right attitude and support the local art scene, making it as vibrantly fearless.

Last night while I’m so drunk I thought of Anti-Bitching and Anti-Complain campaign.

Will that make life less exciting ?

Zai Kuning