I decided to go and have a look at Simon Birch’s (one of Hong Kong’s leading contemporary artists) new multimedia installation project.

This from the programme notes referring to that old chestnut Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’: “In Simon Birch’s intricate, labyrinthine installation project, Hope & Glory, [the] first step of the hero’s journey …. is enacted on myriad levels, across time and space. It is enacted when we step into the immersive environment of the installation; in the memories of wonder and fear that flash through us; in the spectacular collisions of history and imagination that implode around us; and in the multi-sensory pathways that lead us precariously towards the artist’s vision.”

I am so glad I didn’t read the programme before going around the space otherwise I would have had the raging hump (a technical term). As it was, my initial reaction was: “This is what would happen if a 13 year-old could graduate from art school.” Then something happened.

I started to have a reaction to everything I came across. In no particular order: uh?, ooh, bollocks (I inexplicably become foul-mouthed and indignant in contemporary art exhibitions), nonsense, great, shite (told you), cheeky, teenage bedroom, she’s nice, so’s that horse, awwww. Not deep insights, I’ll grant you. But reactions none the less.

More from the programme: “The paradox is that (like any circus) the physical materials from which this experience is created are mundane, of the present world: wood and paint, plastic and metal, computers and holograms. What this means, of course, is that the tools to transport ourselves are already here with us. We only need to understand and assemble them in a new way.” So …. there you have it: apparently you can make interesting things from stuff.

Back in the darkness, a fleet of Star Wars spacecraft was flying from a screen where a couple of blokes were amusing themselves in Halo over a skateboard half-pipe towards a white pile of rubbish surrounded by videos of people covered in balloons and foam blocks.

Many of the works (or “cells” as the programme would have it) were disarmingly personal about their influences – Star Wars, Superman, Halo. So I was surprised when I heard Birch talk about some of the thinking behind the work being a reflection on the hopes and eventual negativity of imperial dreams: Simon Birch talks about Hope and Glory.

In fact, there are supposedly three layers of inspiration – the Hero’s Journey, the hopes and negative impact of Empire, and Circuses (‘cos they were Victorian too). Sorry, I got the circus bit but the rest passed me by. Maybe I’m thick. Or maybe that’s the sort of thing you need to write in proposals to get a government grant for contemporary art these days.

Apart from the exhibits, what’s really interesting about the whole thing was the collaborative process involving around 100 people that it took to put it together. Birch gives you a blow-by-blow account of this at monkeymodified.blogspot.com

This is certainly a major art event for Hong Kong and deserves your support. And it’s not-for-profit. Go and have your own reactions.

It runs at Artistree, 1/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, Island East until 30th May. Open 10am to 8pm. Entry is free.

These four galleries on the subjects of Fashion, Film, Food and Photography are a delight. Each take a very different interpretive direction but share a commonly refreshing and visually stimulating approach.

‘Fashion – Shopping for Identity’ is characterised by colourful swathes of cloth as a backdrop to exploring the shifting identities of Singaporean women from the 1950s to 1970s. You can touch the fabrics and admire the intricacies of embroidery on a Kebaya.

Walking into the ‘Film & Wayang – Scripting a New Life’ you feel like you have wandered into your new favourite cinema. Comfortable sofas allow you to enjoy some iconic early films choreographed across three screens.

Beyond this area you can explore the connections with the development of Chinese opera and cinema as popular entertainment in Singapore.

Without resorting to pastiche or unrealistic recreations of street food stalls, ‘Food – Eating on the Street’ makes exploring Singaporean food fun. Working with the colonial interior, a series of large plinths carry mixed media about some of the favourite dishes of the city state and how to make them.

In the next room, you can explore the individual ingredients and spices that make Singapore cooking so special.

You can even sniff them.

The last of the four galleries – ‘Photography – Framing the Family’ – is by far the most emotive and once again proves the power of ordinary people’s stories.

A series of portraits greet you as you enter a stately room whose windows are draped with muslin – as if the owners of a country house have left for the winter. But you need to look behind the portraits (literally) to find out more.

Here, one screen per portrait focusses on a social aspect of Singapore’s social history. For instance, there is a lovely account of the challenges of an early interracial relationship between an Australian woman and a Singaporean man.

Another screen focusses on the ‘Black and White Amahs’ and one British man’s touching recollections of the woman who looked after him when he was a boy.

In the next room, you can explore the development of photography in Singapore and how it helped record family life.

All in all, the Singapore Living Galleries in themselves make visiting the National Museum of Singapore worthwhile and rewarding … and that’s even before you get to the cafe in the bright, expansive atrium, the museum shop and the Singapore History Gallery.

The National Museum of Singapore is at 93 Stanford Rd and is open 10am – 8pm daily. Admission is S$10 for adults and S$5 for seniors, children and students.

MuseumDesign.Asia was invited along to the opening of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s (V&A) Vivienne Westwood exhibition, A Life In Fashion (thanks to Fred of Sugar Design). Sponsored by Swire Properties the V&A (one of the world’s foremost art and design museums), the exhibition brings more than 140 dress and clothing designs of the high priestess of Punk, and 70 objects from the V&A collection, as well as Westwood’s personal archive.

According to Mr Stephan Spurr, Director and General Manager of Swire Properties, “This is the first time in Hong Kong that an exhibition has been dedicated to a globally influential fashion designer and in the hope that the general public will embrace this showcase of the lively, thought-provoking, unconventional and outrageously elegant, we are offering admission to the exhibition free of charge.”

Re-engineered into the exhibition space by Marc & Chantal Design, the exhibition is broadly divided into 2 zones – ‘The Early Years’ and ‘Maturity’ – organised under 26 themes, encompassing the designer’s works from the 1970’s to the 21st century. Artifacts include the iconic ‘Destroy’ T-shirt and the famous blue mock-croc platform shoes which Naomi Campbell wore when she fell on the catwalk in 1993.

It was great to see such a world-class showcase of design come to Hong Kong. Any fashion student could get a lifetime’s inspiration from this collection.

Almost as exciting was to see the ArtisTree space in Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, for the first time. It’s a space that deserves this calibre of event.

The V&A website has an excellent overview of the exhibition including 360 degree views. The exhibition continues until 31st January 2009 at ArtisTree, 3/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, Island East.

The 2nd Singapore Biennale 2008, which finished on 16th November, took ‘wonder’ as its theme this year. Following the success of the inaugural show in 2006 that included 95 artists and attracted over 883,000 visitors, this year was a more tightly curated affair with 66 artists and art collectives from more than 35 countries and regions – including an impressive smattering from Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Palestine. Spread over five venues, I was only able to visit one of the sites – City Hall.

This landmark building has been at the heart of Singapore both physically and politically since 1929. It was here that Admiral Mountbatten accepted the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, here that Singapore was proclaimed a city by Royal Charter in 1951, and it was here that Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew declared Singapore an independent republic in 1965. The City Hall itself is slated to become the National Art Gallery in 2013. For the moment, giant maggots roam the corridors.

It was rather endearing to wander around the former courtrooms and legal chambers being my own judge of the artwork that now occupied these somewhat musty but historic spaces. Some of it was distinctly art-schoolish, and some of it was extremely accomplished. Here are my own, very personal, highlights.

The large, rather formal, wood-panelled Chamber Room complete with coat of arms was the location for Wit Pimkanchanapong’s Singapore, 2008 installation. As a metaphor for nation-building, it allowed visitors to place their own mark using messages on stickers on a wall-to-wall Google Earth satellite image of Singapore. One couldn’t help wondering how this free-form of interaction with the city would go down if it was genuinely turned translated into real-life action.

In another darkened room, a book floating in a tank kept constantly in motion by invisible currents presented a memorable image. In the incomprehensibly titled Bachelor – The Dual Body, the artist Ki-bong Rhee “wanted the dream-like image to be dominant over the meaning or material.” A pity then that the catalogue entry goes on about the book being Wittgenstein and that “perhaps it shows Europe, with its ideological history, is bewildered about the future,” and other such claptrap.

Lee Yong Deok’s I‘m Not Expensive uses relief plasterwork within what appears to be a flat painted scene to create a Mona Lisa effect – certain elements follow you wherever you going in the room, changing perspective as if they were 3D objects (which of course they are).

Sergio Prego’s Black Monday presents an event (the explosion of a flare and the resulting smoke cloud) recorded from a 360 degree array of cameras. The resulting images are stitched together and accompanied by a disorientating electronic soundtrack and projected in the very room that the explosion took place. It was almost like watching a weather system developing. I liked the fact that when I was there an older lady got it first time when she said “Ooh look it was filmed here”.

Amongst all this earnest endeavour, it was nice to come across some humour in the form of knitwear. Taiwan-born E Chen makes everyday objects (if you can call a Vespa and a Toucan “everyday”) from woollen yarn. The knitted ivy growing up a lamppost was particularly effective. It was hard to resist the urge to touch the exhibits.

And so back to where we started with Desiree Dolron’s hauntingly arresting photographic images, reminding us of the continuing power of portraiture amongst the bells and whistles of contemporary art.

The Singapore Biennale deserves to be a success and, whether or not it achieves its aims of making art part of people’s lives in the resolutely staid city-state, it cannot be faulted for trying.