focas: No 2

Admittedly, the attention we received after our launch in January may have as much to do with the lack of platforms for critical debate about art and society in Singapore, as it does with focas being a rather being kick-ass journal. A recurring concern - also voiced in this edition - is that debate among social critics, arts practitioners and activists is far too polite. There is a feeling that Singaporeans in particular are too fearful of offending people - friends, artists, the public or the government - to really debate the issues and positions. Of course, this situation is not exclusive to Singapore, but one inherent in small societies where everybody knows everybody else, and where everybody has a stake in cultivating the goodwill of everybody else...

[...]

... The trope of flora is put to different use in the final commentary, "The Fine Art of Gardening: a decade of nurturing the arts" by Susan Loh, Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing at the National Arts Council of Singapore (NAC). We have included a Commentary/Feedback section for input from our readers, which is either of current interest or that implicitly or explicitly responds to the contents of previous issues. In "A Censorship Manifesto" in focas No 1, Alfian bin Sa'at argues how, "Our garden city was created not so much by planting seeds but by weeding. It is interesting to note that the current Executive Director of the NAC was once a high ranking civil servant in the National Parks". Loh's commentary in this issue is not a direct response to Alfian. She is in fact writing about the many tangible achievements of the NAC over the last 10 years and about the philosophy behind these achievements. Nonetheless, her text situates itself in a long tradition of formulating political culture in horticultural metaphors. For a scent of what is to come, here is a quote from her essay by Brigadier General George Yeo, then Minister for Information and the Arts: "In tending this garden which is Singapore, we must not see all plants as healthy. In any garden, there are weeds whose growth we have to curb. Of course, we should not classify all plants, which we do not like, as weeds and get rid of them. If we do we will have a poor garden. The good gardener understands the inter-relationship of different plants and tends them for maximum effect. But neither should we take the other extreme view and think that there are no weeds in the arts, that all growths are natural, that nothing is good or bad. That is the surest way to destroy our garden."

– Lucy Davis (Editor)

(Source: focas: No 2 introduction)