What we’ve been up to
March 20, 2017Been a super busy last few weeks which saw us preparing for many events!
Conducted the last leg of our Lake to Land community project with the BoLA boys and Taman Jurong residents. Its been a year long project, kindly supported by People’s Association, National Arts Council, Taman Jurong CACC. We definitely couldn’t have done it without the coordination and good heart of the Zone C committee including Kim Leong, Gladys and Wee Liang; also Ashley and Elaine!
We started this project hoping to create a community art piece involving the residents as well as empowering the BoLA boys to become facilitators of the program. The idea was to paint impressions and/or memory of Jurong Lake Park onto huge pebbles, which would then be installed at a grass patch outside Taman Jurong Shopping Centre.
One and a half year on, this project is now complete and you can view it outside Taman Jurong Shopping Centre, near 7-11 & the mosque.
In March, we had the great honour and privilege to present commissioned teapot sets for the Tea Masters Cup Singapore held in Marina Bay Sands Expo hall. Exciting event with many tea experts, from Singapore and abroad coming together.
We also took part in Human Library Singapore the next afternoon. Despite the downpour, the event saw good attendance and we had a good time answering questions from other Singaporeans who were curious about life as an ex-convict. Participants had to reserve slots to speak with ‘books’ on topics they were interested about. It kind of felt like a mass interview session but always happy to share my experience with others. They had other pretty cool ‘books’ to check out too - like paralympian Theresa Goh, burn victim Sandhya, death penalty activist Kirsten Han etc. If you’d like to check out their next edition, you can always follow their facebook page.
Last event to cap off the busy few weeks was the Jurong Art & Music Festival (JAMFest) where we were invited to set up a Qi Pottery booth and conduct hand pinching workshop for festival attendees. Interested guests could sign up for slots to hand pinch their own wares. We then brought home all wares to bisque fire and for glazing. Few weeks later, all the wares would go back home to their rightful owners. Quite a lot of work to be done but I don’t think there’s anything like seeing your item come to life - from a ball of clay to a functional vessel!
Handmade items are severely underrated and under appreciated and it is only through experience and time committed into making your own wares that you will grow to understand the value of something handmade.
We’re also thankful for the waves of publicity & awareness articles and videos that have been making its way around social media. Going to compile them here for easy reference + keepsake. Go check them out if you haven’t and hopefully you will be inspired or come to realisation that when you cross the most difficult period of your life, life can be a beautiful too!
* Profiled on The A List - Singapore’s Art & Culture Guide
*Profiled on SkillsFuture SG
*Beautiful video produced by the Ministry of Home Affairs, as shared by Minister Shanmugan
