The Art of Travel
Issue 7 29 September 2020
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Travellers' Tales: Sunset Cruise off Sentosa Island with the Royal Albatross. Critically acclaimed as Singapore's "Most Romantic Dining" experience. It's not sunset time for Singapore's resilient tourist industry. Read what Clara Lock had to say in the Straits Times about how we are finally cruising into tourism. Responsibly, of course. This issue of The Art of Travel - after six month's "voluntary hibernation" - is back with news, views and events, not only what's happening in Singapore, but what we know you'll love to hear from the world of art, crafts, books, films, culture and travel. There's more Travellers' Tales, so read on for all you're worth!
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It's Curtains - or - Curtain Calls? |
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We gave up. For a while. We've tried so hard to keep going. Telling everyone that the show much go on. But everything has come to a grinding halt. No art exhibitions No concerts. No plays. No musicals. No book launches. Not even a book shop or library to visit. Word is out. There's music in the air. And there are books to read. There are artists and writers to meet or at least communicate with. We're back after a 6 month's voluntary hibernation. Never isolated. Never short for words. - Ken Hickson
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Survival: All the World's a Stage |
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"All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts,
his acts being seven ages".
In the plague years in the 1660s, the theatres of London closed and Shakespeare was able to get on with some serious writing. Here's an interesting article in The Guardian speculating on all that. Now the theatres all over the world - West End, Broadway Sydney and Singapore - are all closed. This is the plague year of 2020. So can we expect playwrights, poets and authors of all sorts to come up with wonderful new creations at this time? Let's hope so. And we also hope that theatres everywhere are preparing to reopen. Can't wait! Thank goodness for Netflix and cinemas with films old and new. Like "All is True". Pictured above is Kenneth Branagh as Shakespeare and Judy Dench as Anne Hathaway in the film. What's on in the West End these days?
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F-B-Eye over Dili: “The Sail” is the destination rooftop bar of the Hilton Hotel Dili, Timor Leste. Perched on top of one of Dili’s tallest buildings, it's clearly a viewing feature when flying into Dili. Taking inspiration from passing ships out at sea, the central spine comprises of overlapping stretched white canopies, like the sails of a ship. It’s the work of Singapore design team F-B-Eye.
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Singapore Heritage: Cavenagh Bridge is one of the three most historic and architecturally impressive bridges that span the Singapore River. Collectively, they illustrate Singapore's growth as a trading port and flourishing city. Located at the historic mouth of the Singapore River. Go to National Heritage Board for more.
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75th Anniversary Japanese Surrender Walk: This year, as we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, it is a good time to learn how it all came about and reflect on the many ways it impacted Singapore. Join Jane's Tours for a 2 hour WWII discovery walk from Beach Road, the Padang and Fort Canning. There's more from Jane's Tours.
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Seven Himalayan Dreams & Schemes |
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It all started on Netflix with an unscheduled encounter with the wonderful movie version of Seven Years in Tibet, made in 1997 and starring a young Brad Pitt. The book, published in 1953, by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, is based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951, before the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded the Himalayan country. Harrer and his companion, Peter Aufschnaiter, traveled across Tibet to Lhasa, the capital, where they spent several years. Harrer describes the contemporary Tibetan culture in detail, including his time as tutor and friend of the 14th Dalai Lama. Years later, the Dalai Lama praised the work: "Harrer has always been such a friend to Tibet. His most important contribution to our cause, his book, Seven Years in Tibet, introduced hundreds of thousands of people to my country." Pictured above is Heinrich Harrer with the Dalai Lama in Graz, Austria in October 2002.
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Then I looked again at Michael Buckley's Meltdown in Tibet and re-read a review by South China Morning Post's Ben Richardson. He said the book draws attention to potential environmental disasters: "Tibet's snowcapped peaks and glaciers hold the world's third-biggest store of fresh water, and are the source for river systems that sustain almost two billion people." Read this article by Michael Buckley in The Ecologist.
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The ‘Other’ Shangri-La is a work of narrative non-fiction based on Shivaji Das and his wife’s journey through the SinoTibetan frontier land of western Sichuan. It describes the rugged landscape of this region that comprises 7,000-metre-high mountains, deep gorges, vast grasslands and the world’s most dangerous roads. Singapore-based Shivaji got his publisher to provide me with a PDF copy, but print is always preferred.
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When discussing Tibet with Los Angeles Times correspondent Shashank Bengali, he said look out for Eat The Buddha by Barbara Demick. Geoff Dyer's review in the Financial Times described it as "intrepid reporting" on one town which "delivers a piercing portrait of a culture being destroyed by a paranoid and heavy-handed Beijing". Now I'm looking for "Himalaya: A Human History" by Ed Douglas.
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The Great Hill Stations of Asia by Barbara Crossette, has a substantial chapter on six of India’s’ “little European towns carved from rocky mountainsides or nestled in the meadows of high plateaus". In early 1997, Barbara Crossette set off on a journey of several months to see Asia anew through its great hill stations, I treasure the book, particularly because I've visited hill stations in four of the countries she writes about.
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Coronation Talkies by Susan Kurasawa, is set in a mythical hill station among the foothills of the Himalayas in India, where a small enclave of British expatriates cling to the glory of a fast-fading empire. Best known for her travel writing in The Australian newspaper, she has lived and worked in England, Japan and Australia. After almost thirty visits, she admits to an obsession with India. Susan is the author of seven non-fiction books; this is her first novel.
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Wood 4 Good: The Art of Sustainability |
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Music to my Ears!
Guitars appeal to our eyes as much as our ears. The most highly desired tone-woods are not only resonant and produce a good sound, but are also visually beautiful. (Pictured Maple Guitar from UnleavenedShred.) Some of the most dramatic figure wood is found in North American Maple that can also be sustainably produced. But as this blog from World Resources Institute shows, not all is clean and good in how some Maple is logged. The wood has also gained a reputation in the Pacific Northwest as “Meth Maple,” since drug addicts will cut trees from protected forests and sell them on the black market for a quick source of cash. Here's the first case where DNA fingerprinting of trees was used to match illegal logging activity, which led to the prosecution of the perpetrators under the US Lacey Act. Professor Andy Lowe of University of Adelaide tells the story of how Double Helix Tracking Technologies got involved in “The Case of the Meth Maple Guitar”.
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This work is among those exhibited by the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia, USA, shows an artist's love of wood and displays a rich variety of wood types. Processes are varied, too, including wood-turned vessels as well as more sculptural forms. Many celebrate the natural beauty of wood, evident in rich warm-brown tones and assorted grain patterns, typical of materials gathered around the globe. This exhibition is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation.
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The most fashionable oak by far for wine has been French, says Janis Robinson in FT Weekend (25 July 2020). "France’s oak forests, a national treasure, are managed by a special government agency and have long provided French coopers with reliable raw material for what became a massively lucrative business supplying ambitious wine producers around the globe with barrels that cost hundreds of dollars each." But France may be "over the barrel" for another reason, as climate change is already hurting France's position as world's best wine growing region.
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Botanic Art: For the latest stage in his 40-year-plus journey of beguiling creativity and international recognition, Walter Bailey is currently undertaking a commission for Kewʼs wild botanic garden at Wakehurst. Based in rural Sussex, one of the most wooded counties of lowland Britain, Bailey creates his artworks from locally sourced native woods, in a significant connection between artist and environment. Read the Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine for more stories like this.
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Solid wood: Good to see Singapore's wood craft company Roger&Sons getting recognition they deserve in the Straits Times - see Chantal Sajan's photo story in June "Breaking New Ground" and what she wrote earlier this month "Green design in the Hot Seat" I made sure they received a favourable mention in the story I did for PEFC which appeared in Panels & Furniture magazine in the May/June issue.
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Books, Booker & Book Festivals |
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A is for Asian Books Blog: We share this issue on “Hong Kong, Inside and Out: Two Guest Poets Write Home”. There's Nashua Gallagher, the Sri-Lankan born, Hong Kong-raised author of ‘All the Words a Stage’ (Chameleon Press, 2018) and Jennifer Wong with ‘Summer Cicadas’ (Chameleon Press), born and raised in Hong Kong. This blog also mentions Leung Rachel Ka Yin, a poet, writer and editor from Hong Kong and Louise Law Lok Man, a poet, writer, editor, translator, publisher and literary arts administrator based in Hong Kong.There's more.
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B is for Booker shortlist: With four writers of colour among its six authors, the shortlist, announced on earlier in September, is the most diverse line-up in the prize’s history. Four debut novelists – Diane Cook, Avni Doshi, Douglas Stuart and Brandon Taylor – are up against the acclaimed Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga, and the Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste for the £50,000 award. Read more.
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C is for Cybercrime: Imagine the world having US$6 trillion every year, without the need to borrow from future generations or dig into reserves. Imagine what the world could do with that money in its fight against the coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19. That’s how Hendrik J Troskie starts his book “The 4th Competitive Force for Good”. Read more in ABC Carbon Express.
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D is for Desserts, Design, Digital, all winners in the Singapore Book Awards, with top gong going to The Way of Kueh, Savouring and Saving Singapore’s Heritage Desserts by Christopher Tan (Epigram Books), winning the Illustrated Nonfiction class and the Book of the Year. For all winners, go here.
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E is for Epigram: Not enough to win book awards and keep publishing books in these constrained times, but the unstoppable Edmund Wee has made sure the wonderful Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop is open for one and all, with health and safety measures in place, of course. And loads of Singapore published books. There's always more at Epigram.
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F is for Farewell: To a real, live bookstore, but Books Actually is not going away for good. And with a bit of luck and good fortune – for Kenny Leck and us all - it will come back for real. Meantime, you can rely on a steady supply of books – as we have - with The One Straw Revolution and Obama’s latest. Go to Books Actually for a lot more.
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G is for Good News: For Linda Collins and her book Loss Adjustment, published by Awa Press, as well as Ethos, featured in the latest issue of Australian Women’s Weekly. Article by Jenny Brown. You might be able to see the article here.
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H is for Hamnet’s award winning author. Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, set in an England stalked by a plague that kills the young son of William Shakespeare, has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. We have the e-book, thanks to Penguin the publishers, but will read and review when we get our hands of the real thing! Meantime read what the Guardian has to say about it.
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I is for Intimacy. The theme of this year’s virtual - unfortunately! - Singapore Writers Festival from 30 October to 8 November. Difficult to get intimate with authors and books when it’s all remote, but at least we can sort-of meet featured authors, like China’s Cixin Liu and get his latest book The Three-body Problem. But, we must say, when other events are coming out of lock-down, it should be possible to have a hybrid event and be able to come face-to-face with authors at socially-distanced book signings! Read all about it.
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J is for Janis Birkeland’s new book: Net-Positive Design and Sustainable Urban Development. It explains why current theories and practices are not effective. It systematically dissects these failings and reverses their underlying concepts. "Each green building increases the problem," she says. Her book has the answers, as does her website. Sorry Janis it's taken so long to get this news out. Go to Net Positive Design.
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K is for Kazakstan: There are literally two books on, and from, Kazahkstan to read and review. Thanks to meeting with Malik Batyrbekov, first secretary of the Embassy in Singapore, by courtesy of Yelena Zemtsova. One is on contemporary Kazakh poetry and the other Prose, both with the works of many poets, authors and other writers arrayed. Translated into English, fortunately, for a leisurely read. Published in partnership with the Cambridge University Press.
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L is for Lockdown and what the Poet Laureate writes about: Like most first collections, Zoom! – no connection to the Zoom of today - was never intended as a manifesto, Simon Armitage writes, “political or literary, it was simply a portfolio of my interests and a product of my ability at the time. Looking back, I think two things: one, I wouldn’t change a word of it; and, two, I couldn’t have done it any other way”. There's more.
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M is for Meira Chand. A treasure. As author of many books, a board member of the National Arts Council – who always responds to emails! - and more recently a regular contributor of thought-provoking articles in the Straits Times. Like this gem on ageing: “Yet, it needs to be firmly pointed out that, apart from arthritis and creaking joints and whatever more we suffer, the aged have exclusive proprietorship of the world's most prized possession. Wisdom is the great gift age bestows upon us.” Go to her website for more.
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N is for Netflix. And while it can bring us a lot, according to Straits Times writer Rohit Brijnath, “Netflix can’t give me what the office can, a peek through the real window of others and this is what writers need. To see humans close up, observe them, listen.” You can read a lot more from Rohit - besides his sport reports – but you’re best to buy the paper to hold him in your hands! Try here for more of Rohit.
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O is for Olivia Ho: Who writes about the arts and books and authors more than anyone else in the Straits Times Life section. She’s also devoted a few valued column inches to “Weighing in on waste is the new normal”. Making the point that: “We had to be forced for our own good to work from home and to wear masks outdoors…..but now it’s the norm” If you’re lucky you can read it here.
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P is for Pandemics and books by Peter Doherty. The author shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996 and his 2013 book Pandemcs: What Everyone Needs to Know answers the major questions about pandemics, raised even before we encountered the current bout. He’s also written a few other very readable volumes – I have author-signed copies of two - The Light History of Hot Air and Sentinel Chickens. There’s more on pandemics here.
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Q is for Queensland where Mao’s Last Dancer – Li Cunxin – lives and works. The very real Chinese ballet star manages the Queensland Ballet Company in Brisbane. The book was brilliant and matched by the film a few years later. While the coronavirus has dancers, like all other artistic performers, very much off-stage, you can see what’s coming up at Australia’s West End.
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R is for Ranjani Rao, author of a Negative Space, collection of insightful short stories about Indians living within and outside India, facing life choices that bring them to a new understanding of themselves. She regularly appears in the Straits Times and we loved “A library visit that brought a twinge of sadness”. There's more to read of Ranjani here.
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Note from the Editor: S to Z - along with a lot more on books and authors - will come next time. |
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Travellers Tales: In Words & Images |
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Colombo Design Escapsulates Past Glories. The double-height reception area is on the 6th floor (of Amara Colombo) and it is here in the Gin Bar (pictured) that the influences of Sri Lanka’s colonial past come into view. FBEYE International designers - Warren Foster Brown and Marguerite Casey - have taken elements of British, Portuguese and Dutch architecture to create a design narrative that brings visitors through the ages of the Sri Lankan (formerly Ceylon) story and blends them with local flourishes, such as the vibrancy and charm of typical street markets to connect to contemporary culture. Read the rest by Sorcha O'Higgins in Top Hotel News.
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Indigenous Artist Wins Archibald Prize: Congratulations to Vincent Namatjira, the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize, for his portrait of Adam Goodes, Stand strong for who you are. The Archibald Prize, first awarded in 1921, is Australia’s favourite art award, and one of its most prestigious. Awarded to the best portrait painting, it’s a who’s who of Australian culture – from politicians to celebrities, sporting heroes to artists. The Archibald Prize finalists will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 10 January 2020. There's more.
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Planation & Palms: The recent redesign of Phinda Vlei Lodge - in Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa - has a strong, bold and vibrant story, which is very different to that of each of its sister lodges, but still retains a profound sense of place and relevance. Inspired by the lavish homesteads of the pineapple and sugarcane plantation barons that once dominated the surrounding landscape, the subtle hero of Vlei Lodge’s new look is the cheerful banana palm wallpaper. Read all about it.
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Passions of Paradise: Despite having to close temporarily due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cairns-based diving outfit Passions of Paradise couldn’t stop thinking about their local reef even though they had no customers. So they did what they do best: helped look after Mother Nature. Jeremy Torr has the story in Gaia Discovery. Passions of Paradise (PoP) dive operator partnered with another local operator Wavelength, to help out scientists from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), who were piloting a new coral nursery project. The company’s dive catamaran, Passions III, provided transport and a base for the UTS Coral Nurture Program.
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Planet or Plastic? Featuring the work of researchers, scientists and artists, the exhibition traces the history of plastic from its invention in the mid-1800s to present day where, seemingly everything is made of plastic. Planet or Plastic? explores the plastic pollution of our world’s oceans and uncovers how untold numbers of marine animals die each year from ingesting micro-plastics. The National Geographic exhibition at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands uses photographs as a means of making this urgent issue strikingly real. Now until March 2021.
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WIPO, Music Rights & Abba: The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Music Rights Awareness Foundation (MRAF) have joined forces. ABBA star Björn Ulvaeus welcomed the agreement with WIPO noting “I am grateful and proud that WIPO is supporting this endeavour and that we will work together to raise awareness and increase knowledge of intellectual property rights for creators worldwide through education and support programmes.
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A Film by Ai Weiwei: Coronation is a 2020 documentary film directed by Chinese activist Ai Weiwei. The film documents happenings in the Chinese city of Wuhan during the global COVID-19 pandemic, and how the country's government and citizens have responded to and been impacted by the outbreak. Ai directed the film remotely from Europe, with dozens of volunteers and paid crews covertly gathering footage inside hospitals, homes, and quarantine zones across China. You can find more here.
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The Art of Travel promotes TREADability:
Travel Responsibly for the Environment, Art & Dreams
It's free. Share with friends and colleagues.
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