Public engagements

<aside> <img src="/icons/conversation_gray.svg" alt="/icons/conversation_gray.svg" width="40px" /> At a glance: In the span of 2.5 months, we curated, co-organised, and supported 12 public workshops with our various collaborators**.** These workshops explored themes such as: our society’s relationship to space; personal and collective memory-making; grief and loss. Our socially-engaged practice gathered an organic network around us. An estimated more than 60 students, public servants, researchers, cultural workers, and/or simply folks who were invested in practising co-learning and active citizenry accompanied us in our learning journeys.

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Full list of workshops:

“Situations”

This series of workshops, titled “Situations”, were the first of our public engagements. We hoped to activate Peace Centre as a space for learning, inquiry, community and creative expression. While primarily conceptualised and/or led by APPC members, we invited guests to collaborate and host teach-ins, themed sharings, and dialogue sessions. Situations sessions were held either in our own APPC unit at #03-20, or in borrowed spaces. such as other tenants’ units.

Situations #2: “What do we do with our nostalgia?”

Held over 2 Saturdays by Esther & Ethel (of APPC), this workshop sought to dive into a discussion of our individual and collective experiences of nostalgia. The first workshop was a teach-in and discussion that summarises different critical critiques and theories surrounding nostalgia. The second workshop was moving towards collectively workshopping strategies on how we can move forward from, or with, our nostalgia.

Situations #3: a workshop about documentation?

Curated and facilitated by APPC Creative Resident Yi Qian in collaboration with Justin, curious member of our community, this workshop seeks to explore various definitions, methods, and discourses on documentation, as well as invite participation on how everyone approaches documentation in their own ways.

Situations #4: Come Leave in Peace

This is part of the final creative deliverable of Creative Resident, Mae Hweei , which invites participation from members of the public.
We Leave in Peace is an interactive installation that attempts to engage with the physical residues of Peace Centre's life, in conversation with our personal lives. Participants are invited to bring and leave behind any physical trinket that once (or still does) hold personal significance to them, but they would like to/need to move on from.

Situations #5: A community tour; perspectives from the temporary (final) inhabitants of Peace Centre

Curated and led by APPC Creative Resident Terence , this is an exploratory tour where participants learn about the layers of history behind Peace Centre and its surrounding neighbourhood. Together, participants discussed topics including the Singapore we want to identify with, heritage versus revitalisation, and how we can all individually contribute to civil society discourse and advocacy.

Situations #6: “they never say cannot what”

Creative Residents Ning & Gen facilitated a movement workshop. Building on Peace Centre’s particular social and physical environment in the past few months as a basis for exploration on impulses and social acceptability, participants will be guided to engage with and notice the space in alternative ways.

Collaborations

Situations #1: “If we repurposed old malls, I’d want to see…”

A casual teach-in with urbanist, researcher and educator Calvin Chua of Spatial Anatomy, facilitated by Ethel (of APPC), regarding research on strata malls in Singapore.

Situations: Nosedive

(Friend of APPC) Dawn, ethnographer who cares about the bonds between human, non-human and material, facilitated an explorative workshop that invites participants to engage with the sense of smell as “a way of knowing”. Hosted in an old mall that is about to close, this workshop seeks to intentionally (re)connect us with smells and the stories and nostalgia they evoke, as well as broader discussions about the politics of smell in the city.

Artist Sharing: The Architecture of Demolition

In conversation with Ethel (of APPC), artist and architect Akai shared about a series of works he has done over the last few years that puts the focus on the architecture of demolition in Singapore. This session centres also a “pop up exhibition” that Akai has installed in the unit opposite APPC. Together, they hope to open threads like: what does it say about our island, that buildings are being torn down and newer, taller buildings are erected in its place at breakneck speed? What does it say about our society that construction and demolition works are so ubiquitous and yet we never really pay them any attention?