In Peninsula Shopping Centre, A Safe Space For Independent Artists To Develop Their Practices
We speak to the co-founders of art incubator dblspce on the importance of independent artist-run spaces and where one ought to find them.
Started by the arts educators and creative practitioners Sabrina Koh and Kimberly Shen just under two years ago, the self-funded outfit dblspce exerts its independence in more ways than one. For starters, it offers a dual mentorship-meets-residency programme where artists can come in with budding ideas, and the duo helps unpack and shape these concepts over three to four weeks. Unlike most artist residencies that call for recipients to produce a minimum number of works by the end of the stint, the focus here remains on the creative process, with the artists deciding on the outcome.
Kimberly Shen (left) and Sab Koh (right) are the co-founders of dblspce.
There’s also the matter of its physical location: a cosy 322sq ft space on the second floor of Peninsula Shopping Centre. Retro strata malls have become increasingly popular among local art galleries and collectives in recent years. (The experimental I_S_L_A_N_D_S, which was first set up in the same mall in 2017 and then moved to Excelsior Shopping Centre in 2020, comes to mind. Ditto the latest edition of the Singapore International Photography Festival last September, which exhibited works in vacant units across Peace Centre.) Yet such set-ups remain a novelty and – in a city recently crowned the most expensive in the world – deepen the conversation about taking art out of the traditional white cube setting and into everyday spaces. Here, Koh and Shen tell us more.
For starters, how would you define dblspce to a layperson?
Sabrina Koh (SK): “We think of dblspce as an incubator for creative practices and for various communities to come together and experience art. We officially started programming in early February 2021.”
Kimberly Shen (KS): “We see dblspce as a place where artists can take a bit of a breather and think about what their practice means to them. And then, after spending a bit of time with us, they can go forth and do whatever they want to do... In Singapore, we take great pride in seeing shiny, finished products in a gallery or white cube space, but we’ve deliberately left our space very open and raw: So people can observe and see artistic processes in the making. This aspect has always been messy and hard to understand in art, but the uncertainty is part and parcel of the process... Since we started, we’ve had 15 residencies. And in those 15 residencies, we’ve had 26 artists and creative practitioners who have taken part.”
Walk us through dblspce’s mentorship-slash-residency programme. How does this two-prong concept work?
SK: “Each residency, we leave it open for the artists to interpret what they imagine a successful outcome could be. The popular outcome is usually an open studio where visitors can come and see what that artist’s journey has been during the residency. Some of the artists take it as a homecoming. Others have imagined it as a reading session with a poetry slam or a sit-down session with music taking the lead. Again, it goes back to the nature of the artist’s practice and what will be most meaningful for him or her.”
KS: “We make it a point to sit down with every applicant to review their proposal and what they seek to do... If the artist’s proposal is too set in stone or they already have an existing studio, we wonder if giving the spot to someone else with fewer resources would be more beneficial. We’re very open to interdisciplinary practices as well. We’ve had multiple artists from various fields, not just the visual arts. We’ve had art therapists, filmmakers and theatre practitioners.”
What was the draw of setting up in a strata mall like Peninsula Shopping Centre?
KS: “When deciding on our location, the kinds of communities that we are trying to reach out to was really important. Being situated here – directly opposite Peninsula Plaza (popularly known as Little Myanmar) – makes for a pretty interesting dynamic. One mall is frequented by locals, and the other by migrant communities. Even though they’re so close, there’s a sense of divide... Our intention for dblspce is to serve all kinds of communities.”
Has the existence of dblspce changed the mall?
KS: “How do you convince people that art doesn’t just belong in a museum or gallery? I think they need to come into it on their own so even having small daily encounters or understanding what an artist does is an achievement. We are right next to a Zumba studio – when its classes go on, our walls reverberate. We are as every day as you can get. One of the past tenants pointed out that all sorts of retail spaces exist here, and it got us thinking about what we’re offering to the person who comes to Peninsula Shopping Centre. I think the answer is culture... There was a co-residency shared among three young artists – Kar-men Cheng, Phoo Myet Che and Syahrul Anuar – that showed here last October and was particularly successful in engaging the community around us. The project was a fantasy photo booth (pictured), so they set up a green wall and invited tenants and passersby to share their fantasies. They next superimposed these fantasies into their portraits’ backgrounds and then printed them out as a keepsake... We would like to think that they revived some form of vibrancy and community in Peninsula Shopping Centre through their art.”
What other everyday spaces do you think art can be staged in?
SK: “Art should be able to take place anywhere.”
KS: “When the government approaches the idea of public art, it tends to be in places such as the void deck, but I think it shouldn’t be so orchestrated. This is something that’s always interested us: If there’s lesser or no intervention by institutional bodies, what could art be, and where can it happen?”
What projects can we expect from dblspce in 2023?
KS: “For Singapore Art Week this month, we are getting the artists of past residencies to come back for presentations. Each has been given an hour or so to come in and share what they did during their residencies.”
This article is adapted from a story that first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2023 Art & Music Edition of FEMALE