This Art Project Wants To Buy Your Happy Memories
Without a doubt, one of the buzziest shows at Singapore Art Week this month will be Happy House curated by Tulika Ahuja and Eileen Chan. The former is the independent art consultant on everyone’s lips for her playful and thought-provoking interactive shows. The other is the beloved DJ who revolutionised our nightlife scene with her underground techno parties and laid the foundation for the project after leaving what was formerly her happy house. Here, Chan talks to us about the death of clubs, locals’ troubling relationship with happiness, and how she reclaimed the joy she found on the dance floor through art.
It all started with a random message accompanied by a smiley face-scrawled poster sent over Whatsapp early last month: “I hope this message finds you well. I’m working on a new project, Happy House, which is an ongoing study into the state of happiness in Singapore and want to understand why we have such a complicated relationship with happiness… We are doing an open call now to buy your happy memories for $1 each. Whether it’s a snapshot from a happier time or a compilation of many memories that have brought you joy, we want them!”
A call for your happy memories.
The sender indicated on screen: Eileen Chan aka DJ Cats On Crack. Pre-pandemic, Chan was the poster girl of underground nightlife here. Besides her infectious house and techno sets, she had co-founded The Council – operator of three cult clubs (Headquarters, Tuff Club and Somewhere) where bonds and beats matter more than the dress code or decor, as well as organiser of even grittier warehouse raves of legendary proportions. Nearly two years on and… she’s sending scam-like texts to people she had not seen since the onset of Covid?
READ MORE: The Must-See Highlights Of Singapore Art Week 2022
“We are presenting the first chapter of Happy House as part of Singapore Art Week (SAW) in January,” she explains after a convivial exchange of emoji greetings. A click on the link in her message takes one to the Instagram account @happyhouse.sg that’s part meme punctuated bulletin board, part social experiment with contributions from those who have shared photos or videos of fond times past for a buck. (One post reports that according to an index by the website Expensivity, the price of happiness in Singapore is around $5,150 monthly – “moderate” by regional standards.)
Artist Sean Kingstan submitted this snapshot outside a plane for Happy House. He said: "Happiness was finally being able to get back to work after ½ year of being grounded due to Covid."
From January 14 to 23, Happy House will also take physical form at Tanjong Pagar Distripark as part of SAW 2022 with a multimedia showcase displaying the works of 15 artists. Each had been tasked to respond to the question: What does happiness mean to you, or what makes you happy? The headliner is an experiential installation that pairs the digital artist Reza Hasni and electronic musician Kin Leonn up for the first time, and a preview (also shared over Whatsapp) teases that it will be nothing short of transportive.
READ MORE: A First Look At Singapore Art Museum’s New Tanjong Pagar Site
“We had to pivot into a snack bar; there were the constant changes to the regulations on social gatherings; and then the rule on no-music came, and I was done,” she explains during a face-to-face catch-up a week after she had texted.
A still of the motion graphic Kaleidoscope by artist Reza Hasni for Happy House.
“The one thing that had been keeping me alive was being able to at least choose the music that we played… My partner and I could not figure out a way to make things work together and nothing was happening creatively within the club space for me. I was very sad about leaving, but there was no reason for me to be there anymore.” The desolation that she had felt in the months after though was what would lead her onto her quest to “unpack happiness”, laying the foundation for Happy House, which is meant to be an ongoing project that “has no fixed shape or form”.
Here are excerpts from our interview.
You seem to peg much of happiness to music and the dance floor. Why is that so?
“I’ve always known that the act of sharing music – no matter what form it takes – brings joy: sending a mix tape to a friend; discovering a tune that I think a particular someone would like; DJ-ing… And to me, the dance floor is a sacred space where anyone can choose who they want to be for those few hours every night. When I was running the club, we would burn sage to reset the energy of the space daily before and after we open because I really believe that the dance floor is a place where there’s an exchange of energy; where people come to congregate as well as let go of their feelings.”
How did the pandemic and its regulations on nightlife affect you emotionally?
“I was very scared when news that entertainment venues had to shut came out (in March 2020)… I remember that the energy at the club the weekend before the stipulated date was palpable – as if whoever who came knew that it was going to be the last opportunity for them to dance for a while… And the months right after I had decided to leave the business were the darkest point in my life ever. I couldn’t get out of bed; I wasn’t eating; I just stayed in my room at home and was not really responding to people because I didn’t know how to unpack and describe how I was feeling. The pandemic has changed everybody’s lives, but some possibly more than others. I lost my entire routine and the only way in which I knew how to express myself and communicate with others.”
In retrospect, was it an issue that you found joy in work?
“Through this whole process of self-discovery, I have wondered how much of my identity was tied to the club. Pre-pandemic, we were doing quite well with three venues even though that was never part of the original plan. This however also meant that we had to function like a machine at times and I could not be as adventurous as compared to our earlier days when we tried everything because we had nothing to lose… That said, it is possible to find happiness at work. I think that people who have trouble associating the two lack passion and it’s a very big problem in Singapore. It’s not that I want to glorify being busy or hardworking, but in order to feel fulfilled and happy, you need a purpose in life. This can come in any form – it can be volunteer work; mentoring; anything at all. I was fortunate that my purpose was aligned with what I could call a career.”
How has venturing into the arts helped fill the void?
“I don’t know when exactly, but at some point, the switch in my head flicked. I went from focusing on what I had lost – the club, my career, my creative outlet – to what I had gained. I realised that deciding to leave the club business made room for new things and with this opportunity to reinvent myself, I can do all the things I said I wanted to do, but never could. This includes acting on the conversations I’ve had with Tulika about making the art scene here sustainable. We have so many good artists, but most don’t have the means to put on their own show or do anything of real impact… If you were to break everything that I’ve done to the core, what actually gives me the most joy is being able to connect with people and be of service to the community.”
Happy House is based on your attempt to understand your own happiness. What have you discovered so far?
“One thing I’ve realised is that so much of what I used to measure happiness came from the way we’re brought up in Singapore. You know the five Cs? It’s so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that it quietly influences all our choices and decisions. When I was in school, I made it a goal to earn a monthly pay of $5,000 by the time I was 25 – something about growing up here seems to make people attach lofty numbers to things. I didn’t achieve it, of course – not even when I started my own business – and it did make me think that I was doing very poorly in life… That and that happiness is a skill that everybody can pick up because a lot of it has to do with perspective.”
What’s with your initiative soliciting “happy memories”?
“The National Arts Council had said that in order to secure a grant, Happy House needs a strong digital element. That got me thinking that instead of simply using Instagram as a form of communication, it could also be a digital vault in which people’s memories can live. Think of it as a memory bank that we can all scroll through months or even years from now like a time capsule. Through this journey of figuring out my own happiness, I found myself constantly going back to my past, and even if what used to make me happy no longer does, there’s a sense of nostalgia and power to that memory. This digital vault is an attempt to preserve these moments… I also think that to move forward, we need to look back and understand what has happened before.
What do you ultimately hope to achieve with Happy House?
“The goal is very simple. If we can even get people thinking about their own happiness and start a conversation with maybe that one friend whom they go to see the exhibition with, I think we would have already achieved something... I’ve come to realise that there’s so much power in being able to share.”
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
A version of this article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2022 Art & Music: The Analogue Edition of FEMALE