A NATIONAL TREASURE

THE AVERAGE SINGAPOREAN REMEMBERS DR. ONG KENG SEN FOR DIRECTING THE POPULAR 1996 LOCAL FILM ARMY DAZE, BUT THE CULTURAL MEDALLION LAUREATE IS NOW PLAYING A HUGE PART IN FACILITATING OUR SOCIETY’S MATURATION IN ARTS, CULTURE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

- SUFFIAN HAKIM

YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL when you’re at a festival or event put together by Dr. Ong Keng Sen. My first one was at 2016’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), when I watched a double feature from Swiss filmmaker Milo Rau. The first film of the evening was The Moscow Trials, which documents the ‘show’ trial Rau himself held in 2013 in protest of the imprisonment of punk activists Pussy Riot — down to the moment actual Russian authorities stormed the immersive theatre experience and stopped it. The second was Hate Radio, which chronicles the role of the broadcasting station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines in generating racial hatred during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

The experience was, as you can tell, unabashedly political, but it was also a deep exploration of the human psyche, intellectually challenging, and, most importantly, it invites audience reaction and participation.

Dr. Ong, who was Festival Director of SIFA from 2014 to 2017, curates these experiences by entrenching the human being — both artist and audience — in the art. It has been his hallmark — you can see it in the initiatives he has put together through his theatre arts company T:>Works. Through T:>Works, the 2003 Cultural Medallion recipient has put together Per°Form Open Academy of Arts and Activations (POA) as its Artistic Director.