The Substation - History

History

The site of The Substation, as its name suggests, was previously a power sub-station. The building dates from 1926. In 1950 the Public Utilities Board added a garden to house outdoor equipment. The sub-station ended its operations in the late 1970s and the building was left vacant.

Throughout the 1980s, there was a consistent and unprecedented increase in government investment in the arts, an emergence of many art activities and capacities initiated by artists and art groups and a dramatic increase of global interest in the arts from Asia and Southeast Asia. Against such a backdrop, the Ministry of Community Development (which then included the arts and culture portfolio) explored ways to develop arts and culture in Singapore in the 1990s. In 1986, dramatist Kuo Pao Kun and Practice Performing Arts sent in a proposal for the conversion of the disused building to an arts center. It was accepted. Also in 1986, the building, together with the adjacent Tao Nan School (now the Peranakan Museum) and the shophouses along Armenian Street (now used by National Heritage Board), were earmarked for conservation under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Civic and Cultural Master Plan.

In 1989, the MCD officially invited Practice Performing Arts Centre Ltd to manage The Substation and put up funding of $1.07m for the building’s renovation. In June 1990, the interior fittings and equipment installation works were undertaken, and The Substation officially opened on 16 September 1990.

In the first five years of The Substation’s history, under the visionary artistic direction of founder Kuo Pao Kun, The Substation was a pioneer arts space in Singapore and was a site for experimentation of all the art forms, especially since there were so few spaces for the arts in that period, let alone spaces for the more experimental arts. Any of the artists who worked with The Substation in the early days were attempting things that were unprecedented in the history of modern arts and culture in Singapore. Even as a venue, The Substation had a significance back then that has since been superseded: then, up-and-coming groups like The Necessary Stage (TNS), one of the most prominent arts groups in Singapore today, staged their plays at The Substation’s Guinness Theatre or in the Garden. The Substation’s founding coincided with a burst of activity in Singapore such as the emergence of professional theatre companies, new writing in theatre, and a new generation of visual artists inspired by new practices and ideas promoted by artists and groups such as The Artists Village (TAV).

The first multi-disciplinary, thematic events were held at The Substation. This included The Tree Celebration, which featured installations, mime performances, theatre performances, readings, and Pao Kun’s “Memories” seasons, which explored tradition and heritage from a personal point of view, through art. The “Memories” seasons developed into The Substation’s annual festival SeptFest which was notable for the seminal arts conferences that brought together artists, critics, cultural commentators, civil society activists, and the public.

The Substation was part of a trend in the Singapore arts scene when "new" things were emerging. From the beginning, The Substation received critical acclaim because it gave instrumental support to independent artists and arts groups like Zai Kuning and Theatre Ox, opening up a space for such practices.The first arts conference held at The Substation in 1993, “Art vs Art” brought together many of Singapore’s important artists, academics, critics and arts administrators; members of the public were also key participants in this weekend event. The feeling among those who participated was that this bringing together of such diverse people to discuss the arts and the place of the arts in Singapore society was something new, and that it was a special moment in local arts history.

Under The Substation’s second artistic director T. Sasitharan, The Substation entered a more mature phase as an institution as it started the process of institution-building, as its management and financial systems were consolidated, and as the arts scene became more professional and government investment in arts and culture increased. Programs at The Substation were streamlined, international and regional networks expanded, and artists encouraged to develop rigor in their practices and approaches to art. Platforms started under Pao Kun’s leadership – Dance Space, Music Space, Raw Theatre – developed into important showcases for new artistic work in Singapore, through artist commissions. The Moving Images film programme was set up in 1997 with the aim of nurturing Singapore – and later, South East Asian – filmmakers and growing a regional film community. During this period, The Substation continued its support for independent artists by setting up an artist-in-residence programme in line with its original mission to persevering and supporting the development of independent artists into their maturity. However, The Substation faced considerable difficulty in supplying financial resources for the resident artists' stipends because what most funding bodies and corporate sponsors wanted to support was a final product not the process of experimentation that was a great part of The Substation's focus.

In line with an increasing global interest in "Asian" contemporary arts, The Substation continues to be crucial for Singapore arts and culture. It functions as an incubator of new artistic work, artistic practices, and artists and as a gathering point for the arts community the public. The Substation continues to be a place where young artists and arts groups can have their start and as a space for critical discussion that allows for experimentation. The next challenge for The Substation is to educate a new, young generation about The Substation and the value of maintaining this open space for diverse voices, languages, opinions, and artistic practices in Singapore.

“Pao Kun once said that ‘ideally, The Substation should be anything anyone wants it to be: open and flexible enough to do things his or her own way’. This is an alarming statement that seems to invite chaos! But it also represents an image of The Substation as a civic space, and recognizes that civic spaces can be messy. In rule-driven, results-oriented Singapore, The Substation reminds us that we have more than just material needs. The ideal of The Substation — as a public, open space as well as an experimental, contemporary arts centre — is the energy that drives this place. Above all, The Substation is about an ideal of freedom and civic expression, it is egalitarian but also insists on the intrinsic value of the artistic spirit and individualism…”

Audrey Wong, Artistic Co-director of The Substation (2000 – 2009)

“Unless artists are capable of grappling with the full and unmitigated force of the complications of history, the dilemmas of modernity, the complexities of life as it is lived collectively by men, women and children, they will never be capable of making great art … There can be no great art, no living culture, without great lives, at least lives lived not just expansively but also more deeply.”

T. Sasitharan, Artistic Director of The Substation (1995 – 2000)