Donald Moore and his wife, Joanna, helped build an arts and culture scene in Singapore and Malaya after the second World War. | COURTESY OF SUMI SAITOA pioneer in developing Singapore’s post-war arts and culture scene is finally getting the spotlight he deserves. A retrospective exhibition has been organised for Mr Donald Moore, a writer, publisher, theatre producer and co-owner of lifestyle-concept store Donald Moore Galleries.
The Arts House, with the help of book publisher Goh Eck Kheng, have put together some 80 artefacts — books, programme leaflets and Moore’s photographs — to tell the forgotten tale of a man who created a multi-million empire in Malaya by bringing in world-class acts like Mohammed Ali and publishing the first biography on Lee Kuan Yew. This all went bust 30 years later as Moore eventually went bankrupt and left for England with only £250 in his pocket.
The programme cover for the 1973 Muhammad Ali exhibition fight that Moore brought in. | DONALD MOORE COLLECTION, COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF SINGAPORE
Through his imprint “Donald Moore Press,” Moore printed many books on the arts and culture in Singapore and Malaya, including a “Background to Malaya Series” in the 1950s. This was written by various writers such as journalist Alex Josey and academic Wang Gungwu, who gave insights to the region via a range of topics such as its pre-history, education system and even the state of the fishing industry.
In the 1950s, Moore published the “Background to Malaya Series” (left) which featured various academics and writers expounding on different aspects of Malaya. They were the inspiration for the new exhibition’s flyer (right).
Below is a gallery of book covers published (or written) by Moore courtesy of Mr Lai Chee Kien who is also moderating a panel discussion this Thursday on this renaissance man and his contributions to Singapore’s arts and culture scene.
Readings in Malayan Economics (1961) by T.H. Silcock.
Chinese Festivals in Malaya (1958) by Dorothy Lo and Leon Comber
ajis Book of Malayan Nursery Rhymes (1956) by A.W. Hamilton. Illustrated by Nore Hamerton
Lee Kuan Yew (1971) by Alex Josey.
The Malay Dilemma (1970) by Mahathir bin Mohamad.
Gurkha (1970) by Robin Adshead
Malay Pantuns (1982) by A.W. Hamilton
Far East Agent (1953) by Donald Moore
Socialism in Asia (1957) by Alex Josey
Malayan Cookery Recipes (1964) by Lilian Lane
It may have become a popular art and design blog for many, but founder Yanda says his Singapore-based THEARTISTANDHISMODEL remains a personal diary that has helped the self-taught designer learn more his craft for close to a decade.
Designer Yanda trained his eye for design by starting a blog to catalogue creative work from around the world in 2005. | SHENTONISTA
“I started my blog nine years ago with a course mate in Ngee Ann Polytechnic where we were both studying Multimedia Computing . We wanted to learn about art and design, but couldn’t afford art or design books, so we started an online gallery to force ourselves to read these books and blogs about fashion, art and street wear.
Back then, I flipped a lot of books at the library and bookstores such as Kinokuniya and Basheer Graphic Books. If I found a work I like — from masters such as Picasso to fashion designers like Jun Takahashi — I’ll take down their name and go online to do more research. Initially, I wrote my opinions about the works, but it became a hassle, so now I cut and paste information instead.
I wanted to learn more about art and design after an internship interview. At that point, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had emailed a few studios without a portfolio and Manic Design was kind enough to ask me in. Obviously, I did not get it because I had nothing to show. After I left, I felt like a failure, but I wanted the experience of working in a creative agency so much. I told myself I needed to learn more about art and design, so I started the website.
The name, ‘THEARTISTANDHISMODEL,’ points to the fact that behind every artist is some model — be it subject matter, business model, mentor, or someone you really want to impress. It wasn’t meant to be a serious website, but I wanted to learn more so I kept blogging even after my partner left when he became busy with National Service.
I’ve learnt how to design by looking and commenting and critiquing via my blog. When I see something nice, I will find out what is nice about the work and what are the thought processes behind it. I will go deep down into the construction and materials of things I like. I learn a lot about design through this process, and I also find out more about myself from what I like. I can’t rationalize what I like — probably things that have more ideas and are more visual.
There wasn’t any clear transition from blogging to starting my design studio DONOTDESIGN, but the blog has helped me become a curator, giving me an eye to pick out stuff for exhibitions and for the Showcase section in The Design Society Journal.
While the website has become very popular today, I wasn’t assured that my blog was nice or good until a few people pointed it out — even Theseus Chan of WORK commented that I now had an authority to comment on what was nice or not. When I visited studios in London last year, many of them also said that I had good posts.
But I don’t care about all this. I still blog the same way. Up till today, I only blog about the things I like. I don’t blog for other people, I blog for myself. It’s become such a huge personal diary that it is my online archive whenever I need to reference something for my own designs.”
In the three years since S u p e r m a m a opened in 2011, it has expanded from a design retail store to an incubator for Singapore designers and designs as well. It recently re-opend its original store at Seah Street, which had been turned into a workspace for designers and artists for over a year. We spoke to S u p e r m a m a founder Edwin Low about the renewed vision for his store, and how it will stand out in an increasingly crowded market of Singapore design products.
A former design lecturer at Singapore Polytechnic, Edwin and his wife quit their jobs in 2011 to open S u p e r m a m a. | S u p e r m a m a
Why is Supermama@Seah Street re-opening as a store after it was turned into a residency space in November 2012?
We shifted our retail operations to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) after running our flagship store at Seah Street for two years. While the retail store at SAM creates a greater awareness to local and international audiences, I find the customer’s pace of interaction (people-people, people-object, people-space) within the shop pretty rushed. I kinda missed the pace in Seah St where customers literally slow down just by stepping into the shop — which creates a more intimate and natural setting to form conversations over the products we carry.
There is also a practical reason as we are transiting from the current shop space at SAM’s 8 Queen Street to the official SAM shop within the main building. We will be taking over the official SAM shop from September and re-opening Seah Street allow us to reframe our approach, and create a better retail/gallery experience before embarking on the next one.
How is the re-opened Supermama@Seah Street different? Previously, we ran it more like a select shop where we curated a range of labels within a space — a credible, but not exactly sustainable model for a shop. In the past year, we have gained significant access to many craft facilities in Japan and also created our own label, Democratic Society (DS). Currently, we are focused on presenting our labels and the maker’s production capabilities to our customers.
We have also retained the residency space, and I think it is pretty refreshing for customers to actually have a glimpse into the work studio of artists and designers.
Who has taken up residency in Supermama@Seah Street and what were some projects that have come out of it? So far, we’ve had Dawn Ng (artist), Olivia Lee (industrial designer), Melvin Ong (desinere), Tiffany Loy (parasol bags),Jotham Koh (photographer). Their projects include collaborations under our DS Label, e.g. Dawn created a collection of tea towels using fabric made with a textile company based in Nagoya, Japan. Melvin was one of the designers who took part in our “Singapore Icons” project, a collection of porcelain produced with a label in Arita, Japan. Tiffany did an exhibition on “textile embroidery machine,” while Jotham’s is currently presenting his first public work, “Craftsman,” for our re-opening.
You’ve been involved in creating Singapore design products for some time, beginning from “Singapore Souvenirs” (2009), a speculative proposal on what gifts from this city-state could be. Is the Democratic Society label you’ve started a successful implementation of these early ideas? How is it different?
For DS Label, it is strictly about stories (past or current) that can be communicated through objects. I’m intrigued by the study of material culture in our social context — I like the fact that objects which surround us are an extension of who we are, which ultimately defines us. For instance, I visited Arita, a porcelain town in Kyushu, Japan, and I was totally bemused by how a material — porcelain — plays such a huge role in defining the culture and lifestyle of the people living in the town. So for DS Label, I wanted to introduce a new material typography in Singapore and see the reaction to it. Can it be accepted? Can I create a new identity? Can this collection go into the daily lives of people? How would they fit in, etc.As industrial designers, it is only natural for us to want to create a label much like Muji, however, there is not much context for us to do so. Not until the Singapore Souvenirs (SS) project. I would say that the DS Label is a progression from SS. For SS, it was a pretty green attempt by a local design collective to create meaningful content, and many of the ideas were one-off, almost random, and across many mediums — which is probably the beauty of the project.
How have DS products been received by both Singaporeans and tourists? Are they selling well? Pretty overwhelming, I must say. As I wrote this reply, I met a customer who tore out the page with a writeup of our products from the Singapore Airline in-flight magazine to look for us. To be blunt, the DS Label is possibly the only label and collection of products I have in my shop that is commercially viable.
DS is not the only producer of Singapore design products these days. What differentiates your products from others? Personally, I find most producers still skimming the surface, mostly playing up on bold colours and nostalgia to sell. I think we can go beyond that.
Accompanying DS Label’s newest porcelain plate, “One Singapore,” is this booklet consisting of archival images from the National Archives of Singapore. The book is not for sale because of copyright restrictions but can be obtained when customers order the plate. | S U P E R M A M A
For DS Label, I think about longevity — both in its artistic direction and as a business model, which is why the tie-up with multi-generational craft facilities in Japan plays a vital role in the setup. We also spend considerable amount of time researching (sometimes with support from the National Archives of Singapore (NAS)) and communicating the rich content behind every artifact. Take our recently launched “OneSingapore” porcelain piece for example, we did not just provide a writeup on the icons, but worked closely with NAS to sift out archival images to create a story booklet that communicates the stories behind the icons — so much so that I have customers requesting to purchase the booklet too.
Another approach I take is to involve as many designers as possible. This is why I decided on the name “Democratic Society”, it is a label defined by many designers and artists. That is when the design language for the label become “democratised.” It’s a language owned by many people. With this, I can potentially reach out to a wider audience.
The DS model of applying concepts by Singapore designers on to Japanese crafted products seems to play to the strengths of both countries’ design capabilities. As an industrial designer yourself, do you think this is the best model forward for Singapore’s design industry or should we also develop made-in-Singapore products too? I think it differs from industry to industry. For an industry which involves years of training or requires a large amount of space, we have to take a collaborative approach. Porcelain is one such product type/ industry. The facility in Arita is so massive that it’ll not make sense (cents) to have it in Tokyo, let alone Singapore. However, if you are looking at a trade such as leather making, letter press, etc., then it makes sense to develop the capabilities of making in Singapore.
We do also need to look at production volume. Personally, I feel that it is good to develop artisanal facilities in Singapore.
You’ve run a business retailing Singapore design for three years now. What are some challenges and issues you continue to face? I do not want to sound pretentious, but I was completely dumbfounded by this question. I enjoyed what I do so much that I don’t see challenges as separate from the joy of running the business. I wish to say high rental cost blah blah… but these issues are not unique to my trade, everyone is facing the same thing, so it’s not exactly an issue when everyone is facing the same issue, isn’t it?
