First week of Term 2

After a morning of domesticity, and discovering that I had left a drawer fully of clothes in Australia, I met up with June and Joy to visit Envision. ENVISION is part of iPreciation’s mission to promote, exhibit and integrate  public art in Asia. The exhibition trail starts from Arts House, Asian Civilisations Museum, Empress Place, The Fullerton Hotel, Clifford Square, The Fullerton Bay Hotel  and along the Marina Bay Boulevard.
The first display was an installation of 24 ‘ru’ stones in different shapes and sizes, weighing from 500 – 8000KG. These huge pieces of natural stones come from the sea bed, billions of year old lime stone corroded by the sea water. Each stone is inscribed with a simplified stroke of a Chinese calligraphic character that reinforces Chinese solar terms. The area was overrun by primary school students, with one particular group totally ignoring the pleas of their frustrated teacher. 

We then moved on to a series of bronze and stainless steel sculptures from the Living World Series, which aimed to capture everyday scenes of people coming together, playing and going about their daily lives.
 In the same area we found some giant saga seeds. Saga seeds are commonly found across Southeast Asia, sometimes they are called “love seeds” because of their vivid red colour and round heart-like shape. Continuing the 'giant' theme we also found some local myna birds!

My personal favourites were the set of Living World Series behind the Fullerton Hotel and the Javanese kebaya, the traditional women's blouse.The butterfly featured prominently on the sculpture as a brooch is a metaphor for change! 

One of my Favourites

Even without this temporary installation there are quite a few interesting sculptures in this area including the 'Window of Hope'.

Before our combined 'back to work' meeting on Wednesday I had lunch with Robert and Maria to hear about their holiday and to bring them up to speed regarding mum's progress. The good news was that early Thursday morning she was transported by air ambulance to Coffs where she will spend a period time in Rehab before they let her go home. I had arranged to walk to Punggol Barat with Liiby on Friday morning but by the time I got home on Thursday I was feeling decidedly unwell so I cancelled before going to bed by 10.30...a first for me on a work night. By lunch time on Friday I was feeling a lot better so we rescheduled for 3.30. Being Good Friday we didn't have to work and it seemed a shame not to do something on our day off. Plans for a pre walk drink were abandoned due the enormous numbers of people and we were happy to escape the crowds. It was a hot and humid walk to an open area where were saw a variety of birds, but the definite highlight was a pin-tail whydah, a small songbird with a conspicuous pennant-like tail in breeding males. It is a resident breeding bird in most of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. You may well ask 'Since when is Singapore in the Sahara?' but the bird has obviously been released here and is breeding. We saw 2 males and at least 1 female, with both males competing for her attention. We, along with several camera toting locals, were treated to an elaborate courtship flight display, which included hovering over the female to display his tail. The species lays its eggs in other birds' nests especially the waxbills, which we also saw a number of. 

We ended our 1st week back at La Nona, a new venue in Holland Village. After a slow start with the service the night improved and could prove to be a place to revisit.

Siblings