Supervised resistance: the sustained liminality of the 'queer space' in contemporary Singaporean art

• Main Author: Muhammad Khaizuran Bin Rashid
• Other Authors: Karin Oen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/166362
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Within the aesthetic domain, the notion of ‘queer art’ in the contemporary timeline carries with it the imperative that art as a singular practice may facilitate its emancipation. In this regard, the ‘queer space’ in contemporary art necessitates the existence of a physical and metaphysical arena, where LGBTQ artists may be furnished with the agency and autonomy to propagate and disseminate critical aesthetic expressions of queerness. In other words, the constitution of the ‘queer space’ in contemporary art may be delineated by the tangible and spiritual sites of veritable queer performance enacted by queer artists. Anchoring the dialogue in the Singaporean context, where LGBTQ rights, visibility and representation are infamously tenuous at best, queer artists based in and/or rooted in Singapore face a particularly alarming dilemma of constructing a truly autonomous ‘queer space’ for themselves within the nation’s contemporary art scene. Concomitantly, one is able to identify the national socio-cultural and political conditions that inhibit such an operative undertaking: Truly, the commencement of this thesis would arrive at an opportune juncture, considering the recent announcement of the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code within Singapore’s legislative compendium, though the latter would be accompanied with edification of traditional family values within the nation’s constitution and, by extension, the broader socio-cultural consciousness. This instance is a cogent exemplar of the nation’s unstable relationship with the notion of queerness, of which its acknowledgement and affirmation of a queer population is ultimately undermined by its conservative [and subliminally anti-queer] insistence. Within the domain of contemporary Singaporean art, the consequence of the aforementioned phenomenon is undoubtedly the fabrication of the condition that sanctions the impossibility of an adequately autonomous ‘queer space’, wherein queer artists are positioned within a sustained liminal space in the aesthetic performances of their varied gender-sexual identities. The performances enacted in this space are what I would refer to as ‘supervised aesthetic modes of queer resistance’, wherein in its enactment, one would witness the dissolution of a critical essence, which is arguably a fundamental agent in the constitution of an autonomous ‘queer space’ in arts practice. Thus, while the construction of an autonomous ‘queer space’ in contemporary Singaporean art may only be facilitated through the interrogation of the boundaries of the national strata, espoused by the State [i.e., the government], the relationship between the latter and the LGBTQ community in the nation has always been a rather complicated tripartite of suppression, erasure and ignorance. A truly critical ‘queer space’ in the domain of contemporary Singaporean art, in this regard, appears to be an inconceivable complex. In this regard, this thesis would identify the case studies of Brother Cane [1993] by Josef Ng and Cane [2012] by Loo Zihan to function as introductory anchors in the examination of the viability [or impracticability] of a veritable ‘queer space’ in contemporary Singaporean art. Through the assessment of the disparate treatments of the performing queer body in highly politicized and culturalized physical and metaphysical spaces in contemporary Singapore, this thesis aims to simultaneously affirm the preservation of the liminal ‘queer space’ in contemporary Singaporean art, as well as the faculty of the queer Singaporean artist in reconfiguring their aesthetic approaches in fabricating novel modes of queer deliverance within the spatial and spiritual limits of their enforced purgatory.