Singapore Art Museum
5 Stars: Art Reflects on Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress is the Singapore Art Museum’s (SAM) salute to Singapore’s Golden Jubilee and the five stars on the Singapore flag, which represent universal humanist values.
In inviting and commissioning five art luminaries of the nation – Ho Tzu Nyen, Matthew Ngui, T.K. Sabapathy, Suzann Victor, and Zulkifle Mahmod – to ponder and respond to each of the values, SAM gives scope to these extraordinary Singaporeans, whose life-long commitment to art as a discipline is inimitable and exemplary. Through the creative and curatorial process, these abstract, intangible concepts are made manifest, and each unique artistic expression and presentation offers nuanced and layered interpretations of the nation’s core values, which resonate with Singapore’s multifaceted, complex identity. New ‘thought-spaces’ unfold: from one island nation’s conscious reflections on its ideals, we recognise the humanist foundations of today’s world.
Engaging with these 'big ideas' through contemporary art, the 5 Stars exhibition is curated to encourage diverse individuals and audiences to come together to contemplate what these shared human ideals mean in the present day, and how they might continue to help us envision our futures.
Ho Tzu Nyen
No Man (2015)
Matthew Ngui
Every Point of View (2015)
Suzann Victor
Bloodline of Peace (2015)
T.K. Sabapathy
Of Equal Measure (2015)
Zulkifle Mahmod
Raising Spirits and Restoring Souls (2015)
2015
fresnel lenses, blood and metal pins
Expansive in scope and in spirit, Bloodline of Peace brings together a diverse range of Singaporeans who are conjoined through the shared act of giving life’s most precious fluid: blood. Unfolding like a monumental quilt, the work comprises over 11,500 units created from more than 34,500 prismatic Fresnel lenses, a material that Victor first used in 1997. Now, in Bloodline of Peace, each segment holds and magnifies in its ‘heart’, a single drop of blood contributed by individuals representing Singapore’s key communities such as the armed forces, medicine, civil defence, the arts and the pioneer generation.
Blood is life, visceral, and when drawn by force, it implies brutality, pain, and death. Yet, when donated voluntarily, it is an act that saves the lives of loved ones—and strangers—during medical emergencies. Ultimately, the symbolically rich gift of blood signifies the utmost sacrifice for a fellow human being and for nation, and poignantly, peace—that most fragile of conditions—can oftentimes only be attained, upheld and protected through a willingness to make this highest sacrifice. In the artist’s words: “A transient state, ‘Peace’ is defined by absence – that of war and bloodshed. To be sustainable, commitment and preservation are necessary processes undertaken by civilians while armed and medical personnel are at the frontiers.”