FFF5 | One or Several Tigers

Singaporean Ho Tzu Nyen is a very special artist, who uses a variety of approaches to comment on his city’s history, on the way it is constructed, transmitted and how it eventually shapes our lives and perceptions. “One or Several Tigers”, a profound commentary on the history of Singapore, is the fifth and final work in a series drawing its subject matter from the Malayan Tiger – a very powerful symbol that dominates traditions, lore and religions throughout Southeast Asia. It is a multimedia installation, merging elements of Indonesian shadow puppetry, the cinema, and 3D animation, a contemporary palimpsest of different techniques of constructing the cinematic picture in East and West, which Ho Tzu Nyen uses ingeniously to condense complex narratives into dreamlike images.

The work refers to an imaginary incident of 1835, which initiates a ritualistic, musical and kinetic dialogue between the Tiger and George Drumgoole Coleman, the first Public Works Supervisor of the British colonial administration of India in Singapore. Also involved in the incident are some Indian convicts, exploited as cheap labour in the public works of British colonialism. If the Supervisor represents the ruthless reasoning of the conquerors, the Tiger represents the untameable powers of nature and life. Placed between the two dominant figures, the audience witnesses a hypnotic experience that breaks through the boundaries between human and animal, logic and magic, history and tradition.