What is the perceived value of a photograph in our current age? Has there been a time before ours when people generated and consumed images at such a rate and scale? It has become par for the course to capture and “curate” our lives, while also absorbing the lives of friends, acquaintances, and any number of heroes and celebrities, far out of reach. Social media is now a portal through which we clamber to escape mundanity, claw towards something ostensibly greater than ourselves. Simultaneously, we commodify and are commodified, scrolling and swiping away, for an illusion of connection and closeness to others. We try to ignore our stress, boredom, and disappointment by staring into our phone, while on the bus, up an escalator, rushing to our next appointment, or on our laptop as we wind down in bed. And if all this were not enough, high-definition images surround us, in every possible form and attack, in almost every pocket of life.
Surely, because of our fraught relationship with images, the challenge of the photographer is greater now than ever. I would imagine the viewer’s gaze is harder than ever to meaningfully disarm and engage. More difficult than ever to approach, lure, and secure. How can a professional photographer make a strong and lasting visual statement in a world that is spoilt by an interminable bombardment of visuals? What is worth capturing? What is worth sharing? How might a photo encourage a viewer to stop, think, and connect to the image in a meaningful way? In Drama Mama, Ngiap Heng refrains from saying too much with his images, but what he shares with us is vital. We are invited away from the noise and back to our sense of identity, community, and creativity.
These images, at first deceptively simple, consciously serve to disarm us, to slow us down. They introduce a warmth and calm that might hopefully welcome us into stillness and reflection. We are invited to look closely and carefully at others, in a way that we might too easily forget to do.
Ngiap Heng’s conversational portraits speak gently and affectionately, literally casting a light on local artists from various walks of life. Standing apart from his wide range of photographic works over the years, this new series is strikingly intimate and affectionate and completely unimposing. Drama Mama was generated casually, candidly, yet with great attention given to composition and a thoughtful use of light. Ngiap Heng’s portraits are made classic and timeless with their clear aim—to subtly honour fellow artists he admires and respects.
In this photo sequence, or salon, Ngiap Heng gives us a peek into close and colourful conversations. Each exchange is vastly different. Each relationship is uniquely cultivated over time. Ngiap Heng himself shares that these photos are mostly about conversations. They aim to eternalize the meetings between two or more creative souls taking time out to connect and share. The images are a reminder of the possibility of being present. Ngiap Heng invites us to see what he affectionately sees in his fellow artists: a sense of affection and admiration.
We witness both how Ngiap Heng sees his studio guests and how they see themselves. As hard as it might be for a subject to completely relax and be themself in a photo studio, Ngiap Heng sure does his best here. “Just be yourself,” he says to them. “Do whatever you like. Tell me about your life. Your fears and delights. Sing it or dance it if you feel like.” The trust and comfort captured in these images are not only witnesses to the nature of the studio sessions, but also to the camaraderie and connection that are nurtured over time between artists.
This collection is a testament to the fact that the Singapore narrative is far bigger and more colourful than we might otherwise let ourselves believe. The people here quietly represent a diverse creative landscape: the contemporary and the traditional, the educational and the political, the comforting and the uncomfortable, the sombre and the hilarious.
These monochrome portraits had me thinking about the visibility of the arts and arts professionals, or, perhaps, their lack of visibility. The life of the artist is not typically celebrated here in any significant way, at least not consistently. Our existence is relatively invisible, inconsequential, and sometimes inconvenient. Indeed, the collection includes some faces that might be more familiar to the average Singaporean: Kumar, Hossan Leong, Oon Shu An, and Siti Khalijah are among them. But many of the faces here will be unfamiliar to most. Ngiap Heng invites us to stop and meet them all. Sit with them for a moment and see what is in their eyes. He invites us to look closely.
Drama Mama is an organic record and affirmation of many artistic virtues and values. Here, we celebrate individuality, uniqueness, playfulness, spontaneity, and so much more. Bernice Lee’s and Andrew Lua’s respective silliness and adorable playfulness, Jalyn Shese’s excessiveness, Lim Yu-Beng’s intense pensiveness, Gey Pin’s deep, soulful joy. Evidently, Singapore is home to great diversity, a diversity that can be inconvenient but is warmly embraced in these photos. In their uniqueness, we are gently reminded of the beauty of being our own unique selves.
To survive and thrive as an artist in pragmatic Singapore is rather a miracle. Yet, the faces we see here are of some of our local heroes, Ngiap Heng’s fellow pilgrims, who have walked sometimes lonely and difficult paths, fought for ideals, and built legacies. We see outliers, mavericks, eccentrics, and sometimes iconoclasts. How easily we forget that we are home to many unique individuals! These souls help us tell a story with rich complexity, ask difficult questions, process uncomfortable feelings, reflect on matters beyond the mundane, and remind us of the endless richness of life. They remind us that within ourselves there is playfulness and creativity. A song, a dance, a story. This is somehow easily forgotten, too many times, as the mechanisms and forces of our meta-narrative of nation-building seem to forget the need to recognize and affirm creativity and uniqueness, with all its costliness and messiness. Life beyond the neat, convenient, efficient, predictable, and homogenous.
There is much more in life beyond the next meeting, the next meal, the next bill payment, or the next doctor’s visit. It’s as if Ngiap Heng wants us to stop and quietly thank these creative compatriots for all the heart and hard work they put into making beautiful things for the pleasure of others—for us to see the very beauty in them, simply as they are.
The line-up here is also an affectionate tribute to the diverse range of artistic development and achievement in Singapore: from ECNAD to Theatre OX; from the late Mrs Santha Bhaskar to our equally iconic and exceedingly irreverent Kumar; from homegrown artists to those from around the world who have made their homes here.
The systems and mechanisms surrounding a practice in the arts are often tough and laborious. A very small part of the work is the limelight or applause. Regulation and censorship, endless applications and reports to receive and maintain financial support, struggles to create and share work in a land-scarce city with a high cost of living—not to mention income insecurity and the lack of work-life balance. A great deal of an arts practice involves blood, sweat, and tears. Ngiap Heng, too, knows all too well about sacrificing for a cause. But in Drama Mama, we see artists away from the grind, simply relaxing, not on the job. They are just being. Being themselves.
The photos might also ask us what it means to be ourselves? Is performing ourselves in front of a camera a part of being ourselves? When are we performing and when are we not? Some of these images capture individuals seeming calm and in deep thought, unguarded; in others, a little more self-aware and performative. Who is to say, though, that when we consciously present an inner impulse to another, we are not being genuine? The viewer is invited to imagine what might have been happening as each snap was taken. At the same time, why Ngiap Heng handpicked these particular shots among the hundreds taken in each studio visit.
What does it mean to perform yourself, in a photograph or at all? How do I be both interesting and authentically myself? Ngiap Heng has been a friend for a long while now. We have teamed up on a bunch of projects and often chuckled and commiserated over coffee and wine. I’ve asked for his help a few times when I needed new headshots, and he has always done such fine work. My biggest struggles during those headshot sessions was how to groom myself to look as decent as possible, and how to give the least awkward smiles that show the least number of chins. So, when Ngiap Heng granted me the opportunity to sit for some Drama Mama portraits, I was not so sure what to expect or how to carry myself. If I recall correctly, I was quite awkward in the session—self-conscious, clumsy, and a little melancholic. I was totally unsure what to do with the personal items I had brought along with me. That was all me. And he captured it well.
The pandemic took costly tolls aplenty from all of us. Many in the arts were hit hard. How precious, then, that when restrictions shifted to allow small gatherings, Ngiap Heng took this opening to invite creative friends to sit with him, at a safe distance, in his studio. This photographic series is also a record and reflection of the pandemic, when so many of us endured various forms of isolation and loss. Many artists took it to heart that their profession had been labelled “non-essential,” by a newspaper survey of Singaporeans in 2020. In Drama Mama, Ngiap Heng attempts to reaffirm their value during a time when it was questioned.
There was a sense during Covid of stopping and taking stock, as we were all forced to ask ourselves what matters. This collective reflection surfaces in the photos, the artists’ recollections, and Ngiap Heng’s reminiscences, as he recalls his and his subjects’ journeys in life and in the arts.
The notion of “seeing” and “being seen” is spoken of a lot these days. Perhaps it is teetering on becoming one of the dismissible clichés of our age. But this sentiment must not be dismissed, least of all here. I like to think that these photos will remind us of the value of seeing and valuing those around us.
Ngiap Heng has always been a champion of the arts, but he has often played what might be considered a supporting role. He closely observes and appreciates the artistic practice of others, working to represent the best of their work in photographic form, either by documenting their creative processes or generating visuals for publicity or archival purposes. Increasingly, Ngiap Heng has taken firmer steps into prioritizing his own practice. I am excited by this. I see you, Ngiap Heng. And I look forward to you showing us so much more of what you see, in the way that only you can do.
