SINGAPORE: Two entertainment outlets at Sentosa Gateway were found to have breached licensing controls on Saturday (Mar 18) during a multi-agency operation led by the Clementi Police Division.

The operation, held in the wee hours of Saturday, saw six entertainment outlets along Sentosa Gateway checked for possible contraventions of public entertainment licensing conditions. Officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, Traffic Police and Central Narcotics Bureau supported the operation.              

The checks come nearly a week after a 35-year-old man was stabbed to death at St James Power Station at Sentosa Gateway. Five people have been arrested for the murder and four of them have been charged.

(Photo: Calvin Seah)

Police also conducted checks on 40 people and two people were arrested for using abusive language towards public servants.

Investigations against the two are ongoing, police said.

An enforcement operation against drink driving was also conducted at Telok Blangah Road. A total of 22 motorists were checked.

SINGAPORE — A new lawn and lookout deck in East Coast Park now offers East Coast residents additional space for recreational activities.

Located at the end of the Siglap Canal, the new facilities can accommodate standing capacity for 1,250 people. The enhancements were carried out under the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme by the Public Utilities Board (PUB), in tandem with the drainage upgrading for a 230m section of the Siglap Canal to the sea.

Improving the user experience was a consideration during the enhancement, with the cycling and footpaths realigned to connect to East Coast Park, the PUB announced in a press release on Saturday (March 18).

“ABC Waters @ Siglap Canal is an example of innovative use of space at our canals so that vibrant community focal points can be created for communities to gather and bond by the waters,” said PUB’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Mr Tan Nguan Sen.

This is the latest ABC Waters project at the downstream 230m section of the 3.2km-long Siglap Canal – from East Coast Parkway to the sea – and comes after two earlier projects to upgrade the upstream section.

In 2015, an upstream section of the Siglap Canal near the Kampong Kembangan Community Club (CC) was decked over to create an activity plaza for various community activities. Besides installing an upgraded covered linkway to provide connectivity options for nearby residents, upgrading works were also done at Telok Kurau Primary School to enable outdoor learning experiences for its students.

The new deck and lawn will be officially opened on Saturday evening by Member of Parliament for Marine Parade GRC Mr Edwin Tong.

As part of the opening ceremony, a mass yoga workout will be conducted. More than 500 people are also expected to turn up at the new hangout, where there will also be contemporary Malay-themed dance performances, organised by the National Arts Council in collaboration with People’s Association.

SINGAPORE: The newly revamped Sengkang Public Library has opened at Compass One Mall with a larger space and new features such as being the first library to have a dedicated space for those aged between 10 and 14.

It was officially opened by Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim on Saturday (Mar 18) after being closed for renovations since October 2015.

Now spanning two storeys, the library’s floor area of 2,141 sqm offers 18 per cent more space than the old facility. It also has more space for visitors to sit with 232 seats available, as well as customised spaces for teens and adults.

About 125,000 books, 300 magazine titles and 4,000 audio-visual items are on offer.

The Sengkang library’s design is inspired by the area’s history as a riverside port and fishing village, and takes reference from the shapes and colours of the coast.

CUSTOMISED SPACES
Based on feedback from about 500 regular library goers, the place is designed with the needs of various users in mind.

For example, the children’s area is segmented into different spaces and has an open concept storytelling area, equipped with an interactive projector. As for children aged six and below, the early literacy area includes parking areas for prams.

The tween zone, for those aged 10 to 14, is designed to support experiential learning and has flexible seating to facilitate group activities.

There are also programmes held every Friday, exploring subjects like comics, music and photography.

As for adults, there is a separate and well-insulated floor to enjoy a quieter reading environment. Eight multimedia stations are also available – an increase from the six previously.

For the first time, library visitors will get a chance to see how their returned books are sorted, as they are offered a look into the back room. A computerised system, known as the AutoSorter, mechanically separates returned items into specific categories for easy shelving by staff and service partners.

The machine also uses data analytics to identify popular titles for staff to place at the “Just Returned” shelves.  

SINGAPORE: Months after Singapore’s first all-vending machine café opened in Sengkang to much fanfare and public curiosity, two more are set to open their doors come April – this time at two public transport hubs.

The second and third VendCafes will be located at the Ang Mo Kio and Lakeside MRT stations.

Operator JR Vending had previously announced plans to open their unmanned cafés in Rivervale and Pasir Ris next month, but these were pushed back when the opportunity to work with SMRT came up, said the company.

“We wanted to try out the VendCafé concept in a more mass, fluid audience group,” said JR Group CEO and founder Jocelyn Chng. Residential estates by comparison have a more “captive audience”, she said.

The first VendCafé opened at Anchorvale Drive in August 2016, and drew long queues of those curious to try the three-minute hot meals dispensed by Chef In Box machines, such as claypot chicken rice, nasi briyani, salted egg yolk pasta and hor fun.

WATCH: Behind the scenes of your meal (2:12)

The idea for the vending machine café – an example of how to leverage technology in a manpower-lean F&B sector – was conceived by Ms Chng. She is featured in Monday’s (March 20) episode of Game Changers, a documentary about Singaporean entrepreneurs who shake up their industries.

Apart from detailing Ms Chng’s journey as an entrepreneur, the episode also reveals some interesting insights into what goes into vending machine meals.

IT TAKES A TEAM TO CREATE A DISH

JR Vending’s chefs come up with new dishes which are then tested by Ms Chng and her colleagues.

This is how serious the taste-testers are about their job: They sit in isolated booths and, after trying out the sample that appears through a hole in the wall, they rate the dish using detailed forms.

After a dish is developed, it’s sent for bacterial count tests, and a nutritionist weighs in on making it a more balanced meal such as by adding more protein-based ingredients.

“From research of the product till we launch the product, it will take us maybe two to three months,” said Ms Chng. A more complex dish could take up to six months.

FRESHNESS IS IMPORTANT

“We don’t add any preservatives or additives,” Ms Chng said.

To ensure that the dishes remain fresh when they pop out of the vending machines, after each batch of food is cooked, it gets sent to a blast-chilling machine to quickly bring down the temperature. This is to prevent bacteria growth, according to Ms Chng.

After this, individual portions are weighed out, sealed into trays and put in the freezer, ready to be sent out to more than 100 Chef In Box machines around Singapore.

REHEATING FOOD IS AN EXACT SCIENCE

Reheating a frozen meal is not just about popping it into a microwave and zapping it on high for a minute – in fact, every second matters.

“If the proportion is wrong, or the placing of ingredients is wrong, sometimes it may turn out to be not properly heated up or sometimes it may be over-cooked,” Ms Chng explained.

One of the more challenging dishes to heat up is hor fun, a stir-fried flat noodles dish, “because there are many different components” such as vegetables and prawns. She said: “It took us a while to understand the properties, the moisture, in order to come up with a perfect dish.”

Each Chef In Box machine has the capacity to heat up some 480 meals a day, if run continuously for 24 hours.

LOCATION MATTERS

While scouting for a location for the first VendCafé location, Ms Chng spotted an opportunity in Anchorvale.

“In the younger housing estates, there (aren’t) as many amenities as the more mature estates,” said Ms Chng, who set up the first café for “about a quarter million” dollars.

JR Vending plans to open two more cafes in Rivervale and Pasir Ris in mid-2017.

Meanwhile, Anchorvale’s younger residents are enjoying the convenience of having hot meals and freshly-squeezed orange juice close by.

A student who was buying food at the VendCafé at the void deck said: “If I want to buy from the hawker centre, I’ll have to cross the street. It’s more convenient for me to buy from here.”

With no lack of hawker centres, coffee shops and restaurants in food haven Singapore, Ms Chng is out to convince sceptics who wonder if vending machine meals are as good as the so-called real thing. “We have been educating the customers that all the food that comes out of the machines is actually ‘real food’,” she said.

And why does she bother? As a business, she said: “It’s change or be changed … The only way to remain very competitive is to be the trendsetter.”

Catch the story of Jocelyn Chng on Game Changers on Monday, March 20, 8pm SG/HK.

SINGAPORE: Bodybuilders and punks ready to do battle with water guns. Spiffy-looking generals whose heads are encrusted in shiny crystals. A fish with so-called communist leanings. A grandfather whose violent fate remains a mystery for years.

Images of these and more are part of a new show in Singapore that puts the spotlight on Indonesia’s most successful and innovative contemporary photography collective, Ruang MES 56.

Titled The History Of Boys: The MES 56 And Beyond, the show features works by members of the Jogjakarta-based group, as well as some of its peers. It will run until April 23 at container art space DECK in Prinsep Street.

The exhibition is the first in a series of shows looking at contemporary photography in various countries of Southeast Asia. And as DECK co-founder Gwen Lee explained, Ruang MES 56 represents the experimental spirit of the photography scene in Indonesia.

“When we talk about contemporary photography in general, we know very little from Southeast Asia. But it’s not a recent phenomenon in the region,” said Lee. “In Indonesia, for example, Ruang MES 56 has been pushing the medium for 15 years.”

Ruang MES 56 members (from left) Jim Allen Abel, Wimo Ambala Bayang, and Fajar Riyanto posing for the collective’s interactive photo studio work Cool And Famous. (Photo: Mayo Martin)

Founded in 2002 and named after the address of its first art space – the dormitory and mess of the Indonesian Air Force in Jogjakarta – its 17-strong members include established names in the country’s contemporary art scene such as Angki Purbandono, Jim Allen Abel and Wimo Ambala Bayang.

The latter recalled how the group banded together due to a lack of space for what they were doing. “We were not considered artists by visual artists but at the same time, we were also rejected by the photography scene because we were experimental,” said Bayang.

While some of Ruang MES 56’s members have previously exhibited in Singapore, the show at DECK, which was curated by Alexander Supartono, marks the first time the collective is being featured here.

The History Of Boys highlights a wide range of themes and topics that ask questions about Indonesian identity.

From Yaya Sung’s And To Never, Never Forget: Memorial Kamis Payung Hitam. (Photo: Mayo Martin)

On the gallery’s first floor, the country’s tumultuous political past resurface. While Purbandono’s stupa-like installation Cosmic Axis Memories features a kind of community-as-cosmology utopia filled with images of families and friends, other artists refer to the darker side of Indonesia.

Rangga Purbaya’s Stories Left Untold features archival photos and documents of the artist’s grandfather, who went missing during the anti-communist purge in 1965, where an estimated half a million to a million were killed.

From Rangga Purbaya’s Stories Left Untold. (Photo: Rangga Purbaya)

Next to it are two works by Yaya Sung, which look to a more recent turbulent moment in the country’s past, the May 1998 racial riots that also resulted in many deaths. Her photography series And To Never, Never Forget: Memorial Kamis Payung Hitam features portraits of students and activists who were killed or disappeared, dripping white paint partially obscuring their faces. Meanwhile, the accompanying video installation And To Never, Never Forget: Kitchen Notes, focuses on a mother cooking food for her dead son, who was also a victim that same year.

Meanwhile, on the second floor are less-politically loaded works that nonetheless continue to underscore how Indonesia’s communities are shaped and perceived.

A detail from one of the photos in Jim Allen Abel’s Board Of Generals series. (Photo: Jim Allen Abel)

Abel’s Board Of Generals series comprise portraits of Indonesian military and police generals, with their faces obscured by crystals, emphasizing the symbolic power of the uniforms.

Bayang, meanwhile, presents quirky photographs of different groups, such as female students from an Islamic high school or footballers, all of whom are holding water guns as if ready to defend themselves. The tongue-in-cheek humour is underscored by the series’ title The Dutch Are Already Near!, which playfully alludes to country’s colonial past.

But defining identities in the world’s largest archipelago is not as easy as one thinks – another work by Abel, an installation of images plastered on motorcycle rearview mirrors, symbolically reflects the colourful chaos of the country. The photos are snapshots of various incidents, from protests and accidents to commonplace images over the past five years as a kind of “diary … as the streets of Indonesia change through time,” said the artist.

A detail from Jim Allen Abel’s installation Motorcycle Diaries. (Photo: Mayo Martin)

Finally, another big change in Indonesian society – the effects of social media – is tackled in two of the more quirky works in the show.

The Story Of A Fish, by Indonesian photographer Agan Harahap, a close friend of the collective, asks questions about the gullibility of society in the age of social media. Last year, he created a fake news about a fish that supposedly had communist symbols on its scales. His Facebook post was shared 4,219 times.

A detail from Agan Harahap’s The Story Of A Fish, where the artist pokes fun at social media by claiming to find a fish with communist symbols on it. (Photo: Agan Harahap)

Also tackling social media is the collective’s Cool And Famous interactive installation, where they transform the third floor of DECK into a makeshift photo studio where people can take photos and upload them online.

From tackling pertinent issues about Indonesia’s recent past to examining where it stands today, The History Of Boys reveal how photography in the hands of Ruang MES 56 and its peers hold a mirror up to society with a knowing nod and a cheeky wink. 

From Wimo Ambala Bayang’s The Dutch Are Already Near! series. (Photo: Wimo Ambala Bayang)

SINGAPORE — Three years ago, Ms Jean Loo hit on a winning idea to combine photography, costume-making and every kid’s innate desire to be a superhero into a groundbreaking social initiative to inspire children here.

Those who took part in the project, called Superhero Me, imagined themselves as having special powers and made costumes corresponding to their alter-ego.

Last year, Ms Loo and her colleagues at community arts studio Logue extended the project to special education schools in an effort to prompt the public “to relook and rethink” how they look at children with special needs and physical disabilities.

Mohamed Aiman Bin Abdullah, as his alter ego “Burger Ham”, who makes burgers and fries for the hungry. Photo: Logue via Jean Loo

Now, the 33-year-old wants to bring children from mainstream and special needs schools together. Superheroes assemble, if you will.

And for that, she is turning to unfamiliar new territory: Music.

“Music is truly a language that transcends all our differences,” said Ms Loo.

“Project Infinitude” kicked off with a weekend percussive camp in November last year. Photo: Logue via Jean Loo

Her new initiative is a collaboration with Mr Wong Kah Chun, artistic director of the Asian Contemporary Ensemble, and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. Their aim is to bring children from mainstream and special needs schools together to learn how to play musical instruments.

Twenty children, aged five to 12, took part in the first session of the new “Project Infinitude” in November last year, a three-day workshop involving singing and rhythmic body percussion.

Since then, other sessions have seen the children attending the four-day Singapore International String Conference, rehearsals and performances of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, as well as weekly lessons on various musical instruments like the violin and cello with mentor musicians.

This will culminate in a performance on March 25 this year. Members of the public who are keen to attend the event can write in to hello@superherome.sg.

Sow Zixuan, 12, who attends the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore School (CPASS) and is wheelchair-bound, was one of the participants of the first session.

Sow Zixuan, who dressed up as superhero “Super Boccia Banana”. The inspiration behind her costume? A love for bananas and her dream of someday becoming a professional Boccia player. Photo: Logue via Jean Loo

Her mother, Ms Wendy Ang Bee See, 43, an accounts executive, said the programme has helped her daughter pick up a musical skill while interacting with new friends.

“Since young, Zixuan’s responses have been slower than others, so when she mixes with the mainstream children she can learn a lot more,” said Ms Ang. “It would be good (if there are more of such inclusive programmes). The children can understand each other and then there will be less of a disparity.”

Ms Nur Rafidah, a pre-school teacher and mother of 9-year-old twins Afeeq and Azeeq who are taking part in the project, agrees.

Twins Azeeq (left) and Afeeq, part of Superhero Me’s pioneer batch in 2014, posing as their alter egos “The Singing Tornado Boy” and “The Electro Claw Boy” respectively. Photos: Logue via Jean Loo

“Initially, they were (a bit apprehensive). But if an adult intervenes and say, ‘We are all the same. We are made different but we complete one another’, we can help these children (learn empathy) from young. It’s eye-opening for them,” added Ms Rafidah.

Meanwhile, Ms Loo, a former photojournalist, is already mulling plans to expand Superhero Me beyond music and craft making to including wood carving and even filmmaking sessions.

“In Singapore, we need more platforms where children — with and without special needs — can come together and interact and know each other. I think there’s a desire for the different groups of children to want to know each other. We hope to be the platform where that can happen,” she added.