TELL IT TO THE WALLS
16 January to 23 February 2023
ABOUT
What if the walls really had ears? And in turn, what if these walls could then speak? What happens when an artist creates a space for people to tell their stories? And what happens when listeners agree to support each other as witnesses to the stories being told?
Tell It To The Walls is a community storytelling performance art experience, developed through workshops, processes, performance, and installation conceptualised by Kamini Ramachandran. The project activates 136 GOETHE LAB as a space for participants and visitors to ‘speak to the walls’. This notion of telling, listening, collecting, and retelling stories will be explored in different ways and through multiple story circles and events held at the lab.
One of Kamini’s signature stories is ‘Tell it to the Walls’ – a traditional folktale from South India with universal themes. The story focuses on the supportive, respectful, and loving act of listening to another speak. When we find ourselves without engaged listeners, our ‘untold’ narratives and emotions remain contained within us (both physically and metaphorically), leading to an imbalance that seeks an outlet so we can recalibrate ourselves. As an experimental process and art experience, Tell It To The Walls becomes a progressive discovering of how ‘walls’—interior or physical, can be activated—whether softened, collapsed, bolstered, or perhaps reinforced, through the material means of installation, lighting, and spatial design to support the act of community storytelling and listening. Over time, these ‘walls’ will become embedded with the community’s stories, and finally, re-presented and retold by Kamini.
PUBLIC DAYS: Participatory Sessions, Workshops and Artists’ Sharing*
6 – 23 FEB
*For all events, email Valerie-Ann.Tan@goethe.de to register.
Please state the event, as well as your preferred date and timing.
All events are recommended for participants aged 15 and above.
Participatory sessions, limited to 6 per session:
Participants are invited to ‘Tell It To The Walls’, and will be guided by Kamini to enter the installation and activate it by ‘speaking to the walls’. Each session is accompanied by a short sharing and discussion of the project.
Monday 6 Feb
6:00pm – 6:45pm
7:00pm – 7:45pm
Tuesday 7 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
7:00pm – 7:45pm
Wednesday 8 Feb
4:00pm – 4:45pm
5:00pm – 5:45pm
Saturday 11 Feb
3:00pm – 3:45pm
4:00pm – 4:45pm
6:00pm – 6:45pm
Sunday 12 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
6:00pm – 6:45pm
Monday 13 Feb
6:00pm – 6:45pm
Tuesday 14 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
7:00pm – 7:45pm
Wednesday 15 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
7:00pm – 7:45pm
Thursday 16 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
Sunday 19 Feb
5:00pm – 5:45pm
6:00pm – 6:45pm
Workshops, limited to 6 per session:
Exploratory workshops with selected facilitators, that tap into storytelling through various mediums. Each workshop will then lead into a Participatory session. These workshops are fluid in nature and focus on each facilitator’s area of practice and how this complements storytelling.
Wednesday 8 Feb
7:00pm – 9:00pm Workshop ‘Finding Your Inner Voice’ Facilitated by Tzang Merwyn Tong, Filmmaker
Monday 13 Feb
2:30pm – 4:30pm Workshop ‘Our Rhythm’ Facilitated by Syed Ibrahim, Percussionist and Musician
Artists’ Sharing session with Kamini and Collaborators:
These Sharing sessions by Kamini and her collaborators will focus on the project, the nature of the collaboration, as well as discoveries made during their process. Participants are welcome to join the discussion.
Sunday 12 Feb, 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Sunday 19 Feb, 3:00pm – 4:00pm
*Email Valerie-Ann.Tan@goethe.de to register.
Please state the event, as well as your preferred date and timing.
All events are recommended for participants aged 15 and above.
THE ARTIST & COLLABORATORS
Kamini Ramachandran is an oral tradition practitioner who is also a teaching artist and creative producer. Stories and the act of storytelling build community and provide us with ways of being ourselves, and the means to understand others. Tell It To The Walls is Kamini’s exploration of installations and storytelling as performance art.
For ‘Tell It To The Walls’ Kamini collaborates with Razi Razak and Victor Emmanuel in exploring installations to support spoken stories.
Razi Razak is a multifaceted creative individual who is constantly looking to engage and challenge the sociality of life through work. Brand Ideologist, music promoter, art curator and creative disruptor.
Victor Emmanuel is a Singapore based artist who graduated in painting from LASALLE in 2015. His fascination with nature and the ephemeral manifests through visual forms employing both natural and industrial materials to represent a balance of coexistence.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
To facilitate a safe and open space for sharing, each session will begin with group briefings on permission to photograph/record/document; identification and anonymity; confidentiality and sharing of information.
To fully engage with the installation and to experience ‘Tell It To The Walls’ as the artist intended, we request that all participants enter the installation space without using their devices.
We request that participants are mindful of respecting our cultural and religious diversity when speaking.
There will be notetaking and audio-visual recordings during the session for Kamini’s research and internal archival purposes as part of her 136 Goethe Lab residency.
Selected participants may be asked for consent and permission to share their images/audio-visual clips on social media and/or other platforms.
THE SPACE
136 GOETHE LAB is a new project space at the Goethe-Institut Singapore. Housed in the former library and reading room, the space is intended as a response to the need for physical spaces for the arts, and an ongoing conversation with the public and arts community in Singapore.
Tell It To The Walls is supported as part of the open call for 136 GOETHE LAB, which invited applicants to activate the space with a group proposal.
IGs
@kaministoryteller
@tellittothewalls