ming wong

ming wong's 'filem-filem-filem' project. "developed out of the artist's research into the pioneering multi-cultural film industry in pre-independence singapore. before cinemas existed in this part of the world, enterprising chinese businessmen would drive from one town to the next, testing their market by setting up temporary cinemas in tents in open fields, public halls or malay opera houses. if response was good, they would buy the hall or the plot of land and build a cinema...today, in the age of the 'multiplex', many of these stand-alone cinemas have either been demolished, or given a new lease of life as a church, supermarket, furniture store, department store, nightclub, restaurant, hotel, indoor swimming pool, ice-skating rink, snooker hall, 'entertainment centre', etc...the pictures of the cinemas in the exhibition are polaroids taken with a manual medium format camera...the polaroid was also developed around the same time as many of these cinemas, so the medium and subject are about the same age and both are becoming obsolete." see more here.

[all ming wong. from the series filem-filem-filem. 2008.]