Archipelago Dreaming
Dystopias are fashionable, utopias are out, it would seem, if we believe the evidence of our current literary, visual, and media culture. However, our ravages on the human and natural worlds are so well documented that the documentation outstrips what dystopian creators can imagine. All the more reason then to look back to earlier thinkers to see what they offer us as signposts, metaphors, for a more optimistic future. Thinkers who can turn our felt vulnerabilities into a source of hope and solidarity.
“The entire world is becoming an archipelago,” asserts the Martinican writer and philosopher Édouard Glissant, as we become ever more interconnected and interdependent. When cultures encounter one another, more often than not they assume imperialistic postures, although we dream instead of creolization. Glissant’s call for a change in our thinking remains vital: “we need archipelagic thinking, which is one that opens, one that confirms diversity — one that is not made to obtain unity, but rather a new kind of Relation. One that trembles — physically, geologically, mentally, spiritually — because it seeks the point, that utopian point, at which all the cultures of the world, all the imaginations of the world can meet and understand each other without being dispersed or lost.”
What kinds of writing answer that call? That counter the confining boundedness of ethno-nationalistic imaginations but do not play into the hands of global capital? What kinds of movement or development enrich all lives, and not just some at the expense of others? Guided by the festival theme “Archipelago Dreaming,” the 5th biennial Singapore Literature Festival in NYC poses these momentous questions and invites featured writers to answer them. The writers come from different archipelagos—Southeast Asian and Caribbean—and other parts of the world that may be productively reimagined as such.
Again the festival is bookended by a pair of important talks. In their Opening Address, Trinidadian-Scottish writer Anthony Vahni Capildeo draws wisdom from Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival for thinking about literary creativity. Singaporean media scholar Cherian George in his Closing Address considers why it is so difficult to develop norms for public discourse for a diverse planet. Between these two talks are author events that illuminate the various topics of translation, diaspora, poetics, gender, race, and class.
After a successful online edition in 2020, we are happy that the festival is back in person, but remembering the lessons of the COVID pandemic, we wish to include writers and audiences who are not in New York. Technology has given us the means to create online archipelagos, in which we are connected not so much by water as by the Internet. Specially commissioned by the festival, Singaporean artists ila and bani haykal present a provocative new video work, “Suap Lidah, or French Kiss,” for the online festival preview. Wherever you are, join translator-editors in the Philippines and the US for an exciting conversation on approaches to translation. And, a first for the festival, a live Zoom link connects spoken-word artists and audiences from two continents, Asia and America, in the event “Two Venues One Open Mic.”
To mount such a festival takes not only many hands, but also many hearts. We are immensely grateful to our co-presenters and sponsors for their support for our indie festival and their belief in the cross-cultural mission of Singapore Unbound. Many of our sponsors have been with us from the very beginning. Because of their steadfast generosity, festival events continue to be free and open to all. The work of Singapore Unbound is a testament to the power of acting concertedly across artificial borders.
More personally, I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to the festival organizing team. We have new people on the team this year, and I’ve been amazed by their idealism, dedication, and collaboration. Older team members are astonishing by virtue of their sustained commitment. Like all other Singapore Unbound’s programs, the festival is put together by volunteers, who have family and work responsibilities. We pride ourselves on our bottom-up approach to arts organizing, but I do not take lightly the sacrifices that the team, and their families, make. Thank you.
Here we are, at the festival. The door, actual or virtual, is open. Welcome to the 5th Singapore Literature Festival in NYC. We hope you will come in and make yourself at home.
Jee Leong Koh
Founder and Organizer, Singapore Unbound