[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-noorlinah-mohamed-artistic-director-n-o-w-festival-of-women\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-noorlinah-mohamed-artistic-director-n-o-w-festival-of-women\/","headline":"In Conversation With: Noorlinah Mohamed, Artistic Director, N.O.W. Festival of Women","name":"In Conversation With: Noorlinah Mohamed, Artistic Director, N.O.W. Festival of Women","description":"Artistic Director, actress, teaching artist. Noorlinah Mohamed\u2019s list of accolades is a long one. As a stage, television and film actress, she has performed internationally in Asia, Europe, and in the US. Ms Noorlinah is also an arts educator, having co-founded the Singapore Drama Educators Association in 2002, a not-for-profit organisation promoting the practice of […]","datePublished":"2021-06-29","dateModified":"2022-04-15","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/Maisie%20Leong\/#Person","name":"Maisie Leong","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/Maisie%20Leong\/","identifier":227,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f5c852853ba8ed19bedc5417be7db8166064cfcb8857f5ec40bb516fab94b2d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f5c852853ba8ed19bedc5417be7db8166064cfcb8857f5ec40bb516fab94b2d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1624961426700_WhatsApp_Image_2021-06-29_at_17.14.14_1280x626.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1624961426700_WhatsApp_Image_2021-06-29_at_17.14.14_1280x626.jpg","height":626,"width":1280},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-noorlinah-mohamed-artistic-director-n-o-w-festival-of-women\/","about":["Features","In Conversation With","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":3221,"articleBody":"Artistic Director, actress, teaching artist. Noorlinah Mohamed\u2019s list of accolades is a long one. As a stage, television and film actress, she has performed internationally in Asia, Europe, and in the US. Ms Noorlinah is also an arts educator, having co-founded the Singapore Drama Educators Association in 2002, a not-for-profit organisation promoting the practice of drama and theatre performance and education, and was a part-time lecturer from 2000 to 2013.\u00a0In recognition of her significant contributions to the arts, Ms Noorlinah has been the recipient of various awards, including the JCCI Cultural Award (2008) and the Women’s Weekly Women of our Time Award (2005).She is also a consultant in arts pedagogy, having returned to Singapore in 2013 after pursuing a PhD in Arts Education at the University of Warwick.\u00a0The next four years saw her working with Ong Keng Sen, Festival Director of the Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA) from 2014 to 2017. During this period, she handled the publications, communications, marketing and engagement portfolios for the Festival, as well as helmed public engagement initiative The O.P.E.N. (Open, Participate, Enrich, Negotiate) as the Director.\u00a0\u201cIt was the latter that fueled my interest in curation,\u201d Ms Noorlinah reveals, adding that it was through SIFA that she had the opportunity to encounter artists from all over the world.\u00a0She cites South African artist Zanele Muholi, Iranian photojournalist Newsha Tavakolia, and Chilean playwright, director, scriptwriter and musician Manuela Infante as key sources of inspiration.\u00a0\u201cHow they connected their art with life, their desire to say and do something about the inequalities or injustices they see and experience, and their courage to do something about them and sometimes the repercussions they experience as a result of voicing out [their thoughts],\u201d she shares. \u201cTheir work, their minds, and them as people, moved me deeply.\u201dSouth African artist Zanele Muholi, who Noorlinah Mohamed says is one of her key sources of inspiration, at their exhibition Faces and Phases, which was presented at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2014. (Photo source: 72-13)Ms Noorlinah then embarked on a year-long sabbatical from the arts in 2018: \u201cI felt I was done, I had enough and I wanted to do other things with my life,\u201d she shares.\u00a0\u201cBut somehow the arts pulled me back.\u201dIt was in late 2018 that the Festival of Women: N.O.W. (not ordinary work) was conceptualised, after she was asked by T:>Works Artistic Director Dr Ong to contribute a piece to be presented at the independent performance company.\u00a0\u201cImmediately I offered him N.O.W. – the name came later,\u201d Ms Noorlinah recalls.\u00a0She adds that the name of the Festival was developed from a series of titles that were shared during a discussion over WhatsApp: \u201cWe had a discussion going on WhatsApp and the letters N.O.W. came out of a series of titles that were shared. I wanted a name that speaks of action, being current and connected to what is urgent and necessary.\u201d\u00a0Looking back, she believes that the Festival came at the right time. \u201c[It] was born out of consultation with the first group of collaborators and people involved in mounting the 2019 edition\u2026 The timing felt right because the support for it was present.\u201dThe Festival celebrates the alliances and solidarity between women through engagement, collaboration and dialogue. This year, Ms Noorlinah returns with the final iteration of the Festival, which focuses on the themes of taboo, fear and intimacy.\u00a0When asked if she would like to see the Festival continue, she states: \u201cAnthology series runs its course and is done. Artists initiate projects, an oeuvre, and over time the work evolves and a new trajectory takes place.\u201d\u00a0Besides, she also views the Festival as an artistic creation: \u201cI have projects I can do for another year or two. But do I HAVE to do them? No. I appreciate renewal. When N.O.W. ends, the space opens up for something else\u2026 When it goes, N.O.W. leaves behind capacity as legacy \u2013 not just content.\u201dMs Noorlinah reflects on her experiences with the Festival and shares her insights and the challenges of planning an all-digital programme.\u00a0(NOTE: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.)Noorlinah Mohamed:\u00a0 Live audience gave us immediate reciprocity. We didn\u2019t think digital could do the same. We grappled with the medium because it seemed less visceral. But one thing prevailed: Our resilience and desire to experiment, explore, and stay buoyant. There is much joy in creating. And we held on to that. And it is with that same spirit that we return with N.O.W.\u00a0TheHomeGround Asia: How have your experiences as a theatre actress and arts educator influenced your approach as an Artistic Director?I think many different experiences contribute to what, how and why I do what I do. What is exactly the work an Artistic Director does? From curating and establishing connections between collaborators and their programmes with another. How about managing a team and ensuring the operational cog runs smoothly? A large part of the work involves being invested and curious about the process of creation. How does an artist or collaborator think? What makes them pursue a particular theme or topic and build things from inchoate ideas? What is the inspiration or different inspirations that trigger their creative journey?\u00a0So a large part of the work relies on my curiosity. The desire to know more of things I don\u2019t know enough of. As well as the courage to move in spaces that may sometimes be uncomfortably challenging. Or to find myself in situations requiring re-thinking and re-imagining possibilities. I think it’s my predispositions \u2013 curiosity, accepting challenge, specific vision and ideas, connecting dots, imagining different possibilities \u2013 [that] draw me to the arts. Over the years, I stayed within the arts and [expanded] my horizons in different ways, from acting, to educating, to researching, to producing.Noorlinah Mohamed addressing the audience at the opening ceremony of the Festival of Women N.O.W. 2019. (Photo by Jeannie Ho, courtesy of T:>Works)THG: What has it been like planning a second all-digital iteration of the Festival? What lessons did you learn from 2020, and how have they informed this year’s event? Could you share some new challenges that you faced? How did you solve them? Overall, how has the experience evolved over the three years?We\u2019ve worked with multimedia before. But the main platform has always been the stage. But this time, the media is the stage. That took some getting used to. We were upended, untethered and unmoored. I spent one month researching and learning and then another month pitching the idea to the collaborators. Fortunately all collaborators (artists and non-artists alike \u2013 as N.O.W. feature trans-sectorial collaborations) were open. We embraced the digital because it was a means for T:>Works, myself, and everyone involved to continue doing the work.\u00a0What did we learn? A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS \u2013 firstly, we learnt to manage new technology. Zoom became ubiquitous. I knew of Zoom in 2017 when I was doing The O.P.E.N. as some collaborators preferred using Zoom rather than Skype. But never in my wildest imagination would I find myself using it every day, let alone for performances.\u00a0Secondly, we collaborated with technologists and players from the media industry, those who knew platforms and have services that we didn\u2019t think we would require. We lamented the loss of intimacy that \u2018live\u2019 theatre afforded us. We lamented the loss of the ritual of gathering that we were accustomed to.This time, my engagement with the digital is different. I am exploring new software. Most importantly, the collaborators and I aim to explore and experiment the digital as a site for creative imaginings and communality. A site within which we, audiences, creators, crafters, dreamers, fan the spirit of convivial gathering, and of being together within a shared digital space. Each livestreamed performance creates different environments for audiences to experience the performance. Some with audience interaction; some with smaller capacity to enhance the experience of being intimate; and some make the presence of being in the digital highly visible.THG: In your interview with Money FM 89.3 last year, you mentioned that some themes the Festival explores include the choices women have made, the independence that women have eked out for themselves, as well as and the unseen and unheard stories of gender and body politics. What inspired the themes of taboo, fear, and intimacy for Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021?With N.O.W., I had planned a three-year journey when I was working on the 2019 iteration. At the time what struck me when speaking with the women collaborators then was this one central question: who is in charge of the narrative? So many people address what women need and what is necessary for women \u2013 advocates, politicians, academics; trends; media. But the issues surrounding what women may be interested in are so diverse, the scope is wider than we think.When I first initiated this project, someone asked me if I were a feminist? I hadn\u2019t thought of myself as one. Is that necessarily a category I represent or fit in because I wish to devote three years of my life investigating women\u2019s work? Another person challenged the need for such a festival, especially in the arts, claiming that many of the practitioners in the arts ecosystem are women. \u201cIs there inequality that needs addressing in the arts?\u201d, asked the person.\u00a0Statistically, I don\u2019t have exact figures. But [at] a quick glance, especially if the disproportionate presence of women in the arts is to be believed, then there seems to be more leaders in the arts who are men than there are women. Let\u2019s take an example, say, our national arts festivals. In the Singapore Arts Festival history, we had one female Artistic Director, Goh Ching Lee, with Natalie Hennedige, being the second woman, who will helm its revived version, SIFA, in 2022. There have been three men between them. Singapore Writers\u2019 Festival announced Pooja Nansi as its Artistic Director in 2019. Is she the first female Artistic Director for the Singapore Writer\u2019s Festival? Yes, inequality still exists. But that is also true for class and racial inequalities at top management level across industries.\u00a0My interest then is to explore other less told narratives, those within the margins. Not necessarily focused specifically on gender inequalities alone, but intersectional inequalities, highlighting the differences, challenges, multiplicity and diversity of overlapping concerns and interests. And parallel to that, the unequal weightage we, through the media, and our own social media, give to hot button topics or on trend stories.\u00a0As the Artistic Director of Festival of Women N.O.W. I keep my hearts, eyes and ears open, for what stories the collaborators want to tell and the different ways they wish to tell them. The focus on the taboo, fear and intimacy is a part of this three-year arc. We don\u2019t talk enough about it \u2013 let\u2019s do so now.THG: How do you think the pandemic has altered the relationship between the audience and the artist, the organiser and the artist, and the concept of collaboration?We need to be amendable to change. Plans go awry in the pandemic years and we have to remain open, embrace change, and be supportive. If there is anything we learn from the situation we now face ourselves with is how we keep learning, keep finding possibilities around roadblocks and the need for communities to rally together and support one another. We do not live in silos. The pandemic crisis shows us that.\u00a0I was out at our neighbourhood kopitiam the week restrictions relaxed. There is an elderly lady who comes by to sell tissue paper to the diners. On a good day, she sells plenty. On the same good day, the mynahs too have constant treats of prata, crumbs from kaya toasts, strips of noodles and chillis left behind by patrons who didn\u2019t finish their meals. On a pandemic day, mynahs disappear, that elderly lady still walks the same route but she makes almost nothing. On a pandemic day, the eateries suffer, but so does everything else that depends on that same spot for sustenance. It\u2019s an ecosystem. This is no different with the arts. But the situation is even more fragile within the arts ecosystem. Because it is often the last to be considered. Not so top of mind. The longer the arts remain restricted, the longer the ecosystem suffers.\u00a0Hence, as a community of artists, we find ways to create and encourage audiences to be open to support it, be it live or digital. Because the cumulative crisis effect is more than just economics for the arts, it is the loss of a discipline. The discipline to dream and create. A discipline of telling stories of a society. A discipline of giving hope, finding alternatives, of creating liveable societies. And such a discipline needs practise, which requires time and space to imagine, to foster ideas, to invent and re-invent, to keep trying.\u00a0What do we do as organisers and as artists then? We fight to maintain that space to practise. We fight to keep it open, through resource-sharing, provision of a supportive environment even when resources are tight. But the fight is important because we need to show we can do this. Show it to ourselves and our fellow practitioners. We fight because our souls need the arts.THG: What are a few of your favourite collaborations over the past three years of running the Festival of Women: N.O.W.? Are there any collaborations that you might consider reviving or restaging in the future?Oh my, this is tough. I think if I had an opportunity to re-stage anything would be the projects that I feel I could work on differently. For instance, [The] Book of Mothers by Eleanor Tan in 2020.\u00a0A reading of The Book of Mothers by Eleanor Tan in 2019. (Photo courtesy of T:>Works)It was made into an audio play because it was staged in 2020, at the thick of the pandemic crisis. We adapted, tweaked and made it work for the audio platform. I would like to explore the possibility of re-mounting it in a different format, not necessarily a live staginge. Maybe a film. And the script has so much potential and I would like to give it some space to develop it further. The Book of Mothers was also adapted into an audio play in 2020, which was voiced by Karen Tan (left) and Koh Wan Ching (right). (Photo courtesy of T:>Works)The other would be Nimita\u2019s Place by Akshita Nanda in 2019, because it was an experiment on the model of stage readings. Both interestingly enough were directed by Edith Podesta. I don\u2019t think of things in terms of favourites. I\u2019m more intrigued by possibilities \u2013 or perhaps the notion of breath. Can we breathe it life? If so, where can this initial breath take us? What travels of imagination can we make with it?A staged reading of Nimita\u2019s Place by Akshita Nanda in 2019. (Photo courtesy of T:>Works)THG: \u00a0You also mentioned in your interview with The Everyday People that educating and developing future generations to help them understand their ability to impact others is important to you. How has this underpinned your approach to the Festival?’I think this question is better served by asking the people who attend the Festival and work with me to create it. What do they take away from it? And also what does impacting others mean and look like. In that interview I spoke about the positive change we can do every day with the things we do. Could we generate more conversation to shift mindsets or attitudes, or at the very least be exposed to new ideas… Hence the focus on less heard or less seen narratives.I am also that \u2018other\u2019 I wish to impact positively through the process of working on N.O.W. I have been so privileged that T:>Works gave me this time and space to play. And in the process I learnt so much not just about myself, but also the different issues, subject matter, ways of doing and thinking from each and every collaborator. I learn from them. I take this wealth of experience and information to the next educating project… And they are invaluable to the work I do as an educator too. So the ripple effect is tremendous.\u00a0At the same time, I share resources with all the collaborators. I\u2019m generous with sharing \u2013 be it information, expertise, contacts. I think resource-sharing is so important as a means to stay fiscally lean while at the same time, reduce waste. So it\u2019s about establishing mutually beneficial relationships, and it doesn\u2019t always have to be financial.I also create opportunities for festival internships and the interns are all under 25.That\u2019s essential. The way they see the world, the way they negotiate and engage with it, is so different from me. I have as much to benefit from their presence, as they do mine.\u00a0THG: What are some conversations you hope to open through your work with the Festival?Embracing diversity and difference. It is not about agreement, but about seeing and listening to different perspectives. It’s about learning to have conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. Again it is about practise. We need time and space to practise being dialogic \u2013 where knowledge is gained through interactions and critical dialogue.THG: What do you think you have learnt about yourself as an artist and creator over the past three years?I am resilient, relentless and reflexive. Every year I aim to do things differently; not better, but different. For the last two years, August is the month of slowness, a pause if you like. I gift myself that time to recover. And in that month, I look back at things I didn\u2019t get a chance to try, or aims that I didn\u2019t get a chance to achieve. I ask \u201chow will the next iteration be different?\u201d And then I map it out again. Operationally, there is a template. That template works well on paper. In reality, things shift and you just have got to see the work differently and respond to it in the moment, in the now, and not from yesteryear.THG: What will you miss most from being a part of this community that you’ve created through the Festival?The process of collaboration. I will miss it most. Attending the discussions, mapping out the directions. Finding new pathways not tried in the previous year, the spark of a new idea. And oh, I must be a masochist, but the adrenaline rush of grasping a new challenge.THG: What plans do you have after the Festival wraps up? Are there any ideas or themes that you wish to explore?To have the space to dream.Ticketed events for T:>Works\u2019 Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021 starts 13 July, 2021, while free digital exhibitions are ongoing. Find out more about the Festival here.\u00a0Join the conversations on THG’s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram.\u00a0"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"In Conversation With: Noorlinah Mohamed, Artistic Director, N.O.W. Festival of Women","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-noorlinah-mohamed-artistic-director-n-o-w-festival-of-women\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]