3.Singapore has Good reasons in promoting and supporting the Arts

My third letter to my MP

07 Oct 07

Re: SOS from a constituent of Marine Parade (Re: Telok Kurau Studio)

Dear SM Goh

This is my third letter to you.

Please refer to my two earlier emails.

The NAC has turned down my appeal and is taking reposession of my Studio in Telok Kurau. I do not blame them as they are mere civil servants performing a job. It is the politicians that set the policy.

My life is being threatened! Or put it mildly in your language: My livelihood is being threatened! It was and is no exaggeration. For the last few months if not longer especially the last month, I am not my usual self. The world seems to be coming to an end. I am not sure if this is called depression.

My studio is my HDB. I have nowhere else to go. It is my base in Singapore . Taking back my studio is like taking away my HDB. Worst , this is taking place while I am away ¨ I am not on holiday but on my working trip. It is like while I am posted out for an operation outside my country during NS, for whatever reason, my HDB is been taken back! Althought, I have finished my cycle of NS. Although I have finished my cycle of NS, my son and my cousins are going into NSF soon. How can I tell them to give their best to the nation when there is no real or genuine insurance/guarantee back home.

I sincerely do not want to move my works in Singapore out. I like to call it the "Goh Chok Tong Collection". This is because majority of the works kept in my studio are done in the years of between 1986 - 2003, about the same time as your premiership. If I may remind/bring your attention to the "Liu Zuo Cho Collection" donated to the Hong Kong Museum in 1995/6 - and of the birth of the Asian Civilisation Museum . Of course my "Goh Chok Tong collection" is nothing compared with the "Liu Zuo Cho Collection". But I believe it marks a little stody in the development of Singapore Art, however small it maybe and I have no wish to bring it out.

Dear SMGoh.

You may have sent your principle private secertary to sit in the Council of NAC. But how he is to read this letter and pass it on, and whether it will take you 10 seconds, 30 seconds or 60 seconds of your time will depend on your sentivity as a politician as you have smell the development ( in the Arts) in the Middle East(http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/10/04/culture.mme/index.html ).

You are my last refuge in this instance. I urge you to consider my plea ( in a desperate situation) and intervene on my behalf to continue have a fruitfully lease of the studio premises.

Thank you.

Tan Kwank Liang

An acknowledgement of the reciept of this letter will be much appreciated.