5.Singapore has Good reasons in promoting and supporting the Arts 5

My fourth letter to my MP recieved no reply:

29 Dec 07

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

Dear SM Goh

The difference between winner and loser is: The winner always sees answers to questions, but the loser always sees questions in the answers; the winner always makes up part of the answer, but the loser always makes up part of the question; winner has plans, loser has pretexts; winner always says: "Let me do it", loser always says: "It is none of my business"; winner always says: "although there are problems, it still can be done', but loser always says: "although it can be done, it is too difficult."

Li Chang Yu
Chief Police Commissioner
State of Wisconsin , USA
(The first Chinese/Asian to hold such an appointment in USA )

I was saddened and surprised to read about the passing of Mr Sim Kee Boon - who made Changi Airport possible and a man who 'specialize in the grey '( according to his former colleague as reported in the Today Newspaper 10-11 Nov, 2007). How can we have more of such men?

I write also to thank you and your principal private secretary/ies who have helped - though in vain - in the appeal for my studio in Telok Kurau in my last 3 emails.

I must apologise for being such a nuisance and for the inconvenience caused.

I have also read with envy that CapitaLand Institute of Management and Business (Climb)  a subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar CapitaLand (?) - in Sentosa has just been offered a grant of $20, 000 by The Workforce Development Agency for adopting its inaugural Leadership and People Management Workforce Skills Qualifications Framework to be launched next year. (Today Newspaper, 23 Nov, 2007). This made me recall my futile efforts to secure funding from IE Singapore. Perhaps I am just too tiny.

I do not enjoy writing to you. I dread disturbing you. I am writing to you merely as a constituent of Marine Parade GRC and in a small part, I know you are behind in many of the art initiatives in Singapore.

Peter Drucker asserted way back in the 1950s that workers should be treated as assets, not as liabilities to be eliminated. I must apologise that being an artist, I am such a worthless being and such a liability to you.

It seems like there is nothing possible with regard to my studio. NAC has filed court proceedings to reclaim the premises. But the Director in NAC has offered to meet me again. "We still wish to assist you in other ways, if and where feasible "- while my present one and only need is to have a studio, a base in Singapore - Does this not border on hypocrisy?

I shall have to move to vacate the studio. But where to?

I have stated numerous times that I have nowhere else to go and have no wish to ship my effects to Shanghai where I have a studio now. Alternatively I shall have to have 'The Collection' destroyed. In my third email to you, I mentioned that I have named the works I have in my possession 'The Goh Chok Tong Collection'. I stated this not in jest but in all seriousness. I have consulted numerous friends, an Art Historian included, to come to such a decision.

This episode is causing such a big distraction from my work and is a major psychological burden to me. I would like to end this.

As I endure another winter without heating, I know you – my MP in Marine Parade GRC, are strongly behind me. Please advise what alternative I have or what course of action I can take.

I look forward to your reply in earnest.

Asks the possible to the impossible, where is your dwelling-place?
In the dreams of the impotent, comes the answer.

Tagore


Your desperate constituent,

Tan Kwank Liang