artists: essential/ non-essential?

tldr: nif shares five artists she loves and you should check them out

hey friends,

so icymi (though if you’re in sg i really don’t think you could), The Straits Times had an article in The Sunday Times last week with an infographic that has caused quite the noise amidst us Singaporeans. (Peep #1 of “Top non-essential jobs”)

Image: The Straits Times / June 14, 2020

While many of us debate the relevance of an artist and its essentiality in the midst of a pandemic (personally i’m wondering why the decision to even place such a statistic there when it was never mentioned in the actual article at all), i thought i would try to shine the spotlight on five local artists in the midst of this all (thanks edwin for the inspo!) rather than just state the obvious.

note: none of these artists are your stereotupical run-off-the-mill artist-artist (newsletters have length restrictions), so here a couple of cool art-ish people i’ve been obsessed with. if this does okay, maybe a part two!

• SG’s first AI influencer, Avagram

  

  Image: Instagram @avagram.ai
  you’ve heard of lilmiquela, now meet sg’s answer to the AI influencer. Avagram was birthed as a final year project of Lasalle student Reymi Husaimi, and while graduation is over, i’m keeping tabs on this silver-haired influencer to see how she develops.

• Local meme account @yourgirlfriendiswhosia & @highnunchicken
  are memes art? i would say yes. an artists’ ability to make you breathe a little harder through your nose as you scroll your instagram feed is definitely an art in my books. (yourgirlfriendiswhosia memes can be a little rude, so i’m not attaching any here) And can we appreciate highnunchicken’s New-Yorker influenced tongue-in-cheek social commentary on the happenings of our little island?

  

  Image: Instagram @highnunchicken

• Kitschy earrings by The Lobang Shop

  

  Image: Instagram @thelobangshop
  we all love a good pair of earrings, and with a local take on their earrings with common Chinese dialect phrases like the Ah Beng or Chim Chai earrings, these really are a visual treat. Purchases can be made via their IG, but do snag them fast because even i didn’t manage to get a pair of Ah Beng earrings.

• Virtual bouquets by Fleur Khloris
  floral arrangements are art too.. right? this floral studio started its operations right at the beginning of the pandemic, and with no shipment of flowers or deliveries available, they’ve found a way to navigate around this with personalised virtual bouquets. they now do prints (and really affordable ones too) so if you’d want to get one from them, hit them up on their ig.
  

• Musician Shye
  Her dreamy pop and Clairo-esque voice really has a whole vibe going for me. I watched her sing on an IG live and fell in love with her voice even more. did i also mention this girl is 17 and started by creating songs in her bedroom? i’m amazed. y’all need to give her a listen.

so yes, while our nation debates about the essentiality of our artists, let’s not forget the designer who had to design this very infographic and find out he might be *gulps* non-essential.

if you have any artists you love, i’d love to hear from you! i’ll be real honest and say my brain drew a mini blank when i wrote this list, but if you have any - send them over! i’m more than happy to hear who y’all love. :-) my inbox is always open.

i leave you with this fun frame content creator Yeolo made on Facebook.

stay safe y’all xx

-nif