Reshuffles

With fondness, I recall.

I recall a time where our school had an art gallery, it was called the Earl Lu gallery. It was a nice gallery, one of the best in my opinion, and what i thought was fantastic was that they had two galleries: one large, and one smaller one. With the smaller gallery we could have exhibitions, like this one










2003, exercises

I recall an exhibition in 2003, in the old Early Lu Gallery 2. It was a nice time for the students, they got to display their works, and only into their first year of majoring in Fine Arts (painting) ! Sadly, there was never another such exhibition for the subsequent 1st year painting students. Come to think of it, there wasn't even a Foundation Show this year.

I recal traditional Foundation show was one always to look forward to. We all had our impossible tasks, like building bridges, kites. Who can forget Miguel Chew, who would jump up and down like a crazy person on the bridges trying to break them? It was always a proud moment for the foundation students, a culmination of a years' projects. An evening where they could celebrate in learning, and i mean really learning. Not just to learn different aspects of design and fine arts (yeah, we had FOUR modules to do) , but also to work in groups. That to me, was the best part of foundation year; learning to deal with different personalities, and to work through them to achieve a goal that was tangible. We all had our fun in theory as well, poking fun at Jeffery, and Tony, and even Su Mei. At the time, maybe we felt we were being tortured, but when it came to the Foundation Show, everything was worth it. The last foundation show i remember, was Small Packages. I remember the particular spiritedness of that batch, and sadly, I will never know the spirit of the batch that has just past (2005-2006 foundation batch). The reasons for the foundation shows' absence is not known to me either.

Anyway, back to Earl Lu Gallery 2.

Well if anyone wants to visit it after reading this post, well, it's not there anymore. When i mean its' not there, i mean that its physical location is not there anymore. The space has been converted from Gallery to Administration office. Yup, that's right. It's an OFFICE. The people from the opposite administration block had to pack their bags and occupy the former Earl Lu Gallery 2. My heart sank as i saw the false walls being put up, chopping up what used to hold memorable exhibitions into cubicles. Its a pity that a space with such high ceilings would be used as an office.

Of course, the question one would ask is, what happened to the space which the administration people vacated? Well, I'm not too sure. But i've heard stories, almost urban legends, about the space now. I've heard stories of exotic furniture. Lavish Liquid Screen Televisions spread across the walls. Offices where serious business is negotiated, and offices which are vacated when staff go for their numerous overseas trips, spreading their wide web to snare international students, or to tie up yet another collaborative degree.

Of course, some would say that, yes bigger offices are needed. Yes, progress and change require drastic, but necessary changes. But at what cost? The cost of the current students? At the cost of a perfectly good gallery space? At the cost of a diploma show? At the cost of a foundation show? At the cost of quality education? At the cost of 20 Part-Time lecturers? At what cost will we only sit down and say, 'That's enough'?

Whistles