Arts Picks: Chio Books pop-up at The Arts House, Singapore Translation Symposium, Deja Vu at STPI

Chio Books pop-up store

After two weeks of gloomy

bookstore closure announcements

, book lovers finally have some good news – a bookstore comeback.

Home-grown bookseller Chio Books is running a 2,088 sq ft lifestyle pop-up and bookstore, Chio Life, at The Arts House every Friday to Sunday until Dec 29. It marks the bookstore’s return to a physical space after the closure of its pop-up store at City Gate in 2020. Chio Books is a pop-up bookstore concept under Booktique Where Writers Shop, which sells books at various venues, festivals and online.

This time, bookseller Anthony Koh Waugh will not be flying solo. He has invited a range of vendors – such as ceramic artists, calligraphers and zinemakers – to complement Chio Books’ usual line-up of lifestyle titles, fun reads, general fiction and coffee-table books.

From Sept 27 to 29, antiquarian bookstore Hungry Traveller – otherwise based at Bras Basah Complex – will be curating a collection of rare cookbooks and vintage travel guides.

Migrant artist Janelyn Dupingay (@jane25_lyn) will also showcase her embroidery crafts and Rex Lee (@my_spacecats) will feature his inked art.

Coffee by The Brew Therapy will be available at the pop-up. After your book haul on Sept 28, check out the Singapore Translation Symposium happening next door.

Where: Annex Building, The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane
MRT: City Hall
When: Till Dec 29, Fridays and Saturdays, 11am to 9pm; Sundays, 11am to 8pm
Admission: Free
Info:

www.instagram.com/chio_books

Singapore Translation Symposium

In any discussion about literary translation, one often uses the metaphor of relationships – fidelity to the text, intimacy with a language.

The Singapore Translation Symposium returns for its fourth edition with an opening panel that poses a perennial question about the translator’s relationship to the text – To Be Faithful Or Not Be Faithful?

The speakers on the panel are Ng Yi-Sheng, who has translated Chinese-language poet Wong Yoon Wah’s poetry collections into English; A.K. Kulshreshth, co-translator of the Singapore Literature Prize-shortlisted Hindi-language novel Bride Of The City (2022); and Uganda Kwan, director of the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation programme at Nanyang Technological University.

A translated memoir by the late translator and lexicographer Yang Quee Yee titled Tapping Words, Bridging Cultures will also be launched at the symposium. The session, titled An Unusual Intimacy, is a tribute to his intimacy with the Chinese, Malay and English languages, as well as with his translators.

The speakers on the panel are the book’s two translators – Michael Lim Sze How, a retired educator, and Yang’s wife Chan Maw Woh, a translator who had jointly authored 17 dictionaries with her husband.

Where: Blue Room, The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane
MRT: City Hall
When: Sept 28, 9.45am to 5pm
Admission: Free with registration
Info:

str.sg/wKEy

Deja Vu: Buddha Is Hiding

What if Buddha had travelled to the West?

Thai contemporary artist Natee Utarit’s Deja Vu series, conceived in 2019, imagines Buddha’s hypothetical journey westwards to explore the themes of Western hegemony in art history. His series comes to a conclusion with a solo exhibition, Deja Vu: Buddha Is Hiding, held at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery.

On display is a sculpture series resembling statue fragments embedded with graffiti elements. The works are made from STPI handmade cast paper.

Singaporean curator John Tung says of the exhibition: “With this series made in collaboration with the STPI Creative Workshop, he invites the audience to discover overlooked stories and histories of the East, in order to weave a clear perspective of the world for ourselves.”

Where: STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay
MRT: Fort Canning
When: Sept 28 to Dec 1, Mondays to Saturdays, 10am to 7pm; Sundays, 11am to 5pm
Admission: Free
Info:

str.sg/fkNd