2022 Harvard Club of Singapore Fellow Award Acceptance Speech by T. Sasitharan

It’s such a pleasure to be here this evening to receive this award.

I am overwhelmed to receive this award, knowing that Professor Wang Gungwu and Dr Noeleen Heyzer were its previous recipients. It’s a privilege to be mentioned in the same breath as them. They are my heroes. To think the Harvard Club saw it worthy to give me this award, can only be because of the significance of the arts in any society. 

I think the need for arts education, the need to foster arts appreciation, and the need to sustain arts practice in our societies has never been more urgent and more critical than now, as we emerge out of the cloud of the pandemic. As we search for a new kind of normalcy in our lives, as we look for a new centre, even as we move forward. I think the place of the arts, the place of culture, and specifically of poetry and theatre in that centre cannot be overemphasised. 

I think the need for arts education, the need to foster arts appreciation, and the need to sustain arts practice in our societies has never been more urgent and more critical than now, as we emerge out of the cloud of the pandemic.

When I began in the arts 40 years ago, it was unthinkable that the arts could provide a viable vocation, let alone a career for a young person. Today many young people consider a life in the arts a viable possibility, as something worth doing, something worth pursuing even as they do the other things —  other disciplines, other professions. And just as we were fixing the possibility of arts’ viability in Singapore Covid struck, and sadly, the pandemic has wreaked havoc in the arts scene. Many people I know, craftspeople without firm or permanent commitments to companies, who were self-employed, had to find other means of survival. We lost many talented craftspersons, we lost many talented technicians and artists. However, relatively speaking, Singapore is still remarkably fortunate. I hope the pandemic’s damage has not been permanent, and that we will be able to recover the gains we had made in the arts scene over the last 40 years. 

Today, artists from Singapore can hold their own anywhere in the world — New York, Sydney, Paris, China, India. As a city-state, we are recognised and admired not only for being an economic miracle, but for representing the leading edge of a global city. What that means is that Singapore makes sense, not just in material or monetary terms, but in terms of culture, in terms of a sensitivity and sensibility, and that we as a people have found a place for our conscience and consciousness in the world.

A Malay proverb puts it well; “Dimana bumi dipijak, disitu langit dijunjung” (where we plant our feet, there we hold up the sky).

What that means is that Singapore makes sense, not just in material or monetary terms, but in terms of culture, in terms of a sensitivity and sensibility, and that we as a people have found a place for our conscience and consciousness in the world.

We have a sense of identity, we have a sense of purpose and as short as our history has been, we have an image that the arts have helped to foster. Culture and the arts have placed Singapore on the global map. We are not anymore just a red dot. It’s about a forged sense of home, about an understanding of the needs and desires of people, about knowing we have a place in the river of history. And that is an immense wealth; something artists in Singapore worked extremely hard to nurture. I hope with all my heart the practice of art, its craft, knowledge, and diversity, which we have nurtured in the Singapore arts scene will continue to grow. I am sure that awards like this one can only make that more likely, more determined. So, once again, my humble thanks to the Harvard Club of Singapore for this award.

Citation

The Harvard Club of Singapore recognises Thirunalan Sasitharan as its 2022 Harvard Club of Singapore Fellow, whose accomplishments as actor, sagacity and tenacity as teacher and thinker, has critically engaged his students and audiences; whose seminal contribution in theatre training has educated a new generation of actors, artists, and cultural leaders.

Art cannot be measured in numbers, but deals with, in your words, “the stuff we all carry in our hearts.” Such a view has been foundational in defining the arts and culture here and beyond this island state. Your critical voice in the community serves as an exemplar to all our alumni.

We salute you, son of an intercultural Singapore, for your leadership and commitment to The Substation and the Intercultural Theatre Institute, that has seeded a vital artistic ethos in a society striving to forge its identity and to advance its self-awareness.