Creating Art in Destruction

I used to walk around Dakota Crescent in its final days, a quiet antique place filled with secrets no one would know now. Walking back recently, the facade of the neighbourhood barely looks recognisable. 

The ‘crane’ might be the national ‘bird’ of Singapore, filling our skies with a symbol of progress, of constant rejuvenation and innovation, of creation itself. Every few months, something new is built in Singapore, as though we are indeed a creative nation. But if we are a nation of creation, so too are we a nation of destruction. The same cranes that help to build our next skyscrapers are often the very ones that tear the buildings down.  

Figure 1 The constant state of change: of construction or destruction?

Through this light, it is clear to juxtapose ‘creation’ and ‘destruction’ as binaries that are irreconcilable and mutually exclusive. Yet could there be a connection between these two extremes that reveals a more enlightened perspective on the way we view life? 

A possible answer can be found in the Tibetan Buddhist practice of sand mandala. Mandalas are intricate creations with rich geometry and symbols that serve as spiritual tools for meditation. Sand mandalas, on the other hand, heighten this concept into a ritual: where the mandala is carefully created while monks perform sacred chants and music. Viewing of this ceremony by others is encouraged. Upon the completion of the sand mandala, the art is then ritualistically dismantled. 

Figure 2 Sand mandala portrayed in Netflix TV Show House of Cards

The Buddhists intended this to be a symbol of the concept of material life’s transient nature. At the same time, it is a reminder that the process of creation should not exclude that of destruction. Just as how life offers meaning and purpose through the necessary fact of death, the eventual destruction of the sand mandalas makes the creation process even more meaningful. 

For a nation that destroys as much as we build, how then can this philosophy offer some comfort to Singapore then? 

The 2022 documentary, Scala, looks at the final days of the iconic thousand-seater Scala Cinema that struggled to survive COVID-19’s detrimental effects on cinema-going. While one could see the film as mourning the loss of a beloved landmark, it is entirely possible too to see this act of eulogising as a creation in itself. 

On a fundamental level, the film itself is an artefact created due to the theatre’s demolishment. The film itself becomes a work of art through which audiences can re-experience – or, like myself, experience for the first time – the beauty and scale of the theatre. Thus, in the director’s act of documenting the demolition of the theatre, something is created anew. 

Figure 3 The community of people associated with the Scala theatre

The documentary invites a conversation between filmmaker and different members of the communities associated with the theatre. One scene saw a cinema worker recognise the director as a daughter of a former worker, which leads to the reminiscing of memories. These interactions then become symbolic of another kind of creation that takes place within the film: that of a community, created through the communal sharing of memories and the shared experience of tearing the beloved theatre down. 

For many of us, cinemas hold treasures of memories and importance. Whether it be a nervous first date or a family post-meal activity, we’ve long associated cinemas as a place to create memories. How shocking it becomes, then, to see cinemas in states of destruction – forgotten and derelict. Think of the abandoned cinema Woodlands Theatre, or the iconic Cathay Cinema at Handy Road shutting down. Even new icons like The Projector face threats of oblivion given the recent en bloc situation with neighbouring Golden Mile Complex. We would not conventionally associate cinematic spaces as thresholds involving destruction. Yet, it is upon knowing the transience of these treasured spaces, that a more meaningful approach to these spaces can be encouraged. 

Figure 4 The last cinema screening in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn

Just as how director Tsai Ming-liang uses the space of a Taipei cinema on the verge of closing to explore the feelings of alienation and loss in Goodbye, Dragon Inn, the appreciation these spaces’ temporal nature construe cinemas as a kind of liminal space. Stepping away from our familiar realities and into the cinema, we are treated to a transitional space. Through the stories told in cinemas, we become transformed upon a return to our realities. Whether it be something as simple as entertainment or something as profound as enlightenment, the transience of cinemas might precisely be the element that offers it a certain kind of magic. 

The beauty of cinematic spaces perhaps lies too in the myriad experiences that can offer its audience, just as how the characters in Tsai’s film have different experiences through the cinema. Some have an emotional response to the films, some reminisce upon a forgotten past, some look for a sexual encounter amidst the loneliness in the modern city. It is this independence and freedom that also marks cinemas as a liberating space – freeing us from our realities and wondrous in its infinite possibilities.

Moving beyond a conventional binary approach to understanding creation and destruction, the art we’ve glimpsed through sand mandala, Scala the film, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, and the cinematic space itself all demonstrate a possibility of synthesising these binaries. Just as how life and death make meaning through each other, so too do creation and destruction. Returning to Dakota Crescent these days, as much as the artifices of the past no longer stand, perhaps there is comfort in the memories and little works of art I created there with my friends.

Our 2022 articles offered a selection across four broad categories to facilitate your perusal. This article was part of the CONSIDER category: Opinions shared by our writers after watching the programmed films. For the opinionated and open-minded.