CULTURE NEWS

Culture News

Portrait of Tammy Strobel

THE ART OF WELLNESS 

For many of us, the circuit breaker has been a lot more stressful than anticipated. The Unwind with SAM: Art & Meditation experience is one way to recalibrate and practise some mindfulness—with a difference. Each weekly meditation practice revolves around selected works in the Singapore Art Museum’s collection. Guided by an instructor, the online sessions invite you to unplug from your everyday concerns and focus on the artwork on your screen. The 30-minute sessions are broadcast live via SAM’s Facebook page on Wednesdays, till 8 July 2020, and will be available on SAM’s Facebook page after the live events. singaporeartmuseum.sg 

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From the top: Meditate on artworks like Passage (2018) by The GedAze Project, constructed entirely out of fabrics and yarn. With the temporary closure of museums, SAM's meditation workshops have found a new home online. 

COMING UP ROSÉ

Wines are getting the fashionable treatment from style titans. Meet Rosa, the new Dolce&Gabbana Rosé by Sicilian winemakers, Donnafugata. This isn’t the first collaboration between the Italian brands—Donnafugata’s wines have been served at the fashion house’s Alta Moda, Alta Sartoria, and Alta Gioielleria shows in previous years— but the Rosa takes their partnership to the next level. The striking bottle label, designed by Dolce&Gabbana, is an ode to Sicily, featuring the vibrant geometric patterns of the traditional carts native to the Italian island. The wine is an original blend of two grape varieties, Nerello Mascalese and Nocera, both produced in North-eastern Sicily, with a refreshing fruityfloral bouquet of jasmine, wild strawberry, peach and bergamot. Available at Dolce&Gabbana (world.dolcegabbana.com/food-beverage) and Donnafugata (donnafugata.it). Rosa isn’t the only fashionable rosé expected out this summer. Château Sainte Roseline’s Cuvée Lampe de Méduse – Rosé 2019 Limited Edition has been dressed up with a “lace bracelet” designed by Christian Lacroix to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the cuvée. This 2019 rosé is a crisp wine with hints of peach and mango—perfect for a warm summer’s day. Available at Château Sainte Roseline (boutique-sainteroseline.com). 

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Rosa, a collaboration between Dolce&Gabbana and Sicilian winery Donnafugata 

THE WATCH LIST

While most Disney live-action remakes have tried to stick as close to the original animated hits as possible, the highly anticipated Mulan has dropped all of the musical numbers and injected much-needed action sequences into this summer blockbuster. Liu Yifei plays the rebel daughter who disguises herself as a man to take her father’s place in the Imperial army. (At time of print, Mulan is still slated for a July 2020 release.) Broadway fans, on the other hand, can look forward to watching Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton on Disney+—a win for anyone who’s tried and failed to score tickets to the show. While there isn’t an official movie, the streaming service will be showing the original-cast production of Hamilton, recorded in 2016 

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The original-cast production of Hamilton 

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Liu Yifei is Mulan in the live-action remake 

CRAZY IN LOVE

Kevin Kwan is back with another outrageous, fun and fabulous romp. Sex and Vanity ventures into the familiar territory of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, with plot inspiration from EM Forster’s A Room with a View. Descriptions of Park Avenue apartments, mega-yachts and over-the-top excesses aside, “this is not Crazy Rich Asians part four” asserts Kwan in a magazine interview. “This is a whole different beast.” The story in a nutshell: Protagonist Lucie is a half-Chinese, half-American, full-blooded New Yorker, caught between two loves— her billionaire fiancé and the Chinese-Australian summer fling who reappears unexpectedly in her life. No prizes for guessing who she picks in the end. Kwan takes us down a humorous path of cultural clashes, love and Asian-American identity. 

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TABLE MANNERS 

London-based creative, Matilda Goad, has tied up with MatchesFashion.com for an exclusive tableware collection of painterly tableware and glossy ceramics. Goad gained interior decorating fame through several projects and the launch of her now-iconic, scalloped-edged rattan lampshades. Colour and texture are at the heart of her product design, as Goad’s small but diverse collection evokes rustic charm and whimsy. There’s colourful cutlery and woven placemats, while her signature scalloped edges feature on metal planters and linen napkins and tablecloths. The humble water jug is transformed into a dining centrepiece with a gold-striped coat. Is it too much for a home setup? Not according to Goad who has said “having everything match isn’t realistic. What you want are things with personality”— which this collection has in spades. 

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Clockwise from top: Lampshade; Rainbow Spectrum lacquered tray; basket; jug; cutlery set, Matilda Goad at MatchesFashion.com 

MEMOIRS TO INSPIRE 

Tales of triumph are just what we need to look beyond the challenges we face every day in this period of isolation. In Wayétu Moore’s new memoir, The Dragons, The Giants, The Women, the Liberian-American author recounts her journey relocating to Texas from Sierra Leone, surviving as a black immigrant in the American South, and the strength of family. Stephanie Danler’s Stray: A Memoir, is a raw look at what growing up with addict parents is like—a harsh reality for many children today. While its repercussions lasted throughout Danler’s adulthood, her story is a reminder that it is possible to rise above a difficult past and emotional damage. Sara Faith Alterman shares her hilarious, awkward and moving story in Let's Never Talk About This Again: A Memoir. Alterman’s childhood was a G-rated existence until she discovered her father was a campy sex writer and had to come to terms with her new reality. In his old age, her father develops Alzheimer’s disease, and enlists Alterman to help revive his writing career. 

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Wayétu Moore shines a light on political and personal forces that affect migrants in her memoir 

BY STACEY RODRIGUES. PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM; DOLCE&GABBANA; JOAN MARCUS; ASHLEIGH STATON (FOR WAYÉ TU MOORE)