THEY’RE COOL, CREATIVE, FASHIONABLE – AND ARE MAKING A STATEMENT ABOUT SUSTAINABLE LIVING IN THEIR OWN WAY. KENG YANG SHUEN MEETS FIVE WOMEN IN SINGAPORE WHO ARE REDEFINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ECO-CHIC.
THEY’RE COOL, CREATIVE, FASHIONABLE – AND ARE MAKING A STATEMENT ABOUT SUSTAINABLE LIVING IN THEIR OWN WAY. KENG YANG SHUEN MEETS FIVE WOMEN IN SINGAPORE WHO ARE REDEFINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ECO-CHIC.
"Wool sweater and polyester skirt, Sandro. PU boots, H&M"
PHOTOGRAPHY VEE CHIN & ZAPHS ZHANG STYLING ADELINE ENG HAIR & MAKEUP BENEDICT CHOO, USING KEVIN.MURPHY & YSL BEAUTE & ASHLEY NG/PALETTEINC, USING KEUNE HAIR COSMETICS & NARS
In Singapore, there’s a film festival nearly every week, but one specifically geared towards environmental causes was nonexistent until this 28-year-old kick-started the inaugural Singapore Eco Film Festival (SGEFF) with biologist Adeline Seah. “When we started in 2016, we had no money, no venue, no films – just a crazy idea and a lot of passion,” she says. Still, the festival – free to the public – was a success with sold-out sessions, a crowd of over 4,000 over the past two years, and venue sponsors such as the Artscience Museum. A third edition returns this November with a slate of critically acclaimed works like Jane, the award-winning documentary on primatologist Jane Goodall. The Singapore-based Aussie native is used to making things work. Last year, she was singled out for Forbes’ prestigious 30 Under 30 Asia list for various factors, including her media firm VSStory (short for Vision Strategy Storytelling), which creates films across Asia for clients like Procter & Gamble and Linkedin. Also notable is her work on expanding B Corps – an international movement that pushes for companies to meet verifiable standards in their social and environmental performances – in the region. She walks the talk – VSStory is one of only eight companies here to be certified. On what more could be done, she says: “More collaborations within the creative industries, and constructive conversations about finding solutions together, rather than working against each other.”
Going by the moniker Messymsxi, Tan’s best known for her whimsical illustrations that have netted her an illustrious clientele that includes luxury fashion houses, Kiehl’s and Facebook. Child-like fantasy-inducing quality aside though, most of her works address humanity’s mismanagement of natural resources – a topic she’s been obsessed with since school. Take for example, “Plastic Ocean”, a large-scale installation commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum in 2016, and arguably the 33-year-old’s most prominent work to date. She collected and strung up over 20,000 pieces of discarded plastic to create the effect of being underwater – surrounded by trash. It was inspired by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a giant area of the ocean (estimated to be thrice the size of France and growing) choked with a high concentrations of plastic debris. The installation generated global headlines, and travelled to Mumbai for the Sassoon Dock Art Project last year, with Tan recreating it using 400kg of plastic bought from recycling centres there. When asked if going green might be a passing trend, Tan says: “Even if so, it can only be a good thing, but it’d be much more efficient and effective if there are more topdown initiatives from public institutions – like increasing education for everyone, and charging for plastic bags.”
Not so fun fact: If all the ice in Antarctica alone were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by reportedly more than a metre – and Singapore (being a low-lying island) is squarely in the crosshairs. Trump might not buy it, but this petite indie-pop singer-songwriter certainly does. In February, she made headlines by travelling to the icy continent as part of an expedition with 2041, an NGO that aims to find solutions to protect the land and renew the Antarctic Treaty, which will be up for review in said year. Since returning in March, the 29-year-old has distilled her singular experience there into an intimate, one-nightonly show – appropriately titled No Man’s Land– at Theatreworks in May. The hour-long set of new tunes inspired by the trip is her way of engaging what she says is a largely disenchanted crowd on environmental issues. “New policies, scientific discoveries for green technologies, or the everyday fight (to be eco-minded, despite perceived inconveniences) cannot come to be if people lose hope in the ability to change our future. That’s where the arts can come in.” Beyond its debut staging, No Man’s Land is in fact a collaborative work-in-progress with the veteran theatre company, and a full show (Chua bills it as an “anti-musical”) will be executed next May – also when her next album will drop.
TV presenter, fitness model, yoga instructor. Now add eco-advocate to the 32-year-old’s list of titles, in part thanks to Before The Flood (2016), the Leonardo DiCaprio-backed documentary on climate change. Watching the moving film was a turning point for her, she says, and she became an ambassador for Green Is The New Black, Singapore’s first Conscious Festival, that same year. This June, she went a step further and started a petition urging Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources, to reconsider her stance on implementing a small levy on plastic bag usage. (Khor had announced in her ministry’s budget in March that “imposing a charge or ban on disposable plastic bags and substituting them with other types of disposable bags is unlikely to improve environmental outcomes”.) The number of signatories Lo got: 13,000. (Plastic bag levies have in fact proven to be effective in countries as diverse as Ireland, Denmark, Britain and closer to home, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with usage dropping by more than 85 per cent in Britain with a five pence – or S$0.09 – levy.) For now, Lo has another tip: “Simply hold on to your trash for one day instead of throwing it out. You’d be amazed by how much trash one person generates – and that’s just over the course of a day. People have this out of sight, out of mind mentality. They assume once it’s down the chute, it automatically disappears.” Dr Khor? Your move.
