Singapore Night Festival 2014

It has been a tiring week, but nothing would ever stop me from going to the Singapore Night Festival. I sound like I really like the festival, but really, this is my very first visit and I would have never known of it if not for the bench project.

Before I begin sharing my wonderful experience at the festival, let's rewind to the morning where I had the last class for the week.


This class is taught by the lecturer who was the same person in charge of the bench project, so he brought the whole class down for a little trip to the benches and introduced them one by one, and also brought us into the museum to look at a small exhibition.

One thing he mentioned was my mistake of using acrylic paint for the bench painting - I knew they wouldn't provide the colours I was looking for on my bench so I brought some of my own to use and loved the result, but he came by and nagged at least five times(basically whenever he walked past my tent) and demanded I threw away my bottles of paint which I definitely didn't - paint is expensive and I have no obligation to throw it away when I have decided to not use them. That was definitely the worst part of the project as it was - I won't lie or try to cover it up - extremely infuriating to be nagged at again and again even though we have made our word of not using them and I was constantly worried my father would burst out in anger as he pretty much have a quick temper.

Above that, we have to cover up the acrylic paint we used with the paint they provided which was absolutely disappointing as the colours given were not up to standard - they don't even make a good purple and I definitely do not want grey-brown flowers on my bench which theme is ironically 'Bold and Vibrant'. I however understood that and had to choice but to do what he said although it didn't turn out very well (as expected). Fortunately, the team sponsored more paint and even one in purple the next day after hearing the cries of other students. That definitely saved my bench and I was happier than ever to paint over the unappealing colours I had to slap on.

The 'Pray for Hui Ni's GPA' pose. Which was totally unnecessary because she actually scored 3.91

I met up with my best friend from secondary school whom will be my date for the night. Ironically, my main motive for attending the festival was to look at my bench but what I saw was a balloon man happily setting up his belongings onto the bench, and not an inch of my design could be seen. As disappointed as I was, I took the chance to get his service as well - that's the story behind our flower crowns.

Right at the end of the line of benches emerged a stand with the title of the project and even an illustration of the street where the artists' names were displayed relatively to their benches. I can't imagine having my name proudly displayed to the public that way(although my name is more than common in this world)

I was really looking forward to watching this performance but I was so tired I could have slept while standing and it didn't seem to be starting any time soon so I had no choice but to leave. What a shame!

There was an exhibition at the street opposite the benches and it was eye-catching as, obviously, a man tied to a chair wasn't something you would see every day. It was a great way to capture the attention and interest of people, and as intrigued as I was, I didn't get a chance to head inside the building for a look.

What happened afterwards were pretty straightforward - We continued walking around and met up with my parents whom were also very disappointed for not being able to take a look at my bench.

One glaringly obvious way of promoting an exhibition is the 'blinking balloons' people walking towards us were holding onto. "WHERE IS THAT FROM??" is the reaction any immature kid like us would give and we went against the swarm of people holding those balloons like a guide post and ended at an exhibition with the same balloons flooding the ceiling: BALLOON HEAVEN

They ran out of strings that night for the balloons but we still took it anyway and held onto it all the way home

After endless hours of walking around, the night was still bright(not literally) and full of energy as we came across this station with LED lights and body paint. Of course we had to. It's all about experience, right?

And that concludes my first night at the Singapore Night Festival.