The Zentai Art Festival 


Zentai art festival (zentaiart.com) has been organizing world's first zentai focused zentai art exhibitions, performances and events in Singapore. Total of over 100 artists participated and 300 people participated in the event with 1200 audiences. It also conducts public participation performance 'zenai walk' in 12 locations 9 countries. 
With the overwhelmed responses from the audiences and mass media, zentai art festival succeeded to spread the awareness of zentai art. 
Zentai art would like to explore the field of fashion for expanding the audience capacity and explore the possibility of Zentai art. 
I would like to create our own zentai suits for better quality and originality. 

We plan to take an original and unconventional approach to spreading and expanding upon the Zentai sub-genre by fostering engagement at different levels: Art audience to general public, and specific communities within each country. Engagement will be built up from grassroots level in partnership with the general public through a series of events - from informal one-off local meetings, workshops and talks, to more structured exhibits and performances.

At each level of engagement, we expand the Zentai sub-genre through indigenously flavored events and gatherings. Local gestation is essential for Zentai art development because we must not limit it to a facsimile of identical events and performances. Our approach would be to plant the seed of Zentai art and let it blossom and flower locally. 
 
Local engagement and frequency of engagement is also important for scalability of Zentai art’s depth and breadth. Our performances aim to create a canvas for performing artists (in visual arts, dance, music) to explore different interpretations of Zentai and identity; questioning race, identity and unity in Asia. Because race and religion are important, covering the whole body in Zentai will challenge the traditional definition of personality from categories such as age, sex, race, nationality or religion. Is there room for an alternative means of identity that enhances harmony and peace and reduces conflict?

The Zentai art fashion will also highlight how materialism and excessive consumption of scarce resources is unsustainable. An alternative would be a harmonised identity with fewer trappings of material wealth to differentiate ourselves. Through less consumption and a de-emphasis on differentiation through materialism, we could open up a path to a simpler and more sustainable existence. The Zentai concept is key to exploring this alternative identity.


We will also engage and give opportunity for the students and emerging artists to join the performance program as a performer and designer. Giving a chance to execute the idea of new artists will expands the possibility of zentai art.
At the same time, there will be veteran artists, dancers and musicians to join at the same event. This will enhance the exchange and the sharing process beyond the generations.

There will be a engagement for the non-artists to join the program as a volunteer zentai performers. This opportunity will give a bridge between the artist , student and the audience. Prior to the event, we will work closely with the local art communities and audiences, engage social media and meet with interested parties with the objective of cultivating an interest in Zentai art. We plan to reach professional and amateur performers and a broad demographic of the public.

The project platform is envisioned to develop and export local art practices and ideas outside of Singapore, as a move to expand the knowledge of local arts to the world art community. Although Zentai is originally from Japan, to transform Zentai into an art expression is probably the first attempt of this nature had ever done, which will reflect the event as uniquely Singapore. In this way, it adds to the balance of consuming (imported arts) and producing culture (exporting arts) through contemporary art practices.  

As Zentai is inter-disciplinary in nature and it will present a diversified art practices from artists of various disciplines. By doing so, it encourages new forms of multi-disciplinary art processes and conceptions related to contemporary art practice of Singapore as a whole. The project not only appeals to the general public, practioners and professionals, it is also an exercise to engage student communities from art schools as some of the venues are educational centers focused on the arts. 

Zentai Art Festival is a first art festival focused on Zentai Art in the world.  


 

A total of 23 artists will be creating 23 new works that will be exhibited in 3 segmented exhibitions.

Some of the artists will be presenting more than one work in multiple venues. These works will be developed in conjunction to the whole duration of the festival, hence there will be more than 23 pieces of new artworks presented in the whole festival    

We will be presenting a group of contemporary artists who will respond in their own practices to the notion of “Zentai”. With the objective of having different artists to share the attributes of “Zentai” and present it in the festival, we aim to present the multiple realities of each artist’s perceptions and hope to impart knowledge as well as share unique art practices with the general Singaporean public as a public awareness to local arts practices, as well as putting Singapore in the global map of contemporary art world. 

This exhibition will present the various disciplines of artists, impart knowledge of diversified art practices to a designated student community and public audiences as a vehicle to promote contemporary art practices in Singapore. The “Zentai” phenomenon has in recent years gained pace internationally as an eclectic form of expression, and produced a myriad of non-conventional arts practices that stems out from the “Zentai” theme which mostly question notions of identity, gender, the metaphysical, and metamorphosis in art.  


 

This festival is focused on Zentai art as a central theme, utilizing photographic works, moving images, performances and art installations, the participating artists will present their respective works through the philosophical, the social and personalized embodiment of identity and gender.

The festival aims to bring together the meeting of artistic & creative individuals with a myriad of art practices, to share, exchange and to facilitate arts practitioners to form future collaborations with each other. The events stemming out from this particular festival make it possible for enthusiasts and artists to experience the collective growth of contemporary art practice in Singapore.

This exhibition is about human identity and asking question ‘who we are?’. We focus on transcending manmade-rules and limitation psychologically and physically, taking away the social taboos in relationships between individuals. By neutralizing age, gender and surface beauty and rendering it non-identical, it asks the question of identity in the context of the urban living conditions in Singapore. It will present many different realities from individual artists and practitioners as a showcase of their interpretation and perspectives on Zentai art.

The festival platform is envisioned to develop local art practices and provide a platform to present these ideas and art works by local artists and invited overseas artists. The festival serves as an exchange of different artistic practices and an opportunity for the public to experience this interesting flux of art exchanges. Hopefully with this project we can expand the promotion of local artists to other similar artists initiatives in other countries. Although Zentai is an original invention from Japan, the appropriation of it renders a universality over the project, whereby artists are informed, allowed to deconstruct and re-invent meanings and create new art works in relation to Zentai, as such it harnesses new perceptions in contemporary art making as well as it develops arts practices and new artistic creations through exhibitions, events, workshops, art exchanges and discussions that the arts community and public audiences are encouraged to take part in.   

 

The festival is inter-disciplinary in nature and it will present a diversified art practices from artists of various disciplines. By doing so, it encourages new forms of multi-disciplinary art processes and conceptions related to contemporary art practice of Singapore as a whole. The program of the festival not only appeals to the general public, practioners and professionals, it is also an exercise to engage student communities from art schools as some of the venues are educational centres focused on the arts. Artist talks, workshops and discussions are organised as an outreach of the festival that is participatory to the general public audiences as well as art students and the artistic community. 

We will be organising a children art workshop. They will be asked paint their own hero on the white zentai and transform themselves into the super hero of their own imagination. The workshop title is called 'I am a Superhero'.  This workshop will explore notions in identities and cultural make ups, asking the participants, 'who we want to be?', the workshops focus on the aspirations of the participants through introduction and hands on art making techniques. The workshop activities is a method for the workshop participants to develop creativity in their thinking and exploring art techniques guided by artists instructors. 

 

We will also be presenting 2 forums & artists' talks, it will centre on the discussion of Contemporary Art practices in Singapore. This discussion and exchange aims to erase the segregation between the individual and the society, it engages the audience, participants and artists to comprehend and develop ways on how we all can be actively involved in the society for a better cause, it is a finding into the social responsibility by the means of arts practices. The cultural framework that prevails in an affluent society need to be re-evaluated consistently to be at par with the momentum and to facilitate social changes. It also aims to erase the separation between individual and the society to facilitate social integration. The society is in pluralist form and we are all part of it making up the diversity of world cultures.