500 festival-goers gathered at The Godown KL for the opening of URBN.SENI, the inaugural Triennial Malaysia-Singapore Cultural Showcase. It was jointly launched by Ms Grace Fu, Singapore’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and YB Datuk Mohamaddin bin Ketapi, Malaysia’s Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture. URBN.SENI runs from 16 – 24 November 2019, and celebrates both countries’ shared passions in music, visual arts, film, theatre, food and design.
The launch kicked off with Urban Sounds, a non-ticketed music showcase featuring popular acts from both sides of the Causeway. Festival-goers were treated to a diverse line-up of musicians including Charlie Lim, Yung Raja and Fariz Jabba (Singapore), as well as Playburst, Shuuna and Shelhiel (Malaysia). Hip-hop artistes SonaOne (Malaysia) and Alif (Singapore), who collaborated on the album Detail this year, rounded off the evening with a crowd-pleasing joint performance.
Minister Fu said, “As close neighbours, Singapore and Malaysia share many cultural and historical ties. URBN.SENI reflects the vibrancy and dynamism of our close relations. It represents our shared commitment to developing stronger networks among Singaporeans and Malaysians to exchange knowledge and collaborate with one another – especially our youth. I hope initiatives like URBN.SENI will lead to even more cross-border friendships and partnerships among our peoples, and help reinforce the foundations of our mutually-beneficial bilateral relationship.”
Datuk Mohamaddin said, “Singapore and Malaysia enjoy a special relationship, founded on deep-rooted historical ties and close people-to-people links between Malaysians and Singaporeans. Malaysia will continue to support initiatives by Singapore to promote cultural exchanges between our two countries. URBN SENI’s focus this year on the youth is timely, as it is an excellent platform for their work to be exposed and promoted while allowing them to expand their network with like-minded youths across the causeway and further develop their talents. We look forward to Malaysia’s turn to organise the Triennial Cultural Showcase in Singapore and further cement our ties of friendship”.
Other highlights of the evening included a pop-up (Mixing It Up) for festival-goers to sample special concoctions by CK Kho of Coley, featuring guest Singaporean mixologists Jayden Ong and Sharmaine Sie of Nutmeg and Clove. Foodies also had the opportunity to enjoy a taste of Singapore and Malaysia, with a specially curated menu (A Tale of Two Cities) by Singaporean chef Nicholas Scorpion.
URBN.SENI is organised by the Singapore Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia (MOTAC). It is held in conjunction with Urbanscapes 2019, Kuala Lumpur’s longest-running creative arts festival.
Find out more about #URBNSENI event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/460799204792329/
