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SINGAPORE : Costing more than half a million dollars, the Noise Singapore Festival aims to unearth new talent and inspire groundbreaking content from youths in Singapore.
The festival focuses on photography, design and music.
Besides giving out much-needed funding, it also helped one teenager go all the way to Tokyo to showcase her talents there.
18-year-old Gillian Toh has a dream of being a full-time illustrator one day. And it does not bother her when people say the 'real money' is in other industries.
In fact, her persistence paid off when she was selected by the Noise Singapore Festival organisers to showcase her talents in Tokyo last year.
Ms Toh said: "My neighbour was cutting down his bougainvilleas and he burnt the lot, and I really liked the way the wood looked. It was like very abandoned, very decrepit and had that sort of idea of abandoned waste. And I was trying to create something that was both beautiful but ugly at the same time."
Running for the fifth year, the Noise Singapore Festival is seeing more participants and submissions.
This year saw some 9,000 artistic submissions - an increase of 24 per cent from 2009.
In addition, for the first time the organiser - National Arts Council - is giving S$5,000 grants to winners from various categories.
Kok Tse Wei, manager, National Arts Council, said: "We are here to help young people further their artistic dreams, so why not offer them a grant that helps them to do that?
"So what happens now is that after we have announced the winners, we are working with them actively to firm up proposals about how they are going to spend it, in terms of furthering their artistic pursuits."
And for this year's Noise Singapore Festival, there are about 430 music submissions - an 85 per cent increase from last year.
One of the musicians benefiting from the festival is a singer-songwriter who goes by the moniker - For This Cycle.
He is one of the lucky few getting the S$5,000 grant and he said the festival is helping him beyond dollars and cents.
Weiwen Seah said: "Through my experience with Noise, I have learnt a lot about the music industry, like when you do shows, you have to have the right attitude and business etiquette and stuff like that."
Some of the top-rated submissions for this year's Noise Singapore Festival will be on display till March 10 at Raffles City Shopping Centre.
There will also be three evenings of concerts at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre and Concourse from March 5-7.
The Noise Talks, a conference bringing together leaders in the creative industries will bring the festival to a close on March 18. Some of the guests include musician Zee Avi, as well as award-winning design professional Kelley Cheng. - CNA/ms
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