Kurt Ganapathy heads up to the top of the National Gallery Singapore to give you a bird’s-eye preview of this year’s parade.
The Singapore Bicentennial has been commemorated with the tagline “From Singapore to Singaporean” in mind, and the National Day Parade for 2019 is very much in keeping with this sentiment.
With the theme “Our Singapore”, the parade returns to the historic Padang for just the third time this decade.
The country’s 54th birthday party celebrates Singaporeans of all races, ages, backgrounds and abilities while also acknowledging the pioneers, places and organisations that have helped to shape the place we call home.
Here’s what you can look forward to at this year’s parade. Happy National Day to all Singaporeans! Special thanks to Smoke & Mirrors at the National Gallery Singapore for helping to make this story possible.
Photography: Kurt Ganapathy
Curation: Arman Shah
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![“Growing up in Singapore, we’ve been taught from a very young age that we are a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. Yet, the portrayal of this diversity in our media wasn’t reflecting well. It often fell short, reducing minority races to mere caricatures.
Determined to change this narrative, I made it my mission as an actor to bring authentic representation to my work. And there are many ways to do that. For me, I chose to be mindful of the roles I play and portray.
I meticulously selected roles, even telling my agents to send me for castings which were not intended for my race. I strongly believe that race is a social construct that can be overridden by the actual acting work. True talent transcends racial boundaries.
My persistence paid off when my agency rolled the dice on me, submitting my name for auditions beyond traditional ethnic roles. I knew I was making strides because I was getting callbacks to the later rounds.
Soon enough, the ‘gamble’ paid off. The breakthrough came when I was called in to audition for the St Patrick's Day campaign by Guinness. I successfully booked it, and went on to be the only Indian in the regional commercial that aired across Southeast Asia.
That job gave me the confirmation that I should continue striving for equal representation. Shortly after, another opportunity came when Air New Zealand (@airnz) did a casting for a couple to star in their new commercial. It was to promote travel between Singapore and New Zealand.
Getting that job was monumental for me, because not only did we get to portray an interracial Singaporean couple, we did it for an international audience. It was the first commercial between the two countries when borders reopened post-COVID.
Bringing the same energy when I moved to New York City (NYC), I kept auditioning for roles that weren’t specifically for people of my ethnicity. However, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t auditioning for roles that were for South Asians too.
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