Ellison Tan is a playwright, performer and co-artistic director of Singapore theatre company The Finger Players, known for its use of puppetry. When we handed Ellison the camera, it was right before the implementation of the ‘Circuit Breaker’. What was meant to be a journey through an artist’s life now had another layer added to it—a reflection of the impact the pandemic has had on artistic practice as well as our daily lives. From mannequins to makeshift recording studios, Ellison shares little snippets of her routines as she navigates through this new normal. 

This was taken from our workshop, at level three of ONE-TWO-SIX Cairnhill Arts Centre.

Before today, I didn’t know that it faced the Elizabeth Hotel. A good friend and fellow artist Loo Zihan was serving his 14-day Stay Home Notice in the hotel, and had posted on Facebook the view from his room. I thought it’d be nice to say a physical “Hello”, because I had not seen him for a long time. But at the same time, I wanted the presence of the “Hello” to remain, so Myra [Loke, The Finger Players’ other co-artistic director] and I taped a heart on the mannequin with red gaff tape (it was more of Myra’s handiwork), and left it at the window the entire day we were there, so Zihan would always know whenever we were around working in the office.

I work part time at the radio station UFM on weekends. This was the last time I went into the station for my shift. After this day, even radio DJs started working from home, setting up a makeshift studio at home. Weekend shifts were then taken over by the full-timers.

Taking over grocery shopping from my parents, I had to go to four different supermarkets to get what I needed because the biggest supermarket had such a long queue.

My weekly pilgrimage to the company’s letter box [at Cairnhill Arts Centre] to retrieve letters. It’s not always essential, but because we share a letterbox with three other companies, I worry about it being too packed for the postman to insert new ones. On this day I was also sent a photo of me going into the premises to retrieve letters, by the security guard that the Arts Council had employed to look after the premises while we had no one around. I felt almost sad that they didn’t even bother approaching me to clarify why I was there.

I had to use my father’s car to record a clip meant for our first digital content for Oiwa – The Ghost of Yotsuya. I shifted multiple car parks before finding the right spot – without birds, without other cars zooming by, without neighbours tinkering on their piano. Eventually it still wasn’t good enough, so I built a sound recording booth (not pictured, haha) at home with a table top, suitcases, and bedsheets.