First presented as a work-in-progress as part of Singapore International Festival of Arts 2024’s Tomorrow and tomorrow incubation programme, hello, is this working by Drama Box returns to SIFA as a fully-fledged production.

Artists Chng Xin Xuan, Han Xuemei, and Lynette Quek shed light about the production and how it has evolved since it was first presented last year.

Synopsis
If work is a big part of our lives, who would we be without our work? How are different jobs valued? Step into a world where we’ve collectively lost our memories about the work we used to do.

Through a mix of accounts by people of various professions and speculations of a post-AI future, hello, is this working? by Drama Box is a participatory experience that invites us to reexamine our relationship with work now, and to reimagine work in the future.

Times may change, but work, and workers are here to stay. Are you ready, Worker 5.0? The future is calling.

What inspired you to create the work?

Xuemei: Growing up in Singapore, many of us were likely instilled with the idea of “study hard and then get a good job”, to the point it almost felt like life ended with getting a job. I wanted to question this perceived indispensability of work — specifically, working for a living.

There were many questions I was curious about. Why do we work the way we do? Why do we value certain types of work more than others? How did our collective values about work evolve over time, and what needs to change in the future? These are also questions the world is grappling with, as seen in the rise of conversations and social movements such as “lying flat” (躺平 tǎng píng) and “quiet quitting”, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The time felt right for us to explore these questions more deeply through the arts.

Xin Xuan: I believe I have similar questions and thoughts about work, as shared by Xuemei. For myself, in particular, I recognise my privilege, being able to work as a freelance artist, away from the drudgery of repetition and routine. My work brings me to many like-minded people who share similar lifestyles and beliefs, though sometimes I have this inkling that I’m in an echo chamber. Working alongside Xuemei and Lynette on this project has allowed me to satisfy my curiosity about the work of my fellow Singaporeans who are not in the arts industry, and also presents me with an opportunity to learn more about others. Much of the inspiration comes from them and from the interactions that we have. 

Lynette: I guess I was really curious about why people around me are often complaining about their work, how mundane their working days are, how they spend their weekends asleep in bed — it is almost as if they live just to do something that they don’t enjoy. I was really curious on how people stay on so long at a job, what were the little treats in their day, and what they think they would have been doing if not. 

Photo: Moonrise Studio / Courtesy of Arts House Limited

What made you decide to test your ideas through SIFA’s Tomorrow and tomorrow initiative in 2024?

Xuemei: Because the subject of “work” is vast and complex, I had been hesitant to start. When the invitation came from SIFA’s Tomorrow and tomorrow, I felt it was the right time and space to plunge in, explore and experiment to figure out where these ideas could go. This opportunity also allowed me to involve other collaborators, and this was how Lynette and Xin Xuan came on board.

Were there any unexpected discoveries or insights from the audience feedback in 2024?

Xuemei: We were really thankful to the audience for the variety and depth of feedback last year. The feedback ranged from sharing their resonance with the work to pointing out areas that were not explored. One particular sharing that I was surprised by was how our perception of work is shaped by social and cultural institutions and, over time, the roles that these institutions play in our lives become very invisible and unchallenged. The example raised in this case was that of the National Library, wherein the library actually has, amongst its many functions, the function of developing “good workers”.

Xin Xuan: Too many to list! I would say that the dialogue that we had after our showings, during the post show talk, was a great space for us to exchange ideas and thoughts about work. And that to me was the most beautiful bit actually.

Lynette: A friend who came to watch the show said she would quit their job immediately! (She hasn’t left.) I find this contrast intriguing as it also states a bigger problem of pressure, sustainability, unease, etc. I appreciated the openness of the audiences and hopefully this piece allowed them to be a little bit more daring with their choices in their line of work. 

Photo: Moonrise Studio / Courtesy of Arts House Limited

Now that the work is a full-fledged production in SIFA’s 2025 season, how has the work evolved since? 

All: The most visible evolution would be the form the work takes. Last year, it was presented as an intimate performance – one actor to 40 audience – in a room. This year, the physical environment for the work is completely different. We were invited to create our work taking into consideration Ruobing’s installation at Bedok Town Square, which is an open public space. To consider how different audiences can access and experience the work, we have created two types of experiences – between 10am and 4pm, public can freely enter and explore the work in the form of an installation, then at 5pm and 7pm, there will be a 45-minute audio-based participatory experience, where the audience follows a narrative journey set in the year 2056.

The development of a narrative journey is also something that deviates from last year’s work-in-progress. Last year’s exploration had a more modular structure, where each scene or segment played with different ideas and could have no obvious connection to each other. 

This year, we also chose to develop the character of the work fairy which appeared in one segment last year, as well as explore more with speculative imaginations of the future of work.

Essentially, “hello, is this working?” is both a philosophical question on what defines work and a speculative reflection on what is functioning and what is broken in our society. How do we make things work, and how do we repair what isn’t working?

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Catch It!

hello, is this working by Drama Box runs from 23 to 25 May 2025 at Bedok Town Square.