S'poreans who don't understand satire hoodwinked by 'Kill Stray Cats' flyer at Night Festival

Maybe this is the real point of the art installation, getting people who rage easily to reflect.

Ng Yi Shu| September 01, 06:13 PM

A flyer with a message to "kill stray cats" that was distributed at the Singapore Night Festival over the weekend has caused a number of animal welfare groups to misread the satirical nature of its content and object to it.

A photo of the flyer was posted on the Facebook of local animal welfare group Voices For Animals, with a message that "cat abuse is very real in Singapore" and "there will be sick people who may take this at face value and carry out this act in the name of 'art'".

The flyer quickly attracted a lot of attention and led to several other animal welfare groups to issue statements against the art piece, mistaking it to be a real call to action.

In a Facebook post, Cat Welfare Society (CWS) wrote that "we find it difficult to understand how the advocacy of such heinous acts can ever be termed art".

However, it turns out that the flier was distributed as part of an exhibition-performance named "Eville" by arts group Vertical Submarine.

Like its name suggests, the exhibition is about evil in its everyday form.

CWS has since edited its Facebook post to reflect the fact that the filer was part of an art installation.

"This flier has, however, come out at a time when cat abuse cases have increased in frequency... many of us have witnessed cat abuse in our communities," CWS wrote. "We are grateful that so many of you have come out strongly against cat abuse."

SPCA Singapore also wrote in a Facebook post that "we ask that the group responsible for this notice be mindful of how community cats -- a more apt term for 'stray cats' -- are an integral part of our ecosystem."

Vertical Submarine has since issued a statement on Facebook, stating that "satirical didactics were used throughout the show with the intention to provoke reflection".

"The flyers were one such device and this would have been clear if the exhibition had been viewed in its entirety, rather than looking at one flyer outside of its context," Vertical Submarine wrote. "The flyers were not distributed to the public for the purpose of advocacy but scattered as part of the performance."

Today reported that

"...the flyers were part of a bigger, interactive performance that was mainly held inside art gallery Artspace222 at Queen Street over the two weekends of the festival. Titled Eville, it included the enigmatic presence of a man tied to a chair at outside the building to welcome audiences to the main exhibition space upstairs. It has a narrative backstory of a so-called murderer who is caught, killed and stuffed inside a duffel bag which “transforms” into the flyers that are thrown out of the window and onto the street where the tied man is. The flyers, acting like the complete opposite of the biblical 10 Commandments, also included immoral instructions like lying to parents, committing adultery and cheating clients."

Clues of the satirical nature of the flyer were littered all over it.

For example, the flyer is written in classic satirical language:

Every year, charitable lonely elderly widows in Singapore

spends a combined total of S$6.6 million of their own money

on food supplies and litter for stray cats.

With that kind of money spent otherwise, it could easily end

the pain and suffering of our lonely elderly widows.

The flyers were also signed off by a so-called Red Herring Conservation Society. "Red herring” means something that distracts or misleads people from important issues.

 

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