9 Questions with Alyssa Kokilah on Super 0 Openair

PUBLISHED January 15th, 2015 05:47 am | UPDATED June 3rd, 2020 12:16 am

Get ready Singapore, the cool factor on our little red dot is just starting to heat up. Mega festival Super 0 Openair will commence at the coastal surroundings of Changi Beach this Saturday and there’s just so much to look forward to! From snazzy art exhibitions to uber cool underground DJs, we’re expecting loads of people to flock to the hottest bonanza in town this weekend. Best part? We’ve managed to snag the person behind all this, Alyssa Kokilah, for the lowdown on all we want to know.

Hey Alyssa, first things first. What inspired you to start Super 0?

We were inspired by some of the best festivals like Melt!, Free Rotation, Dimensions, Secret Garden and Coachella. We wanted to re-create the same vibe back in Singapore. We felt that perhaps we could bring something a little different to the scene, plus we had lots of friends in the music and creative circles who were encouraging us to create a fresh, fun platform to showcase talent.

Planning big festivals like these can’t be a walk in the park – what were the challenges of organizing Super 0?

Some of the biggest challenges were the high production costs and logistics. Taking over empty, abandoned spaces that come with little infrastructure, no power and water supply has taught us to think on our feet and deal with issues that we would never have otherwise imagined! Also, there have not been too many pop-up events of this nature, hence for a lot of licensing and logistical matters. There weren’t many precedents set and we all had to learn as we went along.

In Singapore, it is also pretty tough to find unique locations for the events we do. We are constantly on the look out and it’s funny because sometimes when we are out together as a team, we would chance upon a cool space and just start chattering away non-stop about what we could do with it. A lot of the craziest ideas have been born this way, including transforming the olympic sized swimming pool at Super 0 Openair!

Another big challenge was having enough confidence to believe that we could pull it off just the way we envisioned it to be. After 2 Super 0 Seasons and an all-day festival on the cards, its really nice to see the support we have gained over the past 2 years! It helps us understand the scene better and pushes us to deliver the ‘Super 0’ experience, despite the risks and challenges involved.

How do you feel about the success of the first two seasons of Super 0, and what can we expect of the third edition?

With the first 2 seasons, we wanted to garner as much exposure as we could and in the shortest amount of time possible. Hence, we adopted Manchester Warehouse Project’s model where they ran the festival for a period of time so that people could really immerse themselves in the experience for much longer than just one day/night. Similarly, we took over interesting spaces and transformed them to host an array of music, art and design-related programming.

Super 0 Openair was crafted to combine the best and freshest in music, arts, culture and lifestyle experiences. We’ve planned an all-day programme that includes music and urban farming workshops, artiste talks, photography exhibition, interactive theatre, and DJ performances. There’s going to be a lot going on, hence we encourage everyone to swing by early from 2pm to fully experience the festival.

Do you foresee Super 0 going regional or even international?

Super 0 is an evolving platform that fleshes out novel experiences and ideas, something that we believe can be done anywhere in the world as there will always be new music to listen to, a new artist or exhibition to check out and new experiences to be shared. Our goal is to create ‘Super 0 communities’ or rather a ‘Super 0 subculture’ around the world, bringing a bit of Singapore everywhere we go, which hopefully would further boost our support and morale back at home and become something that we can be proud of!

Is there anything you regret not adding to Super 0?

We try not to follow a staid formula as we need to be excited by what we do, so once we feel that its gotten a little predictable, we change things up. So you can always expect something different that will hopefully tickle and tease everyone. There is always room to plan and do better, but no regrets though.

If Super 0 wasn’t part of your life, what would you be doing right now instead?

I guess I would probably be living in Berlin or in the UK, and putting together multi-conceptual events like Super 0!

Super 0 is a massive boost to Singapore’s arts and music culture, what other aspect of the scene do you think can be further improved upon?

There is so much going on these days with lots of cool collectives doing their thing, which is great for the community! It helps to push and also set standards where everyone works towards a more dynamic, creative scene and be on par with other cosmopolitan cities like London, New York and Berlin.

Do you hope to see local underground artists and musicians go mainstream?

By saying mainstream, i will assume it means to get international recognition. We do have our own superheroes like Zig Zach, DJ KFC, Aldrin, Xhin, and Angela Flame who have flown the Singapore flag overseas across Asia, Australia, Europe and in the US. It will be great to see more of that in the future of course!

There’s so much cool stuff going on around Super 0, what events are on your to do list?

Taking over an abandoned retro-themed sports club, Super 0 Openair will be filled with a smorgasbord of activities, happening all-day throughout the festival. From the get-go at 2pm, guests can check out the exclusively designed Tokyobikes by 5 local artistes across the various creative disciplines. You can go for a test ride on any of the bicycles available and even try to score one of the ‘Art of Cycle’ bicycles via a contest at the festival itself!

There is a range of workshops and activities to keep everyone entertained, from interactive theatre vignettes that might be sprung upon onto unsuspecting guests to urban farming 101 and 2 music stages featuring a whole host of debut acts like The Field ‘live’, Tokimonsta, Ben Pearce, My Nu Leng and more. Photography and art fans should not miss Parisian photographer, David Ledoux’s debut showing at the converted squash courts, both in the day and at night as the installations will be changed up to include visuals and projections.

We strongly encourage everyone to swing by early for the full Super 0 experience and to reward the early birds, there will also be a Super Raffle via a floating Evian Orb that gives out prize vouchers!