Singapore's Monstrous Merlion

The Merlion is a monster, according to the oldest dictionary meaning of the word, a "mythical creature which is part animal and part human, or combines elements of two or more animal forms."

As an invented symbol, apparently born fully-grown from the head of an ichthyologist, the Merlion is most fully a monster, with its mixed charge of fear and attraction, for Singapore's poets. It remains an object that some Singaporeans may love but most love to disdain. Of course a sense of belonging can be built around negative feelings as well as positive ones.

These are some notes, bits and pieces from an essay I wrote for Lim Tzay Chuen's catalog in the 51st Venice Biennale, and they look at the history of the Merlion in some considerable detail. (You have been warned!)

The Merlion was built of concrete over a steel frame, in Singapore in 1972, by Lim Nang Seng (1907-1987). It is 8.6 metres high and weighs some 80 tons. It is a half-lion, half-fish, standing on its tail fin, designed to have water jetting from its mouth. The work was commissioned by the then Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB) as part of a city-wide program to create tourist attractions and its design was based quite directly on the STPB's own logo, itself developed only eight years earlier and credited to a Mr Frank Brunner. Mr Kwan Sai Kheong, a prominent educator, diplomat and amateur artist, is generally credited with the conception of the Merlion in its setting at the mouth of the Singapore River, while Lim was commissioned to execute the work, enlisting the help of his sons.