Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art

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Early expressions of community and identity

Singapore Stories opens with images of the city under British colonial rule in Malaya. As artists explored themes of belonging and identity in times of social change, art became a way to express both personal and collective identities, anchored in the everyday lives of those who called Singapore home.

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New artistic forms and languages

Following independence in 1965, Singapore rapidly industrialised and urbanised, fuelling the growth of fine-art education and commercial design.

Through artist-focused clusters and individual creations, the section explores the adventurous spirit that underpinned the artists’ practices, as they moved between abstraction and figuration, and the intersections of art with disciplines like literature, illustration and graphic design.

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Challenging artistic conventions

From the 1980s to the 2000s, Singapore’s cultural scene grew increasingly dynamic, as artists organised their own spaces and events beyond official institutions. These artist-led platforms sparked discussions on alternative art, performances, installations and interdisciplinary collaborations across theatre and the visual arts.

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Dalam Singapore

Dalam Singapore presents a series of focused exhibitions that seek to reinvigorate and deepen understanding of

Singapore’s artists and art through new research, insightful curation and engaging programming.

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Let’s Chat Further (2025) and Retired Singirl (2025--)

At the centre of City Hall Wing, Level 2 is a space featuring newly commissioned artworks by award-winning Singaporean artist Amanda Heng. In Heng’s Let’s Chat Further (2025) and Retired Singirl (2025–), visitors can drop in and engage in a series of conversations that interrogate Singapore’s art history, identity and how people, rather than national policy, form collective identities.

The commissions expand on Heng’s canonical durational performance and participatory artwork, Let’s Chat (1996), now part of Singapore’s National Collection. Working with Artificial Intelligence technologists and designers, the artist continues her career-long interrogation of media and technology’s influence on our identities—how we represent ourselves and relate to one another. Designed reflexively, visitors to Singapore Stories can use this space for rest, conversation as well as critical reflection.