Singapore’s arts community is anticipating a new chapter after their prime minster of 20 years, Lee Hsien Loong, handed power over to his prodigy Lawrence Wong earlier this month. Wong is the fourth prime minister since it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965; he is also a member of the People’s Action Party, which has dominated government since 1959.
Lee Hsien Loong—whose father was Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore’s founding prime minister and head of state for 31 years—brought economic growth while stifling dissent and expression. He will remain influential, having kept his seat in cabinet, but Wong’s enthusiasm for supporting culture has sparked some optimism that more openness and policy facilitation may accompany fiduciary support.
“Wong is himself something of a Renaissance man—he’s a talented musician who deploys his musical skills as part of social media outreach,” says Usha Chandradas, a nominated member of parliament for the arts sector and co-founder of regional art journal Plural Art Mag. “This may seem like a trivial point, but this framing of his public persona sends an important message to Singaporeans—that our leaders can and should be accomplished in diverse and multi-disciplinary skills, and that this is a quality which is absolutely necessary for effective leadership in these fraught and complicated times.”
One of Lawrence Wong’s recent Instagram posts showed him learning to play the gambus, an instrument regularly heard in traditional Malay music. He also regularly shares footage of himself playing guitar
Courtesy of Lawrence Wong
This year, the then-deputy PM and finance minister Wong announced an additional S$100m in arts funding through to 2027. “This signals to me a firm commitment to growing the arts and acknowledgement of the need to support arts-related initiatives with solid funding,” Chandradas says. Wong previously worked as the minister of culture, community and youth, and in 2013 introduced free entry to museums for Singaporeans and invested $62mn into the national collection.
A spokesperson for Singapore’s National Arts Council (NAC) specifies that the new funding will be directed towards “transforming Singapore [into] a distinctive city in the arts. We aspire to be a key creative node in the region, deeply connected to Southeast Asia. We envision Singapore as a key cradle of young talents and [a place which] creative Singaporean artists and companies can leverage as a springboard to the world,” using this springboard to raise the global visibility of their “uniquely Singapore arts offerings”.
More than 500 artists, arts groups and partners celebrated the launch of the National Arts Council’s ”SG Arts Plan (2023-2027)” last year. The roadmap drew on the efforts of the arts community and was set up to guide Singapore’s arts and culture policies over five years
Image credit to National Arts Council
There is an aim to offer a platform for the whole of Southeast Asia and bring more arts into schools and communities. This will include working with the Urban Redevelopment Authority to create art eight spaces totalling 7,200 sq. m. “NAC is working on a new arts space at Kampong Java and redeveloping 45 Armenian Street [an arts venue formerly known as the Substation] to provide more artist-led and run spaces for experimentation and creation,” they say. However, the city's best-known arts hub Gillman Barracks has been threatened with redevelopment from 2030, when resident galleries’ leases expire.
Funding only goes so far in Singapore, which “topped the Economist’s list of most expensive cities last year, once again,” says independent curator Louis Ho. Beyond facilitating art sales with supportive taxation, for example, “perhaps the size of public grants for the arts needs to keep up with the rise in the standard of living.” Dealers also frequently complain about the cost and speed of importing art into Singapore.
Censorship also remains a constant concern, with government criticism and LGBTQ+ expression among the subject seen by authorities as taboo. Singapore only decriminalised gay sex in January 2023, repealing Section 377A, a British law introduced under colonial rule. “I’m not sure if things have changed all that much, despite the repeal,” given how its scrapping “came bundled with an amendment to the constitution that defined marriage as ‘a union between a man and a woman’,” says Ho.
“The state isn’t exactly celebrating queer rights,” Ho says. He cites the controversy that arose when the National Day theme song “Home” was performed by a drag artist in September 2023, adding that it suggests that “institutional positions regarding expressions of non-normative identity haven’t shifted overnight”. In June, for Pride month, Ho will curate Of placebos that sing sweet in the mouth and ache in the soul, a show of work by six Singaporean and Malaysian LGBTQ+ artists at Richard Koh Gallery (opening 29 June). Despite shifting generational attitudes, “religious belief remains a strong driving social force, so it tends to be something of a balancing act for the authorities,” Ho says. “The laws may be different, but entrenched attitudes aren’t.”
A vocal Christian right has framed censorship of the LGBTQ+ community as a tenet of religious freedom. The NAC spokesperson attempts to strike a balance, saying: “Artists use the arts to raise questions and probe society to think about issues differently. In any society, there will be a need to accommodate and manage creative tensions. In Singapore, artists have space to create, but as a multi-racial and multi-religious society, we do not take our social cohesion for granted. There is a strong consensus in Singapore that individuals can express their views freely but within the bounds of not inciting inter-racial or inter-religious tensions or further widen social divides that will only weaken our society.”
“I’m not sure that the chief issues are with official support,” Ho adds. Self-censorship is also deeply engrained, he adds, flagging references in a Chinese-language publication to “the inoffensive character of Singapore’s art,” claiming a lacking in discussion about identity politics and other big issues in contemporary art. “I should also point out that there are many Singaporean artists, curators and other producers who continue to churn out highly interesting work, you can’t tar everyone with the same brush,” he continues. “It may well be that, creatively, our ecosystem could stand to be more exciting, and that may have less to do with government bureaucracy. We can’t always blame the authorities for everything.”