Where Art Takes a Break

Meeting the public all day. Admired, scrutinised and subjected to selfies. Hanging out with “colleagues” who don’t always agree with your style.

The life of an artwork can be tiresome. Thus, at the end of any exhibition, SAM sends its artworks for a well-deserved break at the Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC). The purpose-built facility in Jurong is where the museum’s collection of artworks is cared for and stored alongside over 200,000 heritage artefacts that make up Singapore’s National Collection.

➜ Read the full story on essay on the blog of the Singapore Art Museum

Same Same, But Different

Select, copy and paste—a few taps on the smartphone is all it takes to make a duplicate today. Digital technology has made copying effortless and available to all. Lovely opinion! Copy a quote. Beautiful illustration! Save a copy. Awesome tune and film… make copies for sharing? Despite protests from the creative industries—from publishing to music, film to fashion—that rampant copying would destroy creativity, this prediction has not come to pass. Instead, one could argue that preventing copying has encouraged creators to milk existing works over creating new innovations.

➜ Read the full essay on the website for the Bad Imitation exhibition

Becoming Modern by Design: Modernist graphic design’s nation-building role in Singapore, 1960s–1980s


Singapore’s graphic design has often been described as “international”, “trendy” and “western”. The seeming lack of a distinct visual style is attributed to its small population of 5 million, an economy geared for export and that the former British colony only became independent over 50 years ago.

This lecture challenges such snap judgements that suggest Singapore is a mere follower of trends. By examining more closely the rise of modernist graphic design in Singapore beginning from the 1960s to the 1980s, it outlines how the movement was adopted and adapted as part of a larger nation-building agenda.

The presentation was first conceived in 2019 as a guest lecture for Greg D’Onofrio’s design history class at the School of Visual Arts, New York City. It was further developed over several return lectures and also for design classes taught by Sandra Nuut (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Vikas Kailankaje (LASALLE College of the Arts). This is the December 2021 version.