Arts-Based Community Engagement in Singapore: Success Stories, Challenges, and the Way Forward

Abstract

Socially engaged artists have to work within a landscape of state-sponsored grassroots organizations and controlled community development in Singapore. This has created both constraints and opportunities for artists. Arts-based community engagement that focuses on building national identity and inter-racial harmony receives much government support and funding. Community art that helps support therapy, health and social care are also welcomed by the arts administrators, social service providers, hospitals and community organizations. Art that is politicized or calls into question government policies are discouraged, and the socially conscious artists who use art for advocacy or public education often have to negotiate with the state where these boundaries should lie. Nonetheless, a strong supportive ecosystem for socially engaged artists is growing in Singapore, made up of intermediary organizations, capability builders and market aggregators.