Forum: Singapore Biennale deserves structural support
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I refer to the Opinion article “ Time to shut down the Singapore Biennale?
The issue is less about artistic outcomes than about how leadership, responsibility and planning are organised around one of Singapore’s key public instruments for contemporary thought and expression.
A biennale is more than a periodic exhibition. It shapes how a nation articulates ideas, participates in regional and international artistic discourse, and builds confidence in its public voice. In a city state such as Singapore, it also contributes to how civic identity is represented in the public sphere.
Now in its eighth edition, the Singapore Biennale is no longer an emergent project. By this stage, it should have consolidated lessons learnt, strengthened institutional capability, and developed a clearer long-term trajectory.
If structural constraints persist, the question is not whether the Biennale holds value, but whether its organisational model is carrying the responsibility expected of a national initiative of this scale.
The Biennale should serve as a focal platform, offering a publicly accessible space for artistic inquiry where imagination and spectacle do not eclipse meaning, while anchoring and lending coherence to arts events and practitioners that strengthen the marketplace and professional ecosystem. This includes the work of art fairs, private galleries, independent institutions, art colleges, and self-organised artists and curators.
At present, both the Singapore Biennale and the national pavilion at the Venice Biennale sit within a single museum structure whose mandate already spans research, collections oversight and institutional programming. Concentrating these responsibilities within one framework stretches capacity and constrains leadership renewal.
It also limits the circulation of curatorial perspectives outside institutional and academic frames, where ideas can be more agile and more closely attuned to artistic practice, as well as to social and global contexts.
A more resilient and future-oriented model would be a dedicated Biennale Office operating alongside but not subsumed into any single institution, supporting continuity across editions, strengthening regional and international partnerships, and cultivating sustained patronage in support of its public mission.
Khairuddin Hori
