Singaporeans say they want creativity. But do they mean it?

In Singapore, the term “struggling artist” is more than a cliche. Unfortunately, it is often a reality.

This is not just because making a living from the arts is difficult, although it certainly is. Artists and creatives contend with irregular incomes, uncertain career paths and persistent questions about whether what they do is practical, useful or necessary. But they also face another challenge: being treated by some as a problem to be managed rather than a source of creativity to be nurtured.

Recently, power-washing artist Marcus Pang found himself at the centre of that tension. Pang had been creating a work titled Heart Of Mountbatten on a pavement near Mountbatten MRT station. Using a power washer and water, he creates images by cleaning dirt from surfaces rather than adding paint or other materials.

According to Pang, the police were called to the scene but found no issue with what he was doing. But the work in progress was later removed when the area was “whitewashed” by SMRT, leaving behind a square of freshly washed concrete.

The incident joins several recent cases involving creative uses of public space. Earlier in 2026, mirrors installed in an underground linkway at Bayfront MRT station that had become a popular practice venue for dancers were frosted after complaints that those dancers obstructed pedestrian flow. In 2024, debate surrounded the removal of a smoking samsui woman mural in Chinatown following concerns that it normalised smoking. 

Imagination and tolerance

The circumstances may have differed but each case involved resolving tension between spontaneous creativity and the management of public spaces. 

We say we want a more creative society and recognise that innovation, imagination and unconventional thinking are essential elements of a vibrant city. Indeed, the National Arts Council’s most recent Population Survey on the Arts conducted in 2023 found that more than three-quarters of Singaporeans recognise the benefits of arts and culture, including fostering dialogue, strengthening communities and inspiring work and study. The same survey also found record levels of arts participation among Singaporeans.

Yet these incidents suggest that despite our professed recognition of the arts, we seem to have a low tolerance for unconventional creativity.

Singapore’s approach to innovation offers an interesting comparison. For years, policymakers, educators and business leaders have worked to shift attitudes towards risk-taking and experimentation. Today, there is widespread recognition that innovation rarely emerges fully formed. New ideas often require testing, iteration and occasional failure before they succeed.

Entrepreneurs are encouraged to experiment. Universities promote start-up culture. Regulatory sandboxes allow companies to trial new ideas. More importantly, society has become increasingly accepting of the fact that not every business idea will work.

That principle of “we try first” should not be confined solely to conventional business sectors. Artistic projects too often begin as experiments. Artists test ideas, explore new forms and respond to their surroundings. Some projects resonate with audiences while others do not. Their value is not always immediately obvious but these ideas benefit from having the opportunity to spark a response.

Our default response

Of course, public spaces are not start-up incubators. They belong to everyone and must accommodate competing needs. Concerns about safety, accessibility, maintenance and public order are legitimate, and no artist can reasonably expect unrestricted use of shared spaces. But acknowledging these constraints is different from treating every unconventional act of creativity as a wrinkle to be ironed out at the first sign of discomfort.

It also says a lot about our attitudes as a society if our default response to unexpected artistic expression tends towards erasure and annoyance rather than curiosity and engagement.

More striking is how in recent cases, property wasn’t damaged nor was there disruption created in the process of inviting people to see a familiar space differently: as an everyday pavement encountered on the way to work and school became a canvas for art, as an underground linkway doubled as a communal rehearsal studio, and as a mural transformed an ordinary wall into a national talking point.

In fact, such acts of reimagination deserve encouragement. That is, after all, one of art’s fundamental purposes. Art is not always meant to be agreeable. Sometimes it delights, sometimes it challenges and sometimes it provokes disagreement. The most successful works of art elicit all three responses.

It is precisely through these reactions and the conversation created that that artistic value emerges. Art will always be risky business and some level of discomfort along with a continuous process of negotiation are features of a creative and innovative society, not bugs.

This is also why creative experimentation matters beyond the arts. The World Economic Forum’s New Economy Skills White Paper released in December 2025 has identified creativity, innovation and original thinking as critical human-centric skills in an age of artificial intelligence, arguing that societies will increasingly depend on people who can generate new ideas, challenge assumptions and imagine alternative possibilities as our world becomes more uncertain and volatile.

And yet, when unconventional ideas are removed before people have the chance to engage with them, we risk narrowing the space in which such capabilities and instincts can develop. In Pang’s case, SMRT later expressed interest in exploring a possible collaboration. The gesture is welcome, but couldn’t engagement have preceded removal of the artwork?

The best ideas rarely begin with permission

Many artistic movements we celebrate today began not as institutionally sanctioned projects but as experiments on the margins. Street art offers perhaps the clearest example.

Today, cities around the world proudly market their street art districts as cultural attractions. Visitors flock to neighbourhoods in Melbourne, Penang, Athens and countless other urban centres specifically to seek out murals and public works of art. Walking tours have been built around them. Businesses benefit from the foot traffic they generate.

Entire districts have used public art to express and anchor their identities. Yet street art did not begin as some carefully managed tourism strategy but because artists saw possibilities in blank walls, forgotten corners and overlooked spaces. 

The lesson is not that every unsanctioned work should be preserved. Rather, it is that cultural value is difficult to recognise at the moment of creation. The significance of many works we celebrate now might not have been immediately obvious either. 

A society that values creativity cannot expect every act of artistic expression to arrive fully formed or universally accepted. The real test of how much we value creativity is how willing we are to tolerate it while it is still experimental, raw and imperfect.

Because if we want more original thinkers to walk among us, we must create room for experimentation. Otherwise, the risk is that much of the creativity we claim to value may never emerge at all.