Singapore Biennale Announces 2025 Theme, ‘Pure Intention’
Opening in October, the biennial will be led by Singapore Art Museum’s curators and take place in venues across the city, including historical sites and residential neighbourhoods. Save to My Ocula
Singapore Biennale has appointed SAM curators Duncan Bass, Hsu Fang-Tze, Ong Puay Khim, and Selene Yap to lead this year’s edition.
The team has in turn invited grassroots institutions from across the world, including Asian Film Archive and Hothouse (both in Singapore), Hyphen (Yogyakarta), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and Colombo-based collective The Packet, to bring artistic projects into public spaces around the port city.
In his 1995 essay ‘Singapore Songlines’, Rem Koolhaas wrote that the city’s rapid urban transformation was shaped by ‘pure intention’. In the curators’ joint statement, the phrase is employed in a more general sense, reflecting their hope that the invited collectives will ‘challenge our own pure intentions’.
Eugene Tan, CEO and director of Singapore Art Museum, described the biennial as a way to rediscover ‘Singapore’s complex, multifaceted identity through contemporary art’, which he stated was brought back ‘with pure intention’.
The curators explained that the phrase ‘facilitates deep engagement with Singapore’s rapidly changing social and urban environment, inviting reflection on the intersection of tradition and modernity.’
For the first time, the Biennale will present works at Fort Canning Park and the Rail Corridor, among other venues, situating artworks within pre-colonial and colonial-era contexts.
Returning after a three-year hiatus, SB2025 coincides with the nation’s 60th anniversary of independence. The event is set to run from 31 October 2025 to 29 March 2026. —[O]
Main image: Left to right: curators Hsu Fang-Tze, Selene Yap, Duncan Bass, and Ong Puay Khim. Courtesy Singapore Biennale.
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