What does it mean to be Singaporean? Despite decades of nation-building and countless exhibitions on the topic, the question persists — even sixty years after Singapore’s independence. But this is not because we lack a Singaporean identity. On the contrary, it is the plurality of expressions and depictions of Singaporean identities that renders our journey to discover a unified cultural and national identity futile. It is also because the frameworks available to us feel increasingly inadequate, such as ideas related to migration and borders. They fail to capture the layered, contradictory, and deeply personal experiences of individuals in, from, and connected to the city-state. Rather than seeking to answer this question, The Other Singaporeans, organised in conjunction with SG60, aims to expand the lexicon of what it means to be Singaporean.
Goh Wei Hao, writer