The eighth edition of the Singapore Biennale (SB2025) will open on October 31, 2025, running through March 29, 2026. Organized by the Singapore Art Museum and commissioned by the National Arts Council, the Biennale presents more than 80 artists from Singapore, Southeast Asia, and around the world, bringing together over 100 works, including 30+ new commissions.
Anchored by the theme “pure intention,” SB2025 encourages reflection on the layered histories, urban transformations, and everyday life that shape contemporary Singapore. The Biennale invites audiences to slow down, look more closely, and encounter art in unexpected everyday settings.
An Urban-Scale Exhibition Across Four Zones
Unlike traditional exhibitions confined to gallery walls, SB2025 unfolds across four zones in Singapore—spanning residential neighborhoods, green corridors, colonial heritage sites, and civic-cultural hubs.
Key venues include:
The Rail Corridor South
Wessex Estate, with its historic black-and-white houses
Tanglin Halt, a dense housing precinct
Civic District and Orchard Road
The main Biennale hub at SAM, Tanjong Pagar Distripark
These sites are supplemented by roving projects scattered across the island, inviting spontaneous encounters with works in situ.
By locating art within everyday spaces—markets, housing estates, streets, parks—the Biennale aims to blur the boundary between art and daily life. Each work is meant to activate its surroundings and prompt reconsideration of place, memory, and social change.
Curatorial Vision & Global Voices
The curatorial vision is stewarded by a networked team, including Duncan Bass, Hsu Fang-Tze, Ong Puay Khim, and Selene Yap, alongside contributors drawn from local and international contexts.
Artists from Argentina, Australia, India, South Korea, Türkiye, the United States, as well as throughout Southeast Asia, will participate—enriching local trajectories with a global lens.
Significance & Themes
SB2025 is presented in tandem with Singapore’s SG60 celebrations, reflecting on 60 years of national growth while also projecting into possible futures.
The notion of “pure intention” guides the Biennale’s aims: to foreground sincerity over spectacle, to reanimate the quotidian, and to surface the complexity behind lived environments.
Many of the newly commissioned works respond directly to Singapore’s architectural, social, and environmental dynamics—exploring themes of memory, displacement, infrastructure, and ecological transition.
Access & Participation
Most exhibitions and installations are free and open to the public, especially in outdoor and neighborhood sites.
SAM, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, as a core site, will require tickets: SGD 15 for Singapore citizens and permanent residents, SGD 25 for international visitors.
An early bird discount (20 %) will run from September 17 to October 30.
