Rooting for Change: Artistic Responses to Climate Change and Sustainability

How is climate change affecting Singapore and the region and how can our societies build a more sustainable future? In the lead-up to Earth Day that is commemorated globally on 22 April every year, the National Museum of Singapore and the Maybank Foundation launch three original video artworks, selected from an Open Call commissioning series held between April to May 2021. The series serves to showcase creative and contemporary responses to the National Museum’s collection, making it more accessible to the public while engaging them on contemporary issues. This two-part Open Call commissioning series is part of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between both organisations in 2019 to promote the arts, culture and heritage of Southeast Asia, while responding to the current issues of today and making a positive impact on the community.

Titled Rooting for Change: Artistic Responses to Climate Change and Sustainability, the first series comprises three video artworks that will be showcased on the National Museum’s LED Wall. The artworks address the theme of climate change and sustainability in a mix of artistic styles, originality and innovativeness, by artists and creatives with different artistic practices.

Indefinite Waters by artist collective DASSAD, whose experimental video depicts rising sea levels and how it slowly swallows up a litter of communication devices from across the ages to demonstrate the paradoxical relationship that humans have with the urgency of our climate futures.

Juxtaposing past images of the Singapore landscape with current day footage, Second Chance by Robert Zhao is a poetic meditation on the historical and environmental richness of Singapore’s secondary forests that sheds light on models of resilience, compromise and co-existence with other species.

Choosing Today for our Tomorrows by Ong Wei Ting recognises environmental sustainability as a key issue that today’s generation is grappling with, and through an animation inspired by a 1990s cartoon style, encourages visitors young and old to take heart in building a more sustainable future.