Mr James Koh, Chairman of HDB

Mr Lee Suan Hiang, CEO of NAC

Mr Michael Koh, CEO of NHB

Ms Jane Ittogi, Chair of the SAM

Mr Ong Kim Seng,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen

1      As the minister in charge of public housing, it’s not often that I officiate at the opening of an art exhibition. Maybe it’s because so few artists produce paintings of Singapore’s HDB estates. This is what makes this exhibition special.

2      Ong Kim Seng is a Cultural Medallion winner who is well-known among Singaporeans. In this groundbreaking show, he has portrayed Singapore’s urban heartlands in a way which no one else has done before. Using an innovative style, he has used modern-day HDB flats as a canvas to project images of significant moments from the past. He has invited viewers to reflect not only on key moments of history, such as the Bukit Ho Swee fire of 1961, but also of their own position in relation to these common places.

3      In many larger nations, when one thinks of the country’s heartlands, the image is of a huge expanse of rural countryside, little villages, rolling plains, perhaps with cows and sheep in the background. Singapore’s heartlands are, of course, very different. Here, the context is one of many communities of high-rise apartments that stitch together the urban fabric of our nation. There is little tradition in the visual arts world – whether in Singapore or internationally – of depicting such high-density urban landscapes as picturesque. But Ong Kim Seng has shown that there is not only beauty, but also much meaning, in the humble HDB heartland.

4      In just over a year from now, in 2010, HDB will celebrate its 50^th anniversary. In a way, this exhibition, co-sponsored by HDB, is a kind of preliminary marker in the run-up to that half-century milestone. HDB has worked hard over the last five decades to do much more than merely provide a roof over the head for most Singaporeans. It has also created and sustained the development of many new communities of residents clustered around hundreds of precincts all over the island. New communities, new ties, new memories. And when this exhibition ends its run at the Singapore Art Museum and moves on to the HDB Hub in Toa Payoh, I hope many more people, especially residents of the HDB heartlands, will come and appreciate what Kim Seng is trying to convey about Singapore’s heartlands.

5      It is the desire to nurture a spirit of community that connects modern-day HDB precincts to the kampongs and villages in the old Singapore of days gone by. Together with the launch of this exhibition and its accompanying video, a book will also be launched. The publication includes a number of poems by writer Koh Buck Song about Singapore’s heartlands. In one of the poems, titled "Corridor, Bukit Merah", he refers to HDB flats as examples of a "kueh lapis kampong". For those who may not know the term, “kueh lapis” is the Malay name for a popular local pastry, known in English as "layer cake". HDB flats, which are the modern-day multi-storey equivalents of the old kampongs, house residents are separated not by the unpaved side-lanes of the old kampongs, but by many concrete floors and corridors. Yet although the "hardware", the physical setting, has certainly changed, we strive nonetheless to recreate a similar "software", the same spirit, of social harmony and cohesion.

6      As Kim Seng captures in his paintings, the landscape of Singapore’s heartlands continues to evolve. HDB estates are continually being upgraded with new facilities and amenities. New layers are being added to the "kueh lapis kampong", even as we speak. It is the appreciation of this unending transformation, and what it really means to us, that is the crux of this exhibition.

7      I commend Kim Seng and the whole team behind this project for producing a show of art, poetry and multimedia that celebrates a subject so close to the hearts of so many Singaporeans. I hope it will inspire more artists to look more closely at this material, and to create more of such works of art for us all to contemplate and enjoy. Thank you and good evening.

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