Here’s a challenge for contemporary art: How do you distill something as shapeshifting as a city—its jagged history, its gleaming skyscrapers, its shadowy corners—into a theme? The Singapore Biennale, roaring back after a three-year hiatus, has announced its 2025 theme, Pure Intention. The phrase is borrowed from Rem Koolhaas, who once described Singapore’s rapid urban metamorphosis with an almost clinical reverence. But here, the curators have twisted it, flipped it, and asked the question Koolhaas didn’t: Whose pure intentions are we talking about?

Led by Singapore Art Museum’s sharp-eyed team—Duncan Bass, Hsu Fang-Tze, Ong Puay Khim, and Selene Yap—this year’s Biennale isn’t just unpacking the city’s identity; it’s hauling it into public spaces, spilling it onto historical sites, and threading it through the chaos of residential neighborhoods. It’s a curatorial act of putting art where it might least expect to belong but most deserves to be.

And they’re not doing it alone. The Biennale’s roster is refreshingly global and defiantly grassroots: Singapore’s own Asian Film Archive and Hothouse, Yogyakarta’s Hyphen, Berlin’s SAVVY Contemporary, and Colombo’s The Packet are just a few of the collectives bringing their projects into the port city’s beating heart. It’s art as dialogue, not monologue—a bold move in a city where the skyline often speaks louder than the ground it’s built upon.

Urban Theater: Fort Canning Park, Rail Corridor, and More

For the first time, the Biennale will sprawl into Fort Canning Park and the Rail Corridor, among other locations. These spaces—steeped in pre-colonial and colonial histories—become more than venues; they’re provocations, asking how the past folds into Singapore’s frenetic present. The Biennale’s timing is no coincidence, either: 2025 marks Singapore’s 60th anniversary of independence. Expect art that not only reflects this milestone but also holds a mirror to the contradictions within it.

The Art of Rediscovery

Eugene Tan, Singapore Art Museum’s CEO and director, calls this Biennale an opportunity to rediscover the city’s “complex, multifaceted identity.” That’s a polite way of saying it’s a chance to interrogate the myths Singapore tells itself: about progress, tradition, modernity, and the spaces where they collide.

But don’t let the title fool you. Pure Intention is anything but straightforward. It’s a tightrope walk between earnest reflection and sharp critique, between what’s preserved and what’s erased. This isn’t art that sits quietly in white cubes; it’s art that spills into streets, unsettles narratives, and asks questions that linger long after you’ve moved on.

Mark your calendars: 31 October 2025 to 29 March 2026. Singapore Biennale 2025 promises to be less of a walk in the park and more of a stroll through the maze of a city’s ever-complicating soul. Pure intentions? Maybe. But let’s not pretend they’ll stay unchallenged.