The URA City Gallery: Production, Consumption and Performance of a Nation’s Identity

Abstract

As a result of rapid globalisation, Singapore’s landscape is continually changing and representations of the nation have also been shifting together with its fast changing landscape over time. This thesis thus aims to plore current representations of the nation, made in the URA City Gallery (an urban planning museum) – as a microcosm of the larger built environment of Singapore. Drawing upon Foucauldian notions of ‘power’ embedded within museums and Lefebvrian notions of space (and identity) production, this thesis firstly critically analyses the Gallery and its production (through representations) of the Singapore landscape and concomitant identities. It then examines Gallery visitors’ reception towards these representationsof space and exposes their acceptance as well as contestation of the Gallery’s official narratives.Finally, the thesis reveals the Gallery as also a non-­?representational space, where identity is ‘performed’ by visitors’ through interactions with more than just exhibits, but other visitors as well. Broadly, key findings show that the Gallery represents and frame Singapore in two seemingly discordant narratives of modernity and vulnerability.Visitors were also shown to mobilize the landscape in particular ways when discussing identity, with some relating Singapore to its materiality, while others conceive Singapore in relation to more affective, quotidian realms instead. The Gallery is finally shown to be more-­?than-­?gallery, a complex web of spatial practices where space and identity is co-­?constructed through engaging with exhibits, acts of performances, watching and being watched by others.