Iman Binte Mohamad Falmi

Since the 1980s, Singapore’s cultural policy has redefined the role of the arts in community development along with the nation’s shifting needs. However, there has been limited research on how policy shifts have affected arts spaces.

This dissertation examines how shifts in cultural policy frameworks have shaped the function and use of Goodman Arts Centre (GAC) as an arts space for community development and placemaking from 2011 to 2020.

Through a document analysis of policy documents and annual reports from Arts House Group (AHG), the research adopts a comparative approach to trace and match changes in policy with GAC initiatives and programming.

The findings describe the shifts in how GAC has been shaped in its identity and role for the community, namely in evolving socio-cultural needs to strengthen an arts ecosystem, a diversification of the use of arts spaces, as well as placemaking being adopted to strengthen the identity of a space. The research highlights how such shifts are reflected in GAC’s programming, as well as how it might have been implemented and navigated in practice.

The dissertation describes the phenomenon of arts spaces in Singapore evolved along with cultural policy from spaces that facilitate the creation of art into a multifunctional platform.