SINGAPORE.- The British Council, in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the Preservation of Monuments Board, Singapore, today announced a programme of events entitled Future Memory in Singapore. The programme will culminate with a temporary pavilion designed by award-winning UK architect Asif Khan as part of Singapore’s annual architecture festival ArchiFest in October 2011.

The Future Memory Platform
The theme of Future Memory, which forms the basis for a platform of activities in Singapore, derives from a series of discussion-based events (RA Forums) created by the Royal Academy of Arts in early 2011 in London.

The platform will be launched in Singapore on 13 July 2011 with an RA Forum. The event will feature speakers Liu Thai Ker (architect and an important figure in Singapore’s urban development); Eric Parry RA (London-based architect whose work includes the renewal project at St Martin-in-the-Fields) and Michael Lee (Singapore artist and curator whose work addresses representations of the built environment). The speakers will explore the relationship between past, present and future, addressing a perceived contradiction between forward-looking design and that which retains memories of the past. The event will be chaired by Professor Iain Borden, (Vice-Dean of Communication, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London).

The Future Memory Pavilion
The Future Memory Pavilion aims to raise awareness in Singapore of the exciting younger generation of British architects.

This project seeks to directly initiate and explore a discussion about memory; its connotations and implications for art, architecture and urban space. Dealing with the issues of land and climate, which lie at the heart of Singapore’s heritage, Asif Khan will create a structure made from ice and sand that will mutate during the lifespan of the project. Historically ice and sand have been imported to Singapore for cooling and for expanding the island. The pavilion will explore this history and ask questions about the future of development in the city.

A series of events will explore associated ideas; beginning with the RA Forum in Singapore, followed by a design workshop and concluding with the opening of the pavilion.

Asif Khan is Design Miami 2011 Designer of the Future. His past projects include: Cloud, exhibited during Design Miami/Basel, West Beach Café in Littlehampton and Harvest for Design Museum London.

The British Council is the UK’s leading cultural relations organisation, and has the arts at the heart of many of its projects globally. The creative industries have the power to shape people’s understanding of the UK, and we enable these collaborations between institutions and designers across the world.

The Future Memory Pavilion is supported by Arup (Singapore), RSP Architects and the National Museum of Singapore.

The British Council’s Director of Architecture, Design, Fashion Vicky Richardson said: “The Royal Academy’s programme, Future Memory, provides a framework for discussion about the dynamic of change in cities. In the context of Singapore, the issue of heritage is very different from the way the subject is posed in the UK. The opportunity to work with the RA on a Singapore Forum provides a useful sense of perspective. The ideas that flow from this discussion will help inform Asif Khan’s pavilion which will create further debate in Singapore."

Kate Goodwin, Drue Heinz Curator of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts said: “We are delighted to be involved in the Future Memory platform and to present the RA Forum, Singapore, building upon what has proven a very successful and rich theme in London. We are excited by the works and ideas which will emerge from this new iteration and expansion of the debate.”

Jean Wee, Director of the Preservation of Monuments Board said: “We are delighted to partner the British Council for the Future Memory programme. Our rapidly changing urban landscape challenges us on so many fronts that it becomes urgent to discuss what our past means, even as it dynamically influences the future.”