Nation by Design: Reimagining Singaporean Identity

<p dir="ltr">Background </p><p dir="ltr">Situated within communication design and cultural studies, Nation by Design: Reimagining Singaporean Identity examines how visual communication mediates the relationship between institutional nation-building narratives and lived experiences of belonging. Drawing from Skaggs (2017) and Kress and van Leeuwen (2005), the research engages design semiotics, national branding, and postcolonial identity formation, responding to scholarship on design’s civic agency (Tonkinwise, 2019) and Singaporean discourses of design and citizenship (Koh, 2021). </p><p dir="ltr">Contribution </p><p dir="ltr">Developed for Singapore Design Week 2025, the project comprised an exhibition, panel, and participatory workshop curated by Dr Regine Abos with Dr Nicola St John, Alan Fong, Mark de Winne, and Kristen Mah. Drawing on Fong’s archival analysis of state artefacts alongside student works from the RMIT–SIM Communication Design program, the events reframe national identity as a negotiated, living process. Through mapping, collage, and speculative remixing of national symbols, participants articulated belonging beyond official narratives. </p><p dir="ltr">Significance </p><p dir="ltr">The project advances new thinking on communication design as a civic medium, contributing to discourses on pluriversal design, civic imagination, and visual nationhood. Selected through a competitive process led by Design Council Singapore, Singapore Science Park, and OuterEdit, it featured at Singapore Design Week, with coverage in The Japan Times and a forthcoming panel transcript in the RMIT Design Archives Journal.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>