Concrete Island: Bus tour with Dr Lai Chee Kien

Concrete Island takes as its points of departure J.G. Ballard’s novel of the same title and Tan Pin Pin’s film 80km/h. Rather than a cartographical record of Singapore, the project maps Singapore as a landscape of varying intensities, speed and rhythms. Using the term ‘concrete island’ as a guiding metaphor, this project by the NUS Museum encompasses an exhibition space, a publication reader, a reading workshop, a mobile cinema programme, and a bus tour along the Pan Island Expressway.

The bus tour begins at Changi Airport and ends at Tuas Checkpoint before dropping the passengers off at Golden Mile Tower. It will traverse the horizons of Singapore along the Pan Island Expressway as a sort of response to the film 80 km/h, but this time on a bus and with a speaker on board. Offered almost as a tourist’s moving image of Singapore, this bus tour would address Singapore’s urban history, its movements, and the design of expressways in Singapore.

This CONCRETE ISLAND Bus Tour is part of Singapore Art Week 2016 and is supported by the National Arts Council Singapore.