Singapore Art Museum wanted to build public attention for its latest exhibition by artist Heman Chong, whose practice often plays with the boundaries between the real and the imagined, the everyday and the uncanny.

The challenge: How do you translate a conceptual, introspective artist like Chong into something instantly accessible on Orchard Road — without diluting the art?

The Insight

Heman Chong’s work frequently deals with imagined narratives inserted into public life — objects that appear ordinary at first glance, but feel strangely displaced, prompting people to question what belongs where.

We realised that if we placed something slightly off-kilter yet warmly familiar in the middle of Singapore’s busiest shopping district, it would echo Chong’s themes perfectly:

Disruption not through provocation, but through quiet surrealism.

When people encounter something that almost fits into their mental map of the city but doesn’t fully, they stop, look again, and start constructing meaning themselves.

This is exactly what contemporary art — and especially Chong — invites.

The Idea

Bring Chong’s world into Orchard Road through an oversized “postcard” scene — complete with a giant, softly surreal white cat.

The installation is intentionally whimsical, intentionally ambiguous, and intentionally not explained at first glance. Just like Chong’s work, it asks: What is this doing here? What story does it belong to?

The postcard format frames the city as an artwork.
The cat is the gentle absurdity breaking the frame.

Together, they mirror the exhibition’s ongoing conversation about images, symbols, and the narratives we impose on public space.

The Impact

  • Higher footfall engagement across several days

  • Organic social reach through reels, and TikToks (over 100K organically on Instagram + TikTok)

  • Strong linkage between the activation and the exhibition narrative

  • Renewed public interest in SAM’s contemporary programming

  • Media pickup on Marketing Interactive