---
id: sgkb.arts-culture-media.public-art
kind: article
title: "Public Art"
url: https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.public-art
language: en
evidence_status: verified
last_verified: 2026-10-14
collection_as_of: 2026-10-16
---

# Public Art

Public art in Singapore is artwork sited in publicly accessible streets, parks, transport nodes and precincts; the National Arts Council's Public Art Trust commissions part of it, alongside LTA's Art in Transit, developer collections and statutory-board collections.

# Public Art

**Public art** in Singapore is artwork sited where people encounter it in daily life — streets, parks, viaducts, transport nodes and community precincts — rather than inside a ticketed gallery. The National Arts Council's (NAC) **Public Art Trust (PAT)** is the council's initiative to bring art into the spaces where people live, work and play and to make art part of Singapore's urban spaces ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust)). Public art in Singapore is produced by many commissioning bodies at once — NAC, the Land Transport Authority, developers, banks, statutory boards and museums — so the Public Art Trust is one instrument, not the whole field. Public art policy sits in [arts policy](/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.arts-policy); national monuments and heritage plaques are a different regime ([museums and heritage](/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.museums-and-heritage)).

## The Public Art Trust

NAC's Public Art Trust focuses commissioning and presentation of artworks in shared outdoor and community space, and NAC frames the aim as weaving art into the places where Singaporeans live, work and play, with public art shaping neighbourhood identity and belonging ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust)). For practitioners, the trust publishes *A Guide to Commissioning Public Art*, laid out in nine practical steps covering creative briefs and proposals, contract and budget considerations, licences, maintenance and collection management, with experience from public-art practitioners and commissioners ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/resources/toolkits-and-guides/community-engagement/public-art-trust's-commissioning-guide)). NAC lists the trust's past initiatives with their years: SG Bicentennial (2019), *Rewritten: The World Ahead of Us* (2021) and *As You Were* (2022) ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust)).

## Who commissions public art

NAC's public artworks browse page shows how broad the field is: artworks are filterable by location and by collection, and the collections include NAC, City Developments Limited, DSO National Laboratories, the Singapore Army Museum, Mapletree, CapitaLand, United Overseas Bank, National Gallery Singapore, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Gardens by the Bay, Changi Airport Group, Marina Bay Sands, the National University of Singapore Museum, Far East Organisation, National Parks Board, Singapore Tourism Board, the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Power, Keppel Corporation, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, OCBC Bank, the National Heritage Board and others ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust/public-artworks)).

Transport spaces show the division of labour most clearly. On 8 January 2024 NAC and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced a three-year partnership to commission Singapore artists and arts organisations in land-transport spaces, kicking off with a themed train and artwork at seven MRT stations for Singapore Art Week 2024, and with an artwork under a selected viaduct to launch in the second half of 2024 supported by the Public Art Trust ([NAC, 8 January 2024](https://www.nac.gov.sg/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/experience-art-on-the-go-nac-and-lta-partner-to-bring-public-art-to-commuter-spaces)). The MRT station art programme itself, Art in Transit, is LTA's programme that the partnership enriches, not an NAC scheme ([NAC, 8 January 2024](https://www.nac.gov.sg/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/experience-art-on-the-go-nac-and-lta-partner-to-bring-public-art-to-commuter-spaces)).

## Finding public art

NAC publishes six self-guided Public Art Trails — Bras Basah.Bugis, Marina Bay, Civic District, Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Katong-Joo Chiat — with maps, artwork information and artist details designed for independent exploration ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust/self-guided-public-art-trails-2025)). The trail pages state that artwork information and locations are accurate as of December 2025 and warn that artworks may be relocated, altered or decommissioned over time, so any specific artwork's presence at a spot should be checked against the current page ([NAC, accessed Oct 2026](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust/self-guided-public-art-trails-2025)). For anything beyond trails — monuments, national symbols and commemorative icons such as the Merlion — the relevant articles are [museums and heritage](/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.museums-and-heritage) and [national symbols and ndp](/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.national-symbols-and-ndp).

## Sources

- [NAC — Public Art Initiatives](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust) — Accessed 2026-10-14
- [NAC — Public Art Trust's Commissioning Guide](https://www.nac.gov.sg/resources/toolkits-and-guides/community-engagement/public-art-trust's-commissioning-guide) — Accessed 2026-10-14
- [NAC — Public Artworks](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust/public-artworks) — Accessed 2026-10-14
- [NAC — Experience Art on the Go: NAC and LTA Partner to Bring Public Art to Commuter Spaces](https://www.nac.gov.sg/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/experience-art-on-the-go-nac-and-lta-partner-to-bring-public-art-to-commuter-spaces) — Accessed 2026-10-14
- [NAC — Self-Guided Public Art Trails (2025)](https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/art-forms/visual-arts/public-art-trust/self-guided-public-art-trails-2025) — Accessed 2026-10-14

## Explore connections

- Articles: [Arts Policy](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.arts-policy)
- Articles: [Museums and Heritage](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.museums-and-heritage)
- Articles: [National Symbols and the National Day Parade](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/article/sgkb.arts-culture-media.national-symbols-and-ndp)
- Topics: [Arts, culture and media](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/topic/sgtopic.culture-media)
- Topics: [Public art](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/topic/sgtopic.culture-media.public-art)
- People & organisations: [National Arts Council](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/entity/sg.agency.nac)
- People & organisations: [Public Art Trust](https://ik.sg/en/knowledge/entity/sg.programme.public-art-trust)

Dates describe this record’s own period and applicability. A verification date does not mean a rule is currently in force. An expanding collection. Published counts show available knowledge, not complete coverage of Singapore.