HAN@Punggol Year 1 (2025-2026)

Getting to Know You

Our work in Punggol started with a simple ambition: to get to know the neighbourhood and the people who call it home. We spent a year listening, building relationships, and understanding the stories that shaped Punggol past and present.

JUNE 2025

Saying Hello

We introduced ourselves to the neighbourhood with Colours on Shore, a co-created installation by Mit Jai Inn that invited families to leave their marks together. It became a shared space where strangers could meet, create, and imagine what this journey could become.

Artist-led workshops by whoeatsart and Zai Tang explored Punggol through food, sound, and the landscape of Coney Island. They opened up new ways of engaging with Punggol’s past, asking how earlier histories might still connect with residents today.

Over 11 days, we met over 1,500 residents. For 3 in 5 of them, it was their first time attending an arts or heritage event.
Click here for a full walkthrough of our launch programmes.

AUGUST 2025 ONWARDS

Door-Knocking & House Warmings

Through door-knocking, we gathered everyday stories. We met over 500 residents and listened intently to their experiences of daily life, favourite places, hopes for the future, and what it means to build community in one of Singapore's newest towns.

We also launched House Warmings, an initiative supporting residents to host casual afternoon gatherings for neighbours in their own homes. Around food and conversation, these casual gatherings created easily-accessible opportunities for neighbours to get to know one another.

As Cherrin, one of our host-collaborators puts it, “We discovered Singaporean’s aren’t unwilling to communicate. They just need the right opportunities. Once there are the right activities and platforms, residents are naturally willing to come out, gather and interact.”

SEPTEMBER 2025 - MARCH 2026

Neighbourhood Storybook

Alongside today's residents, we also met people who remembered an earlier Punggol. Their memories of kampungs, farms, coastlines, and everyday life became part of the Neighbourhood Storybook that connects present with past through storytelling.

MARCH 2026

Punggol Open House

To close the year, we brought the neighbourhood together for a weekend festival celebrating everything we had learnt. Through a Call for Collaboration, residents got the opportunity to step into the role of storytellers themselves, leading programmes that shared their own perspectives on Punggol. It marked a shift from listening to creating together.
Click here for a full walkthrough of our Open House programmes.

Year One by the Numbers

>15,000 Residents engaged

2,256 Doors knocked

27 Programmes

1,623 Volunteer hours

30+ Partners

What’s Next

Year One laid a foundation for our understanding of the neighbourhood. The relationships, stories, and trust built over the past year now become starting points for deeper collaboration.

In Year Two - Shaping Our Stories, we move from listening to co-creation, developing new programmes with residents, artists, and community partners that reflect Punggol's evolving identity.

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