At the intersection of two milestone anniversaries, T:>Works celebrates 40 years and National Gallery Singapore marks its 10th with a co-production of the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2025 and post-competition Dramatised Reading in 2026. The Competition will happen from 15 November 2025, 11am to 16 November 2025, 11am at National Gallery Singapore, joining T:>Works as the programme’s Venue and Programme Partner.

A T:>Works legacy programme since its inception in 1996, the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition has been a cornerstone of Singapore’s arts scene for the past 25 years, serving as a platform to nurture budding playwrights of all ages and backgrounds. In its 2025 iteration, the much-loved site-specific programme will take place at National Gallery Singapore, inviting the participants to respond to two installations, both commissioned under the Gallery’s OUTBOUND series—reimagining transitional spaces and key entrances at the Gallery through a series of unique artwork commissions, developed in collaboration with leading artists from around the world—Angin Cloud by Art Labor and Eidolon by Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier.

Inaugurated in 2018, OUTBOUND is an initiative that reimagines transitional spaces and key entrances at the Gallery through a series of unique artwork commissions, developed in collaboration with leading artists from around the world, to provoke critical reflection, curiosity, and playfulness in our visitors as they traverse the building beyond exhibition galleries while shifting perceptions of what might be considered art.

Angin Cloud by Art Labor comprises pillars – like trellises for peppercorn vines in the plantations in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, an assemblage of Jrai wood sculptures and hammocks to recline in. Angin Cloud imagines the rural industrialisation of a hillside from Vietnam’s Central Highlands. “Angin,” a Jrai concept, refers to the dynamic potential for change found in the natural elements of water and air. In Vietnamese, “bốc hơi” refers to evaporation and implies a quick disappearance. Art Labor has described the transformation of the Central Highlands as the “bốc hơi” (evaporation) of ancient jungles. Angin Cloud, through a metaphoric and native Jrai lens, alludes to the complex dynamics of modernisation that have brought capital and development to a region but also reshaped its land and people.

Set against the skylight, Eidolon is composed of two parallel rows of beaded link-chains connecting opposite corners across the space. The metallic chains belie their industrial character and instead form a delicate asymmetrical screen that divides the interior space. With a nickel gunpowder finish, the chains reflect ambient light and mirror the architectural features around them, creating a constantly shifting surface. Phaophanit and Oboussier draw on the cultural ubiquity of beads, which have been worn for adornment, used in prayer, or exchanged in trade. In Eidolon, these beads suggest forms of connection and meaning intended beyond language or specific cultures.

Its title, from the Greek word for “phantom,” gestures to the intangible, while its root eidos, “that which is seen”, suggests presence. The work can be seen as a kind of veil or mirage, something that sits between what is suggested and what is seen. As the vertical lines overlap visually, they produce a moiré effect—a kind of optical interference—resulting in a dynamic visual effect that keeps shifting between transparency and opacity, lightness and density. The work resists easy definition, neither a hanging mobile nor a suspended sculpture. Its monumental scale elicits the viewer to look closely only to see through its physical presence. Through the work, the symmetries of the building’s neoclassical lines are still visible, but gently diffused. As a counterpoise to the cultivated histories of the space—a museum, a municipal building, a private residence—Eidolon brings attention to what is visible, but also what lies beneath, inviting the viewer to experience the space anew

The aspiring playwrights will be challenged to write a play within 24 hours, responding to a series of stimuli curated around the exhibitions they will co-inhabit, as facilitated by theatremaker Jo Tan. Engaging deeply with the themes and spatial ideas present in the works, it will be an experience to reimagine notions of time and place; of modernisation and colonial histories through individual creative lenses. Their plays will be judged by a panel comprising Adele Tan (Senior Curator and Assistant Director, (Curatorial Programmes) at National Gallery Singapore), writer Myle Yan Tay (Catskull, Statement Piece), and theatremaker Tan Shou Chen (Mosaic).

The stimuli will be co-conceptualised by T:>Works and National Gallery Singapore, with the aim to nurture vibrant transdisciplinary dialogue between the performing and visual arts, and broader cultural research. Such direction is underscored with the inclusion of Adele Tan, Senior Curator at National Gallery Singapore, as part of a jury panel alongside theatre director and performer Tan Shou Chen, as well as playwright Myle Yan Tay, joined by actress and playwright Jo Tan as programme-facilitating Game Master. The participants can look forward to an opportunity for discursive engagement with and between theatremakers and playwrights as well as National Gallery Singapore’s curatorial team. The selected winning scripts will be developed and staged through a mentoring programme with established directors, actors, and dramaturgs, culminating in a Dramatised Reading in early 2026.

Join both T:>Works and National Gallery Singapore at this juncture of milestones as they bridge demarcative silos in the arts through a transdisciplinary experience, engaging in ‘theatre’ that is a public forum expanding beyond genres of performing arts embracing disciplinary and discursive diversity.

24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2025 takes place from 15th to 16th November 2025 at National Gallery Singapore. Registration available here