In Conversation: Memories, Nostalgia & Built Heritage

Dr Natalie Pang is Deputy Head at the Communications and New Media Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at National University of Singapore, and University Librarian of NUS Libraries. She is also ExCo Member of the Singapore Heritage Society. Between 2017 – 2019, she worked on a project to understand public opinions and perceptions of built heritage and landmarks in Singapore.

Han Xuemei (韩雪梅) is a theatre practitioner based in Singapore, and currently serves as the co-artistic director of theatre company Drama Box. She believes in socially engaged practice, and imagines the arts as an integral ingredient for beauty and hope in society. Her artistic practice involves designing experiences, spaces and conditions for people to exercise their right to be creative, disrupt routines and deconstruct paradigms. She has conceptualised, directed, designed and facilitated numerous performances including Assembly (2022), FLOWERS (2019), The Gift (2018) and MISSING: The City of Lost Things (2018)—multi-disciplinary experiences that engage the audience in deeply visceral and personal ways. In 2021, she received the Young Artist Award, Singapore’s highest award for young arts practitioners.

Joel Tan is a Singaporean playwright based in London and Singapore. Recent works include The Butterfly Lovers (Victorian Opera/Wild Rice), No Particular Order (Theatre 503, The Studios: TRIP at Esplanade), shortlisted for the George Devine Award, Tartuffe (Wild Rice), When The Daffodils (Orange Tree Theatre); Living Archive (Royal Court); Ghosts in the Blood (Audible UK) and Augmented Chinatown (Chinese Arts Now). Upcoming work includes new plays with Wild Rice, the Royal Court, Headlong Theatre and the Almeida Theatre.

Joel also works inter-disciplinarily and has collaborated with visual artists, poets, musicians and dancers as a writer, director and dramaturg.