Irina Botea Bucan & Jon Dean

During the 1950s, in many Eastern Bloc countries, cultural houses and clubs were created to fulfil the utopian dream of providing ‘culture for everybody’ whilst also structuring opportunities for people to participate in the collective production of culture. At the same time, these communal environments often enabled the state to monitor leisure time and socio-cultural activities. In order to expand their long-term comparative research on these institutions, Irina Botea Bucan and Jon Dean will investigate the history and current role of community centres in Singapore. Aiming to produce an experimental documentary, they will conduct archival and sociological research to understand how these centres operate and the criteria by which they were designed and managed to provide a specific range of social, cultural, and educational activities at a foundational moment in the country’s history. In particular, they are interested in the process of community-building, the nature of people’s participation, and the role community centres played in the formation of Singapore’s post-colonial identity.