Art captures Singapore

The city-state's recently launched biennale will give locals and visitors plenty to contemplate in a show that focuses on Southeast Asia, Zhang Zixuan reports.

Singapore is turning into an art carnival until next February with the return of Singapore Biennale 2013 - the country's top platform for international dialogue in contemporary art. Titled If the World Changed, the fourth-edition biennale asks artists, curators and the public to reconsider the world we live in, and the world we want to live in. This year's biennale pays special attention to the Southeast Asian region, which has been a corridor of the world's major civilizations with rich cultures and geographies in history, and is experiencing high-speed transformation today.

The biennale features works by 82 artists and artist collectives, among which around one-third are from Singapore, and the rest are from the other 12 countries around the region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. The focus goes beyond major metropolitan centers to present a greater diversity of artistic practices.