Does Singapore need to review art approval? Samsui mural, Raffles statue spark debate

Last month, a mural in Chinatown of a samsui woman smoking made headlines after the artist, American Sean Dunston, took to his Instagram account to lament that he had been asked to modify his work.

Dunston said Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) told him to “get rid of the cigarette”. He quoted URA as saying a complainant argued the woman “looks more like a prostitute than a hardworking samsui woman”.

Online users pointed out it was well documented that samsui women smoked cigarettes on breaks from their hard labour, and even stored cigarettes under their signature red headgear.

On July 10, the URA and the health ministry said in a joint statement that the mural could remain without modification. However, the authority fined the building owner S$2,000 (US$1,490) for beginning work on the mural without approval. The statement said the mural “does normalise smoking”, even though “most members of the public do not see this as an advertisement for cigarettes”.

Separately, a newly unveiled sculpture in Fort Canning Park of Stamford Raffles, the British founder of Singapore, sparked online debate in May on whether the city state was paying homage to colonial rulers when former colonies elsewhere were denouncing them.

Raffles has been painted in a controversial light in recent years with researchers pointing out, among other things, he was complicit in the kidnapping of women to Borneo for sexual slavery and involved in the Massacre Of Palembang in 1811, which resulted in the murders of 24 Europeans and 63 Javanese soldiers and civilians at the Dutch fort in what is now Indonesia.

Minister for National Development Desmond Lee said in a parliamentary reply on July 6 that Singapore took a “clear-eyed view of our colonial