Honouring our heritage donors

Mr Ong Yew Huat, Chairman, National Heritage Board (NHB)

Ms Rosa Daniel, CEO, NHB

Patrons and supporters of heritage

Excellencies and distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

1. It is very good to be here once again at the annual Patron of Heritage Awards.

2. I am glad that we are seeing here in this room many new faces. I understand more than half of you are receiving the Patron of Heritage awards for the first time. So thank you very much for your support. 

3. I am also glad to see many familiar faces – long-time supporters of our museums and all the different forms of heritage. We welcome you back and thank you for your long-standing support. 
   

4. I thank each and every one of you again for your immense contributions. 

5. As we celebrate Singapore's 50th birthday this year, you'll find that there's no shortage of heritage activities. 
   

6. For instance, the Singapore Heritage Festival is currently in full swing. This is the largest HeritageFest to date, with more than 150 public programmes including exhibitions, tours and heritage trails. In fact, we have three times as many programmes compared to last year.  

7. Throughout the rest of this Golden Jubilee year, there are many activities to remember our past. We are doing it through food, through music, memory projects everywhere in Singapore and many more heritage trails. In fact, if you read the Sunday Times, one commentator said, “It seems that everywhere you turn there's an exhibition of Singapore's history or a heritage trail being launched or a new museum or a video of a pioneer generation Singaporean reminisicing”. 

8. She added that she was starting to have “nostalgia fatigue”.  Perhaps some of you may share this sentiments, that there is too much nostalgia happening this year because it is the Golden Jubilee year. 

9. But heritage is more than just nostalgia and sentimental, feel-good about the past.  Heritage stems from our deep human instinct to conserve the best of what we have, and to keep alive what is worthwhile. 
   

10. This instinct doesn't just harken back to the past; it also looks forward to a future. It is about the hope of a better tomorrow, and the conviction that there must be a tomorrow, to inherit the legacies of the past.

11. The interesting thing is, only humans have such an instinct. No other species of animals will preserve sacred objects for posterity to remember. No other species of animals will bury things in the ground in the hope that future generations will dig them up. Maybe only for eating or consumption over winter. 

12. But humans do this and why do humans do this?  It's because heritage sharpens our sense of identity and purpose. It strengthens our commitment and determination to protect what we have, and what generations before us have fought hard to give us. 

13. And so as stewards and custodians of our shared heritage, it is our responsibility to ensure that future generations inherit a legacy that is even stronger, even richer, even more worth protecting.

14. This is why your contributions are important. Your contributions are noble, and your contributions are worthwhile.  That's why we must also work together to ensure what we do in heritage go deeper than feel-good nostalgic activities. We must ensure that they are deep, and sustained over many years and not just this year because its SG50. 

15. One important initiative that the NHB is undertaking this year is to have a nation-wide heritage survey with the purpose of to deepening our understanding of our cultural assets. This will serve as a foundation upon which we can engage in deeper conversations with our partners, including all of you, other government agencies, NGOs, and together develop a long-term blueprint for our heritage efforts.

16. In addition, we are investing more in heritage. And this additional investment is coming not just in government, but also coming from the private sector. Under our Cultural Matching Fund (CMF), we've seen almost $60 million in private donations to arts and heritage charities. These are applications to the matching fund which will potentially be matched one a 1-for-1 basis, which is very encouraging because it means a significant increase in investments in the sector.  
    

17. As many of you will know, the government has also increased tax deductions for charitable donations from 250 per cent to 300 per cent this year, with the tax incentive extended until the end of 2018. So I hope that will provide another incentive and motivation to encourage even more of you to donate to our heritage charities this year and beyond. 

18. All of these additional resources will enable us to do more in the heritage sector.  For example, we have been revitalising the civic district, we already have a restored Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall. We will soon be opening the new National Gallery, at the Former Supreme Court and City Hall buildings. And we are linking all of these cultural nodes together with the new Jubilee Walk which we will be launching later this year. In fact, if you were walking into this building, you would have seen a lot of activities happening around us. This is because there is a lot that is being done to spruce up this whole area to create more pedestrian walkways, more spacious lawns, and to connect the buildings to one another. So the entire Civic District will potentially be transformed by the end of the year. 

19. Later this year, we will also see the completion of significant revamps to the ACM itself. Thanks to another donor, the Estate of Khoo Teck Puat, the ACM will boast a new gallery to house the impressive Tang Shipwreck collection. This is one of the most important finds of maritime history and will finally have its own permanent home in the Khoo Teck Puat Gallery, right here in the ACM. 

20. We are also making good progress on the revamp of our National Museum. We have permanent galleries in Levels 1 and 2, these are being revamped and they will be opened in phases starting from August this year.  There will be additional spaces in these permanent galleries dedicated to the legacy of our founding fathers, including the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

21. Finally, next week we will be opening the brand new Indian Heritage Centre, along Serangoon Road. I was there just this morning for a quick tour. It looks beautiful and I'm looking forward to the opening next week. I'm very glad that we have two donors who are being honoured tonight for their contributions to the Centre - Mr R Jayachandran and Dr Shahzad Nasim. All of these examples go to show that the work we do in heritage is really a shared endeavour. It is not just by the government alone or by the National Heritage Board alone. It is together with the support of patrons and partners like all of you here today. 

22. As I said, I am glad to know that many of you here are new donors. One example is the Hai Hui Art Gallery. Upon hearing that the NUS Museum was looking for works by artists from the 1950s to strengthen an exhibition, the gallery responded to the call and donated nine artworks from artists Tan Boon Pin and Lee Boon Wang. These are significant pieces from the artists' early practice in the emerging period of Singapore's modern art history.  

23. Another first-time donor is the family of the late Mrs Eng-Lee Seok Chee. Mrs Eng-Lee used to be a curator at the National Museum. Upon her passing, the family wanted to honour their mother by contributing to something she had been very passionate about which is heritage. They worked with curators from ACM to find something suitable, and the family decided to make a donation towards the acquisition of a beautiful Chinese Enamelled Dish, which is now part of our National Collection. 

24. There are also long-time supporters, like our Distinguished Patron this year: the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple. They have made a generous contribution to ACM that will help the museum build its collections to enrich its offerings for visitors.

25. Other returning supporters include the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, which has been sponsoring ACM's A is for Art Programme since 2011. With JPMorgan's support, ACM has been able to reach out to more than 30 schools and their teachers, to equip them to use museum resources more creatively and engage their students through art and museum-based lessons.

26. There are many more examples I can cite. I can't go through of them but all of you have given in many ways: through cash donations, artefacts, and goods and services in-kind. You have given to many causes and you have given to many institutions. Both museums and heritage institutions. 

27. So let me end by expressing once again my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your tremendous support. Your contributions have enriched the cultural and heritage scene in Singapore in countless ways.

28. Through your actions, I hope that even more people will be inspired to take our heritage into the future, and contribute to Singapore's exceptional legacy. 

29. Thank you and I wish all of you an enjoyable evening.