HeritageSG to make archaeology more accessible to the public

More opportunities for the public to learn about Singapore’s past through workshops, school programmes and exhibitions on archaeology are being explored by a new National Heritage Board (NHB) subsidiary.

Called HeritageSG, the company launched on Aug 1, 2024, has been tasked with building Singapore’s heritage sector by establishing more private-public partnerships and ensuring a supply of talent in areas such as museum services and event management.

It will also focus on programmes for the public to engage with Singapore’s heritage, such as by organising annual festivals and running smaller museums and galleries, starting with the Children’s Museum Singapore.

As a company limited by guarantee (CLG), a model typically used by non-profit organisations, HeritageSG has no share capital and can pursue corporate funding.

At its helm is chief executive Jonathan Chang, who holds a doctorate in education and was previously the CEO of fintech firm Fintopia Indonesia.

Dr Chang, 44, said in an interview with The Straits Times on Jan 21 that HeritageSG has a group of volunteers who help to clean up artefacts and participate in excavations.

“We want to do more of that. We want to do more education, more workshops and collaborations with schools that get people excited and really appreciate that we have a lot to offer in terms of archaeological excavations in our small nation of Singapore,” said Dr Chang, who added that programmes are still being worked out.

 

Since 1984, more than 30 archaeological digs have taken place in Singapore, including at sites such as the Padang, Fort Canning and Empress Place.

In 2021, it was announced that two shipwrecks had been excavated in waters off Pedra Branca, with cannon, anchors and another nine tonnes of smaller relics among the artefacts found, some of which are on display in the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM).

Dr Chang said HeritageSG is studying and processing the shipwrecks’ artefacts, and added that any plans to display more of them can be publicised “when the time is right”.

Mr Kwa Chong Guan, who chairs the NHB’s Archaeology Advisory Panel, said HeritageSG widens the potential for archaeology in Singapore because the company will take over part of the several tonnes of artefacts that have been excavated since 1984 by archaeologist John Miksic and others.

Noting that local universities and the Archaeology Unit at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute are not geared towards storing artefacts and making them available for research, Mr Kwa said HeritageSG has the potential to change this.

With the company taking over and opening up collections previously available primarily to academics and professional archaeologists, said Mr Kwa, there is potential for the public to learn about and be engaged with archaeology.

Mr Kwa, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, suggested that HeritageSG could continue student archaeology programmes that ISEAS held, where local students learnt to handle centuries-old artefacts.

He hopes the company can also take over organising archaeological field trips to Angkor and East Java that ISEAS previously conducted between 2012 and 2018, which “successfully brought together a young, emerging generation of archaeologists and students from Singapore and Asean to work together and understand each other’s countries’ history and culture better”.

Dr Chang said that as HeritageSG is in its infancy, it will explore ideas – such as those proposed by Mr Kwa – and projects in phases, and needs time to do so.

Focus on community programmes

Asked why HeritageSG was formed, Dr Chang said it will focus on programmes, such as workshops, guided tours, exhibitions and community engagement, to support the NHB’s work. The board continues managing national monuments and the national collection, as well as policy work.

As a CLG and not a government agency, said Dr Chang, HeritageSG can be “more agile, more nimble, and we can also pursue a lot more partnerships with corporates, for example, or foundations and philanthropists”.

He noted that other government-linked CLGs already exist in the cultural sector, citing The Esplanade Co, National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum as examples.

Administratively, HeritageSG was created by renaming the Children’s Museum Singapore CLG, which dates back to 1995 and was originally the Singapore Philatelic Museum.

 

Dr Chang said the Children’s Museum has been managed by HeritageSG since August 2024, adding that it is “not going to be the only museum and gallery that we will manage, but it’s a good starting point”.

“It allows us – especially for our small team – to learn, to develop capabilities, and then, somewhere down the road, we can grow our capabilities to manage other smaller museums or smaller galleries as one of our core offerings,” said Dr Chang, who added that this could involve taking over other NHB institutions.

Besides overseeing archaeology and managing galleries, HeritageSG has taken over other public-facing roles from the NHB since August 2024, such as organising the annual Singapore HeritageFest and Singapore Night Festival, and enlivening Singapore’s arts and heritage district, Bras Basah/Bugis.

 

As part of its capacity-building role for the heritage sector, HeritageSG also offers digital services such as virtual and augmented reality displays in museums.

Dr Chang said digital services “is an exciting field because of the changing demographic of people that come to museums”.

“They want a different way of engaging with our artefacts or our artwork,” he said, adding that visitors are keen on “high-level interaction” with exhibits.

Dr Chang said that while the company has been providing the NHB’s institutions, such as the ACM, with digital services, the intention is to broaden the scope to “other museums, galleries and even other entities”.

Building support for the heritage sector

As a registered charity, HeritageSG is also the fund-raising arm of the NHB, except for the National Museum of Singapore (NMS) and ACM.

Dr Chang said NMS and ACM have been overseeing their own business development and fund-raising functions and will continue to do so as both museums have over time established their donor and patron relations and are equipped to continue doing so.

He said that for other NHB institutions and divisions such as the Indian and Malay heritage centres, HeritageSG will “matchmake” these institutions with donors, and vice versa, based on the needs of the institution, and the objectives and interests of the donors or sponsors.

But Dr Chang said that as an “ecosystem builder” for the sector, HeritageSG will look beyond donations and find other ways for more private companies to support the sector – something Dr Chang hopes to tap his corporate experience for. This could, for instance, take the form of networking or exchanging best practices.

 

Dr Chang, a naturalised Singaporean who was born in Indonesia, said he had not worked in the heritage sector before joining the NHB, but jumped at the chance to lead HeritageSG as its work is aligned with his personal interest in heritage and history.

“I will travel alone just to go to an archaeological site because I love studying, I love learning about our cultures and our history, and also to understand the dynamics of different peoples,” said Dr Chang.

He was the executive director of SMU’s Lien Centre for Social Innovation and later NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of NUS, after working at various tech start-ups in the US for over a decade.

“There are not many chances, especially for someone at this juncture of my career, to be part of something new within a larger ecosystem that has immediate community impact,” said Dr Chang, who joined NHB on April 1, 2024.

He said that while HeritageSG will support the heritage sector, specifics on who exactly will be helped and how this will be done are still being worked out.

Singapore Heritage Society (SHS) president Fauzy Ismail said he hopes that HeritageSG will fulfil its capacity-building role for the sector by developing talent that Singapore is lacking, such as in the area of heritage impact assessments for the built environment industry.

Noting that the NHB and other organisations were already running heritage programmes and managing galleries, Mr Fauzy said he hopes HeritageSG’s involvement in these areas will increase the number of such opportunities for the sector, rather than compete with private organisations.

He also hopes non-governmental organisations such as SHS will be able to tap HeritageSG’s network to secure funding for projects, such as for a kelong near Pulau Ubin that the society is trying to repurpose for educational use.