The word “com­munity” is thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? Work-Life: The Mak­ing Of Com­munity, a forum tak­ing place in Singa­pore in early March, asks lead­ing artists and edu­cat­ors to explore the idea of com­munity and dis­cuss the role art can play in bring­ing people together.

What role does art play in com­mu­nic­at­ing the role of communities?

Work-Life gives cre­at­ive lead­ers an oppor­tun­ity to meet and dis­cuss the import­ance of com­munit­ies. Forum mod­er­ator Sasi (T.Sasitharan) opens the dis­cus­sion with this video explain­ing the term. It’s sim­pler than you think.

Sasi explains that “com­munit­ies are made and cre­ated every day in our lives”. Com­munit­ies have the poten­tial to spring up whenever an audi­ence forms, so whenever we do any­thing remotely cre­at­ive, any act that involves ima­gin­a­tion, trans­mis­sion and recep­tion, we’re mak­ing com­munit­ies, whether we are con­scious of it or not.

Sasi applauds the spon­tae­n­ous nature of most com­munit­ies, but acknow­ledges that we occa­sion­ally need to exam­ine the nature of com­munit­ies more closely to determ­ine what brings people together to become a com­munity, and how these com­munit­ies adopt their own iden­tit­ies. It’s a short, beautifully-produced video and well worth watch­ing for an intro­duc­tion to the ideas explored at the forum:

This is a jumping-off point for Work-Life: The Mak­ing of Com­munity, a series of panel dis­cus­sions, present­a­tions, work­shops, and site vis­its on March 5 and 6 at the National Museum of Singa­pore and the Tiong Bahru Her­it­age Estate.

16 lead­ing artists and an audi­ence made up of edu­cat­ors, artists, com­munity work­ers and rep­res­ent­at­ives from gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions will dis­cuss why and how art can be used to bet­ter under­stand the role of com­munity in an inter­cul­tural world. The forum will bring together lead­ing examples of pro­jects stim­u­lat­ing com­munity engage­ment.

We’ll explore some of the works to be presen­ted at the forum and intro­duce you to key par­ti­cipants over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more or register on the Mak­ing Com­munity site.