By Jessica Ye (Jessica Yap)
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably walked through Raffles Place hundreds of times without really looking at it.
You’re thinking about your next meeting. Your coffee order. Whether you’ll make it onto the MRT before the doors close.
The buildings become background.
Singapore Art Museum wants to change that.
Its new public art trail, Momentary Pulses: Art in the Central Business District, scatters contemporary artworks across some of Singapore’s busiest streets and walkways, quietly inviting people to slow down, even if it’s only for a minute.
And that’s exactly what I like about it.
You don’t need to buy a ticket or plan your weekend around it. You simply stumble across the works as you move through the city. One appears on an office façade. Another waits beside a familiar walkway. Suddenly, the route you’ve taken a hundred times doesn’t feel quite so ordinary anymore.
One of the first pieces you’ll encounter is thusspoke.baby by Teow Yue Han and Federico Ruberto at OUE Link. At first glance, it looks like another digital display. Look a little longer and you’ll realise it’s something far stranger.
The virtual character lives entirely online, constantly learning from news, weather updates and information gathered from around the world. Throughout the day, it responds with shifting text and ever-changing gestures, so no two encounters are exactly alike. It’s equal parts curious, playful and slightly uncanny.
A short walk away, Catherine Hu’s A fountain when it rains might be the quietest artwork on the trail, but it’s also one of my favourites.
Covered in salvaged ceramic tiles that instantly brought old HDB void decks to mind, the sculptures resemble bird baths sitting among the glass towers of Raffles Place. The clever part? They only become fountains when it rains. There’s something wonderfully understated about that. The work doesn’t demand your attention. It simply rewards those who notice.
Then there are the pineapples.
Outside Shenton House, Finbarr Fallon’s Sweet Water transforms the building’s iconic façade into oversized pineapple sculptures. It sounds unexpected until you learn that the pineapple has long been associated with prosperity in Singapore. Suddenly, the work feels perfectly at home, connecting the district’s architectural past with memories that many Singaporeans still recognise.
At Asia Square, Zul Mahmod’s LOOP – The Resonance of Motion takes a different approach altogether. Its mirrored stainless-steel surface reflects the constant flow of office workers while hidden vibrations generate an evolving soundscape inspired by the movement happening all around it. It’s one of those works that changes depending on when you happen to walk past.
Just outside Raffles Place MRT Exit E, Yang Jie’s Clock of the Everyday (featured image) listens to the city instead of measuring it.
Inspired by mechanical clock towers, the kinetic sculpture recreates the rhythms of everyday life through movement and sound. Morning routines. Lunchtime chatter. The after-work rush. Anyone who’s spent enough time in the CBD will probably recognise those moments without needing them explained.
Two more artworks will join the trail later this year. Immanuel Koh’s Neural Panoptic Black explores surveillance and the way we experience public space, while Song-Ming Ang’s Still Afloat imagines Singapore 60 years into the future through an AI-generated music video and visual storyboard.
Some make you stop. Others make you smile. A few might leave you wondering what you’ve just seen. Together, they gently shift the way you experience a part of Singapore that’s usually measured by deadlines, meetings and how quickly you can get from one building to the next.
Maybe that’s the biggest surprise of Momentary Pulses.
It isn’t asking you to visit a museum.
It’s asking you to notice the city you’ve been walking through all along.
Momentary Pulses: Art in the Central Business District runs until 31 December 2027 across multiple locations in Singapore’s Central Business District.
Admission is free. Visitors can also pick up a trail passport at the CHARLES & KEITH Marina Bay Sands store, collect stamps at five artwork locations and redeem a limited-edition button pin while stocks last.
Featured image: Installation view of Yang Jie’s ‘Clock of the Everyday’ (2026) at Raffles Place MRT Exit E as part of ‘Momentary Pulses’ | Image: Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
