Both Sides, Now
About Both Sides, Now
Both Sides, Now: Living Well, Leaving Well is a programme by ArtsWok Collaborative, an arts-based community development organisation in Singapore. Both Sides, Now (BSN) develops spaces that encourage end-of-life conversations through arts practices and creative approaches. We work with and equip individuals, families and communities to explore, express, and enact what living well and leaving well might mean to them.
We believe death and dying are natural facets of life and discussing them should not be regarded as morbid or taboo. Instead, it can be gentle and hopeful, reminding us how we wish to live and what truly matters to us.
These conversations matter regardless of our age. They include planning for the end, understanding the options available, ensuring a dignified departure, and talking to our loved ones about values and choices. BSN aims to raise awareness, encourage reflection, and spark conversations. Ultimately, recognising that death and dying are an integral part of living.
Originally commissioned as a project by Lien Foundation and Ang Chin Moh Foundation, and co-presented with Drama Box (2013-2022), BSN has evolved through various editions with different place-based and cultural communities. These editions were designed with public outreach and community engagement in mind. As of 2022, more than 28,500 audiences and participants have experienced BSN, with over 500 volunteers who have supported this programme in various capacities.
From 2023, BSN’s evolutionary journey continues as an ArtsWok Collaborative flagship programme, through which we deepen our community engagement and adopt community development approaches to working with communities. Employing longer-term and more intimate engagement with communities through the arts, we aim to develop supportive communities for living well, and leaving well. In addition, our shorter-term community engagement projects generate individual capacity to have end-of-life conversations in various settings. We also offer workshops on end-of-life communication for care staff, arts practitioners, and the public.
Milestones
Our place-based public outreach and community engagement efforts from 2013-2019
Our engagement and outreach efforts with the Malay-Muslim community from 2021-2022
2013
2013
An immersive arts experience designed to create awareness, encourage reflection and provoke end-of-life conversations among healthcare professionals, caregivers and the general public.
2014
Brought end-of-life conversations through arts programmes and participatory activities to residents’ doorsteps in the public heartlands of Khatib and Toa Payoh.
2014
2014, 2016
2014-2016
Toured a puppetry show, The Wind Came Home, followed by a facilitated end-of-life conversation by our volunteers at 50 senior centres across Singapore.
2017-2019
A community-centric and multi-year approach to programming was adopted to deepen our engagement in Chong Pang and Telok Blangah, including residents co-creating artworks with artists as part of engagement and outreach.
2017-2019
2021-2022
2021-2022
This edition was with the Malay-Muslim community on developing culturally competent approaches to end-of-life conversations and planning.
2021
Both Sides, Now was part of the Singapore Pavilion for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice with the theme to gather: The Architecture of Relationships.
2021
2023-2024
2023-2024
A pilot project for a longer-term community development approach with seniors from the Wellness Kampung @ 765 Nee Soon Central.
2023
Workshops with Care Practitioners
A series of workshops piloted with Singapore General Hospital on Enhancing Self-Competence in End-of-Life Communication Through Arts, with accompanying research.
2023
About ArtsWok Collaborative
We are an arts-based community development organisation that recognises the creativity and agency within individuals and communities to generate change. We believe in collaborating to imagine and develop thriving communities in a sustainable society. Since 2013, we have done this through the creative producing of innovative projects that demonstrate the power of the arts for change, the capability development of practitioners in our burgeoning field, and researching and advocating for arts-based community development.
Community Voices
“Both Sides, Now is a project about human dignity, using the arts to create a kind of space and experience. It’s a project about compassion, about respecting the relationships in our lives; it’s about love. Both our living and dying can be a gift to others.”
