The Battlebox in Fort Canning Park will soon play host to a brand new art exhibition titled Portals, running from 28th March to 29th June 2025. This is where 7 local artists will transform the historical WWII bunker site into a multi-sensory, modern art installation.
Encounter light displays, interactive installations, and wartime systems as history and creative technology converge in this reimagined perspective of Singapore’s past. Portals is a marriage of technology, history, and art all at once.
Image credit: Battlebox
The Battlebox Portals exhibition explores how modern technology intersects with the historical background of the WWII bunker. It features interactive artworks by local artists Anthony Chin, Dongyan Chen, Ernest Wu, Jake Tan, Huijun Lu, Victoria Hertel, and Zul Mahmod.
The installation works with sound, visuals, and interactive elements to make you feel the bridge between the past and present. You will encounter creative tech like projection mapping, computer vision, and even other tangible elements you can experience and feel, such as ceramic trinkets and ambient audio sounds.
It’s all about exploring ideas like time, conflict, power, and what it means to bring about change and feel empowered.
As the name suggests, Portals is a gateway into Singapore’s rich history, and you will be transported through a tale of nationhood, woven by different events coming together. Each room you enter paints the picture of a specific narrative within the bunker, all of which tell a single story – how Singapore fell when the British surrendered.
The Portals Exhibition will be open to the public daily from 28th March to 29th June 2025, Wednesdays to Sundays (including public holidays) from 10am to 5pm, with the last admission at 4pm.
Admission to the Battlebox includes access to the Portals exhibition, and the Basic Experience ticket is free!
There is also an Enhanced Experience ticket, featuring a 40-minute audio guide and exclusive access to 2 270° projection rooms at the Battlebox, which is priced at $20 for adults and $15 for children aged 5-17. Singapore citizens and PRs can enjoy discounted local rates at $15 for adults and $10 for children.
We must confess that the layout of the exhibition was tricky and almost maze-like, but that is ultimately part of the experience. You’ll find the works of art scattered throughout the dark bunker, blending with the historical displays. There is no strict viewing order of the installations – rather, you are free to view each at your own leisure. Something to note is that many of these artworks are interactive in nature, and are best experienced first-hand.
Being closest to the entrance, the first exhibit you might encounter is Anthony Chin’s BMA. This installation explores the hidden and corrupt power structures of the British Military Administration and the rampant presence of ‘medical opium’ in Singapore, after her return to reoccupied Malaya.
A mechanised arm, meant to represent Lord Louis Mountbatten, is fastened to a fish hook that tugs on a screen that flashes through images of labourers. The arm pulls the projections of those exploited towards a single coin on the table again and again, inviting you to think about how Singapore was exploited by the British during the initial post-war years, under the guise of rebuilding and restoration.
Multidisciplinary artist Dongyan Chen presents Void Resonance and Drifting Signals, 2 interactive digital installations that react to audio sounds and silhouettes using webcams and sound amplifiers. Void Resonance invites you to toy with various ceramic trinkets and reflective film, creating a unique aural experience that mimics wartime messages and discretion.
On the other hand, Drifting Signals takes a different approach, using a webcam to track visitor movements, then projecting their silhouettes onto a screen. Through this process, the projector creates and displays new images after observing and analysing your existence within the space.
By diving into the perspectives of those trapped and confined in harsh environments, Chen shows how the desire to escape surveillance and our mental spaces can be visualised in new ways within our environment, illustrating how an audience in the present can tangibly evoke the atmosphere of World War II through monitored actions.
Visual artist Ernest Wu offers a dual-experience exhibit under a singular theme. In Some Far Away Land incorporates found footage, stereo sound, and experimental camera photography in one installation. Tucked away in a corner, against the backdrop of smashed porcelain, is the second installation – ZERO ONE. Melding AI-generated voices and the Japanese Purple Cipher, ZERO ONE turns the encrypted algorithms of social media into a soundscape of garbled voices.
The IAB25-2 section is a multi-channel video installation that references World War II cryptography and social media surveillance. Through looping mobile devices that immerse you in a barrage of image streams, Wu emphasises how modern apathy persists, even amidst the relentless onslaught of global violence and conflict.
Using technology to showcase simultaneous, existing realities, Wu prompts us to reflect on our individual spectatorship and agency.
Artist Huijun Lu unpacks the British military’s use of natural flora as camouflage in Blades as grass, through her preferred medium of kinetic installations. Lu has adapted to the Battlebox through the use of microscopes, audio recorders, and sensors, capturing data from the lawn space above the bunker, especially for this exhibition.
Focusing on the connection we humans share with our surroundings, she created synthetic, 3D-printed grass blades to mimic the idea of artificial camouflage and such tactics that were used in defensive strategies. Through her installation, Lu explores the common idea of self-preservation and protection between humans and plants and the slow reclamation of space and power by nature.
In Flux is an interactive installation by new media artist Jake Tan. It uses a 3D point cloud system to create different simulations within the corridor space of the Battlebox. With a single projector, it maps out the nooks and crannies of the Battlebox corridors and invites you to walk through the space yourself in order to create and alter the dynamic projections.
Projections of the British surrender of Singapore to the Japanese act as an anchor, while present-day visitors shape and influence the memories and “past” of the installation through the use of motion-tracking technology.
In a multiverse-esque fashion, Jake has undertaken an almost Doctor Strange role in his attempt to create portals into different timelines within the Battlebox.
darkmode by artist Victoria Hertal is an installation that incorporates motion sensors and circuit technology to engage the senses. A spatial exploration of the bunker’s architecture, you will traverse a dark corridor sparsely lit by lightbulbs. As you move, the bulbs automatically sense and respond to your presence.
Progressing inwards, the bulbs will shine and rattle, disrupting the tranquility of the Battlebox. The corridor finally ends at a cat ladder leading to the outside world that’s barely within reach, but inaccessible – just as it was for the soldiers in the bunker during the war.
Between staying still and your movement upsetting the balance, Hertel shows how the mix of man-made extensions with the muted sounds of nature from above reframes the bunker as a space of reflection. In this way, the exhibit encourages you to contemplate the ways humans can shift narratives away from conflict and towards the idea of care instead.
With Electromagnetic Sound: The Hidden Echoes, sound artist Zul Mahmod explores the aural aspect of the underground confines within the Battlebox and how this unique component captures the chaotic sounds of a bygone era. An exhibit that has to be heard more than seen, Zul tapped into the field of telecommunications to create an electronic circuit structure that mimics the likes of phone calls and Morse code signals.
Zul’s installation uses an array of devices like radio transmitters, tweeters, and audio amplifiers to listen in on and capture sounds from the past and present time. These spectral sounds then broadcast a live auditory soundscape to bring electromagnetic waves and distorted frequencies to life. The minimal lighting at this exhibit is intentional, encouraging you to connect with lingering echoes of the past.
Portals is unique and thought-provoking, encouraging us to think about how our human lives are deeply entangled with the past. In particular, Hertel’s darkmode was a personal standout, where pervasive technologies are cleverly intertwined with our environment.
However, because the exhibition is in an underground WWII bunker, the experience is dark, making it hard to snap pictures. Perhaps this is a chance to set social media aside and let yourself be fully swept away by the art. In that sense, Portals does exactly what it sets out to do: repair the relationship between human behaviour and history.
Portals’ interactive installations and artworks will definitely leave a lasting impression. With multi-sensory offerings about our history, Portals provides fresh insight into the events surrounding Singapore’s surrender to the Japanese. If you’re into art and heritage, you won’t want to miss how these artists have renewed this space through art.
For more Fort Canning attractions:
Photography by Andrea Wong.
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