What comes Tomorrow?

TOMORROW: Design Stories of Our Future, a feature exhibition of Singaplural 2017, pairs a designer and illustrator to imagine what a day in Singapore would look like in 2065. Ten designers and ten illustrators, in response to speculative questions—of how we will communicate, connect, dress, eat, learn, live, play, relax, travel and work—these creatives from a variety of disciplines have each designed their stories of our future.

So how would we relax in 2065?

When Justin Zhuang (the writer), Nathan Yong (furniture designer) and I were bouncing our thoughts off each other over coffee, we realised that it was always down to how we would carve out time and space to relax, and that would still be a challenge in the future given the pressurizing pursuit to do more and more every day.

Through the illustrations, I hoped to show two extremes, one where napping in public would be acceptable, even to the point of it being seen as needing to be super efficient and highly catered to in the form of facility changes. The other extreme being a study in solitude, where the home itself becomes a green space for relaxing.

At the TOMORROW exhibition, the collective narrative of short stories by Justin Zhuang, concept renders and illustrations were put together in a book by BLACK design, and presented in a futuristic ‘library’ filled with audio-visual materials, including a letterpress publication and objects for browsing.