Walking the Global City

Abstract

This article discusses the politics of rhythm and memory surrounding urban walking in Singapore. In recent years, the developmental state has organized programs to encourage ways to walk the global city it has built in the embrace of transnational capital. In the heritage trails in the city center and the inaugural Singapore Biennale of international art, which mapped the heritage trails, the state has appropriated historical space to synchronize the contradictory rhythms of the nation and globalization to cultivate cosmopolitan subjects. I show that the Biennale artists tried to subvert the state discourse on nation and heritage but only introduced alternative spectacles enhancing the visuality of walking the global city. Finally, I look at artist Amanda Heng’s work, which by tackling the very act of walking, is a critical intervention into the state’s appropriation of lifeworld rhythms and memories, bringing into question the spatial production of the global city.