The Singapore Arts Festival is a celebration of the arts in its myriad of possibilities. As a major singular event on Singapore's arts calendar, it fulfills a range of national and social desires of nation-building, cultural development, economic development and simply for sheer enjoyment. Organized since 1977, the Festival is a flagship event of the National Arts Council and is a key contributor to the vision of making Singapore a vibrant global city of the arts. It has served to transform Singapore from a 'cultural desert' to an oasis of creativity. Today, it enjoys a premier space in Asia for its creative and progressive programming.
Making Visible the Invisible: Three Decades of the Singapore Arts Festival is a first attempt to document the Arts Festival. Commissioned by the National Arts Council to commemorate the 30th year of the Arts Festival, this book chronicles the Festival's journey against a backdrop of national cultural policy and globalization. We hope the book will serve as a valuable reference to artists, patrons, festival organizers, and researchers and students of cultural history of a significant event that enraptures a small city-state called Singapore.
– National Arts Council (Singapore, November 2007)
(Source: Making Visible the Invisible: Three Decades of the Singapore Arts Festival blurb)