Prototype Island - Talks

The first talk opens a conversation about design as a shared condition, bringing together a new generation of Singapore practitioners to discuss how they work, what drives them, and how they understand the city they design in and for. The second  examines curation as a critical practice and a force in shaping contemporary design culture. The third goes to the core of the exhibition’s subject –  prototyping –  gathering voices who each approach it differently, from craft and computation to AI.

Talk 1, Tuesday 21 April 2026 6:00pm

A New Singapore: Shared Futures

Speakers:

Aditi Neti, Designer, Of Curves and Hands (SG)

Priscilla Tan, Principal Designer, weareSuper (SG)

Ken Yuktasevi, Founder, Parable (SG)

Toshiya Hayashi & Hokuto Ando, Founders, we+ (JP)

Moderated by Hunn Wai (SG)

This roundtable brings together a new generation of Singapore design practitioners, alongside we+ studio from Japan, to ask what design looks like when it grows from the ground up: from ritual, from the everyday, from the city itself. Aditi Neti translates cultural memories into new forms, moving between ritual, ornament, and digital processes. weareSuper works at the scale of the everyday, embedding co-design into production and retail as an economic reality. Parable's Ken Yuktasevi builds narrative systems as cultural infrastructure, while We+ Studio drives a speculative, research-led practice spanning materials and experimentation.

Framed by Hunn Wai's concept of "Prototype Island", the conversation asks what it means to prototype an entire design culture – treating Singapore as a city constantly testing, adjusting, and figuring out what comes next.

Talk 2, Wednesday 22April 2026 4:00pm

Who Speaks for Design?

Speakers:

Aric Chen, Director, Zaha Hadid Foundation (UK)

Libby Sellers, Independent Curator (UK)

Hunn Wai, Lead Curator (SG)Eian Siew, Assistant Curator (SG)

Moderated by Maria Cristina Didero (IT)

Together with Hunn Wai and Eian Siew in their roles as curators of “Prototype Island”, Aric Chen and Libby Sellers examine how design is curated, interpreted, and circulated today. Drawing from their work across museums, foundations, galleries, and cultural institutions, they discuss how curatorial frameworks influence not only what is shown, but how design is understood, valued, and ultimately transmitted to audiences.

The conversation positions curation as a critical tool that shapes design culture with a global perspective.

Talk 3, Wednesday 22April 2026 5:00pm

Prototype as a Method

Speakers:

Matteo Pellegrino, Founder, Pellegrino Works (IT)

Shervon Ong, Designer, Threads of Becoming (SG)

Bao Songyu, Designer, 1 Qubit (SG)

Carlos Bañón, Co-founder, FORMAS.AI (SG)

Eian Siew, Assistant Curator (SG)

Moderated by Maria Cristina Didero (IT)

Between an idea and its first physical form lies a kind of intelligence that rarely gets discussed. This conversation brings that intelligence to the fore, shaped collectively by Matteo Pellegrino, designer and master prototyper, alongside the wider group of practitioners.

Threads of Becoming combines 3D-printed structures with hand-applied lacquer threading, using digital fabrication not to replace craft knowledge but to carry it forward. Bao Songyu builds instruments that make quantum probability tangible and interactive - the prototype as a tool for thinking, not just making. Carlos Bañón’s FORMAS.AI moves from sketch to simulation in real time, asking what it means to prototype space itself with AI as a collaborator. Together, they make the case that prototyping is not a step in a process - it is the process: where curiosity becomes form, and form becomes knowledge.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher DesignSingapore Council