Bringing Locals and Foreigners Together Through Multicultural Community Dialogues for the National Heritage Board (NHB)
How Friendzone designed and facilitated On The Flipside, a community conversation series that brought locals and foreigners together to explore multiculturalism, belonging, and what it means to live together in Singapore.
Participants warming up with an icebreaker activity at the start of the evening.
The Context: Bringing Multiculturalism Beyond Exhibition Walls
What does multiculturalism mean to the people living it?
The Founders’ Memorial, set to open at Bay East Garden in late 2028, will honour Singapore’s nation-building journey and the values of multiculturalism, openness and integrity that have shaped this country. More than a heritage site, it is envisioned as a place for Singaporeans to reflect on a shared story and be inspired to build a better future together.
In the lead-up to its opening, Founders’ Memorial, under the National Heritage Board (NHB), wanted to bring that spirit to life beyond the exhibition walls. As part of Project Citizens, NHB’s initiative to engage Singaporeans in conversations about the nation’s founding values and identity, NHB partnered with Friendzone to design and facilitate a space where citizens, permanent residents and foreigners could come together, share honestly, and explore what multiculturalism truly means in their everyday lives.
The programme was designed with clear objectives in mind. Beyond simply bringing people together, On The Flipside aimed to:
Create openness and mutual understanding between participants from different backgrounds
Enrich perspectives on citizenship and multiculturalism through exposure to diverse viewpoints
Deepen appreciation of Singapore's unique multicultural identity and its importance to the nation's story
The evening's host kicking off the exhibition walkthrough with a short introduction.
How We Reached a Balanced Mix of Locals and Foreigners
Creating a genuinely diverse room doesn't happen by accident. Achieving a balanced representation of Singaporeans, permanent residents, and foreigners required a deliberate, two-pronged outreach strategy.
To reach foreigners living in Singapore, we connected directly with expat influencers and embassies, inviting them and their networks to attend. Meta ads were targeted specifically at expats living in Singapore. For locals, we promoted the series through our own social channels. Outreach to each group was tailored to ensure the event felt relevant and compelling to both audiences.
How We Designed a Multicultural Dialogue Around the Exhibition
Friendzone designed and facilitated 5 On The Flipside sessions between November 2025 and March 2026, held alongside the Not Mere Spectators: The Makings of Multicultural Singapore exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore. Each session brought together a fresh group of participants who were strangers to one another at the start of the evening.
Every two-hour session began with participants exploring the exhibition at the City Hall Chamber. Not Mere Spectators invited visitors to step into 1950s–1970s Singapore, a time when multiculturalism was consciously forged through policies, ground-up efforts, and the everyday choices of ordinary citizens. Participants were then invited to connect that history to their lives.
Crucially, the connection between Singapore's history and participants' lived experiences was not confined to the walkthrough alone — it carried through into the small-group conversations that followed, with facilitators guiding participants to draw on what they had seen and felt throughout the evening
Participants exploring the Not Mere Spectators exhibition before the facilitated dialogue.
From there, participants moved into Friendzone-facilitated small-group conversations of 4–5 people. Each table was intentionally mixed, so the diversity in the room was not incidental but built into the experience itself. The discussion was designed to move naturally from personal reflection to shared exploration, covering themes of identity and belonging, experiences of cultural difference, and what it means to build more inclusive shared spaces. The questions were crafted with distinct entry points for those who grew up in Singapore and those who moved here, so that everyone in the room had somewhere to begin.
Friendzone's conversation cards guiding participants through the discussion.
The Outcome: 182 Participants Across Local and Foreign Communities
182unique participants from Singapore and abroad
78 Singaporeans (42.9%)
32 Permanent Residents (17.6%)
72 foreigners (39.6%)
Attendees from countries including Turkey, Hong Kong, India, and Germany
5 events across 4 months
Across all five sessions, On The Flipside created a setting where locals, permanent residents, and foreigners could move beyond surface-level introductions into honest cross-cultural exchange. Participants who arrived as strangers left having shared stories, reflected on their assumptions, and engaged with perspectives very different from their own.
Beyond introducing participants to the exhibition, the sessions created space for locals, permanent residents and foreigners to reflect on multiculturalism not as an abstract national value, but as something lived through everyday encounters, assumptions and shared spaces.
"Friendzone partnered with us to deliver a programme in 2025 in conjunction with the Memorial's pilot exhibition that brought together groups who would not typically interact for authentic conversations anchored on our exhibition. The team understood the objectives and assignment well. They were collaborative, professional, and receptive to changes and feedback, while also proactively initiating improvements. Their most valuable assets were their ability to 1) attract and recruit the right mix of participants through effective recruitment and retention methods, and 2) create an atmosphere for organic and genuine interactions through connection activities, conversation cards, and importantly, good facilitation."
— Benjamin Seow, Assistant Director, Founders' Memorial
A representative from the Founders' Memorial team introducing the exhibition to participants.
Why Dialogue-Based Community Engagement Works for Heritage Programmes
Conversations about race, religion and national identity don't happen easily — especially between strangers. What made On The Flipside work was the intentionality behind every design decision: the structure of the questions, the mix of participants, the pacing of the evening, and the facilitation approach that kept the room safe enough for honesty, but structured enough to go beyond surface-level sharing.
By pairing the emotional grounding of the exhibition with Friendzone’s conversation design, NHB created a space where people from different backgrounds could speak honestly about what it means to live together in Singapore, and whether they feel they belong here. The result was a programme that delivered on NHB's brief.
Participants from different backgrounds gathered for an evening of conversation at the National Gallery Singapore.
Working on a Community Engagement or Heritage Programme?
Friendzone designs and facilitates conversations that help people from different backgrounds connect meaningfully, share honestly, and engage more deeply with your content. Get in touch at hello@friendzone.sg.