This year, the Jalan Besar Salon presents critical responses from our Open Call on placemaking and identity formation. The programme seeks to investigate the ways we foster a sense of place and belonging, coping with change and aging, examining how and where we develop social relations beyond our homes and immediate family. We turn to creative placemaking to activate and reactivate domains of shared memory and public spaces to transform them into spaces with the capacity to connect communities and grow ideas.

THE DRY BAR is a play on the “beauty parlors”  flanking the Jalan Besar Salon, as we see our neighbours performing care services to any and everyone willing to venture into their spaces. The Jalan Besar Salon also continues to take inspiration from the Salons of 17th-18th Century France, where many ambitious women gathered to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, present their work, and discuss the ideas and pieces of other intellectuals. The salon was a key institution in which women rose to positions of power and influence, departing from being mere hosts to agents. In contrast to the aristocratic leanings of earlier salons, the Jalan Besar Salon depend on the principles of equality, of opinions being valuable and up for discussion rather than debate. Our programme seeks to create a nurturing and creative environment to enable friendships and relationships to be forged as people connect, have conversations in the space and incubating new ideas.