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S’pore’s arts facilities open to all, not just the gallery-going crowd, says Grace Fu

SINGAPORE — Seeing some 10,000 pre-schoolers and their parents gathered at the National Gallery Singapore last August to celebrate family day was one of the most gratifying moments on the job for Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who took over the portfolio in late 2015.

Minister Grace Fu interacted with the Singapore athletes of the Archery, Athletics, Boccia, Chess, CP Football and Cycling teams in September 2017. TODAY file photo

Minister Grace Fu interacted with the Singapore athletes of the Archery, Athletics, Boccia, Chess, CP Football and Cycling teams in September 2017. TODAY file photo

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SINGAPORE — Seeing some 10,000 pre-schoolers and their parents gathered at the National Gallery Singapore last August to celebrate family day was one of the most gratifying moments on the job for Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who took over the portfolio in late 2015.

That event at the gallery, where the PAP Community Foundation held its annual Family Day, showed how arts institutions could remain accessible to Singaporeans of different ages and background, Ms Fu said in an interview with the Singapore media on Wednesday (Jan 17).

“To have 10,000 children and their parents running around the (gallery), it signifies the attention that we will place to make our facilities really an accessible one. It is really not just for a small segment of the society who appreciates visual arts,” she added.

The minister recounted several other personal highlights of her tenure thus far, including witnessing national para-table tennis player Jason Chee clinch his first gold medal at the Asean Para Games last year, as well as seeing how the Boccia players tended to each other at the same event.

“To me this is really about one caring for another and it’s also about sports giving the dignity and confidence to persons with special needs… These opportunities are really priceless,” she said during an hour-long interview on her ministry’s work in the last year, where the MCCY marked its fifth anniversary.

Ms Fu, however, declined to answer questions about Singapore’s fourth generation leadership.

Questions about the pace of political succession in the ruling People’s Action Party resurfaced in recent weeks when Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong described it as an “urgent challenge” he would like to see “settled” in about six to nine months’ time.

In response, the 4G political office holders – including Ms Fu – issued a joint statement saying they were “keenly aware that leadership succession is a pressing issue”, and they “will settle on a leader from amongst us in good time”.

Ms Fu entered politics in 2006 and became the first female full minister to helm a ministry when she took over the MCCY portfolio in Oct 2015.

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