Stephen Riady Centre, Level 1 | 12pm – 5pm
The Impact Experience (IEx) Creative Practice challenges NUS College students to transform their capstone projects into compelling creative works. By collaborating directly with communities across Singapore and Southeast Asia, students use these works to reflect their shared journey and amplify local voices.
Discover the following creative works at the Impact Festival:
UT FOYER
By Stardew Valley
24STJK02
Dr Jerome Kok (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Lee Chee Keng (CP Advisor)
Singapore
This diorama reconstructs the Siloso Point Coastal Trail in Sentosa, featuring four key natural zones and enlarged animal mascots to represent the underappreciated biodiversity found on the island. To increase the trail’s footfall, the IEx team devised an engaging activity package comprising a website, programme booklet, and collectibles of local animals. The video documentary that accompanies this work showcases the team’s own path to completing the diorama, from initial design iterations to refinement and construction.
By Team Empower
24CCST02R
Dr Tan Sok Teng (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Sadaf Ansari (CP Advisor)
Malaysia
This double-sided textile piece comprises nine embroidered patches in the front tracing the structural barriers Rohingya woman refugees face in Kuala Lumpur. In contrast, the back presents a single, borderless scene of the women conducting peer education. This reflects the IEx team’s real-world efforts to co-develop a health literacy syllabus on non-communicable diseases alongside the community. The contrast between the front and back shows how dominant narratives often represent hardship as isolated experiences, overlooking the agency in these women to come together for mutual learning and empowerment.
By Food Fetchers
24STML03
Dr Michelle Lee (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Carissa Foo (CP Advisor)
Singapore
An illustration book for all ages, Chippy’s Second Chance raises awareness about food waste and the “Look, Smell, Taste” method of safe consumption. Food that is near or past its best-before dates can still be safely consumed, as the IEx team demonstrated in their pilot pop-up store — in partnership with sustainability-focused social enterprise MoNo — where near-expiry food was redistributed. In the book, food items are personified to remove negative associations with past-date foods, encouraging the audience to play their part in reducing food waste.
By Jelajah Lestari
24STSQ01R
Sam Shu Qin (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Carissa Foo (CP Advisor)
Indonesia
Kenangan Sumbawa (“Memories of Sumbawa”) is a musical piece crafted using vocals, guitar, piano and household objects repurposed as instruments — inspired by the IEx team’s collaboration with marine conservation group Juang Laut Lestari to create opportunities in community-based tourism for the fishermen and housewives of Poto Tano, Indonesia. During the day, the team created maps and guidebooks that supported the group’s ecotour activities; by night, they bonded over campfire jams with the community. This performance seeks to recreate the intimate atmosphere of those jam sessions, and pays homage to the community’s spontaneous, improvisational approach to music-making.
Performance time: 2.30pm – 2.50pm
24STML02
Dr Michelle Lee (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Roweena Yip (CP Advisor)
Singapore
In this virtual showcase of Singapore’s neighbourhoods, the popular video game Minecraft has been reimagined as an educational space where players experience the dynamics of urban planning in Singapore, demonstrating in particular the importance of public transport. This immersive mode of learning complements the IEx team’s efforts working with the Land Transport Authority to provide recommendations on their ongoing outreach programmes and promote a car-lite lifestyle to schoolchildren.
24CCYE03R
Dr Cheng Yi’En (IEx Supervisor)
Bernice Wong (CP Advisor)
Vietnam
This miniature replica of Phuong Quy Boarding School in Kon Tum, Vietnam, highlights the stories of ethnic minority students, who face educational barriers arising from discrimination, limited exposure, and a lack of role models. Stemming from a summer camp and 10-week mentorship programme organised by the IEx team, Fulbright University, and the school, this creative assemblage of readymades sheds light on four aspects of the boarding school: the lives of educators, students’ origins, their current lives, and their aspirations.
By Team Bambuhay
24STJB02R
Dr Julius Bautista (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Chew Suyin (CP Advisor)
The Philippines
Addressing the frequent issue of floods along a busy river crossing in Sac-on, Philippines, the IEx team worked with the local community to design a bamboo river station, serving as a safe shelter during heavy rain as well as a community space in fair weather. Accompanied by narration and photography, this diorama visualises the team’s shelter design in vibrant detail, evoking the healing power of both community and nature.
By Posture Pals
24STMF02
Dr Mikhail Filippov (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Chew Suyin (CP Advisor)
Singapore
Poor posture due to prolonged screen use not only causes physical discomfort, but also mental, respiratory, and digestive health issues that are often overlooked. Straight Up, a seven-minute video, investigates this growing problem using courtroom humour, where two students sue their own spines for ruining their postures. The video is interwoven with an expert testimony from Dr. Ashley Liew, President of The Chiropractic Association (Singapore). As part of their project, the IEx team also developed a mobile app and a hardware monitoring device for posture tracking, while running awareness workshops in collaboration with Dr. Liew.
By Bin There, Done That: Koh Trong
24STSL02R
Dr Shaun Lin (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Carissa Foo (CP Advisor)
Cambodia
Designed as a functioning compost bin, Together, We Turn invites the audience to rotate the bin to view the attached comic strip, featuring Carey, a school girl on Koh Trong, Cambodia, and an otter Corey, representing the IEx team. The informational comic strip is reminiscent of the team’s efforts to educate primary and secondary school students in Koh Trong on recycling and composting methods. Here, learning becomes kinaesthetic as the very act of rotating the “bin” is similar to that done in the composting process to aerate food waste.
By Bandung Buggies
24ADKS04R
Dr Kiven Strohm (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Tan Teck Heng (CP Advisor)
Indonesia
This installation mirrors the Trash Bank of Kampung Cibunut, Indonesia, inviting participants to a hands-on experience in sorting waste. The IEx team also created a documentary and book to highlight the efforts of OhDarling, a grassroots initiative in Bandung City. Through this project, the team learned valuable lessons about community-led systems for recycling organic and inorganic waste. This participatory work transforms sustainability education from abstract dialogue into an embodied, grounded, and collaborative practice.
Performance time: 3.30pm – 4pm
OPPOSITE OCBC FRANK
By You Rice Me Up
24ADCK03R
Dr Lee Chee Keng (IEx Supervisor)
Bernice Wong (CP Advisor)
Thailand
Developed in collaboration with Burapha University and rice farmers in Chacheongsao, Thailand, this IEx team’s media kit promotes purple rice through a collection that includes an illustration book, plushie, sticker pack, calendar, and a rice sample. As Singapore becomes increasingly health-conscious, purple rice appeals to consumers while remaining a cost-effective option for food caterers and producers. With an original purple-rice-inspired character “Paipai”, the team uses a blend of education, branding and design to enhance awareness of cultural heritage, farming practices, and sustainable consumption.
24ADKW03
A/P Lee Kah Wee (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Hannah Smith-Drelich (CP Advisor)
Singapore
This zine magazine contains short, semi-fictional stories of the IEx team’s interactions with sex workers at red-light districts around Singapore. These interactions were part of the team’s volunteering sessions with Project X, a non-governmental organisation focused on improving the welfare of the sex worker community. The team hopes that their stories will help raise awareness of and humanise this marginalised community.
By Team Sprouts
24CCNM03
Dr Nurhidayahti (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Raahi Adhya (CP Advisor)
Singapore
The Journey of the Sprouts is a children’s book reflecting the IEx team’s journey hosting a tuition programme for primary school children at a drop-in centre by MightyKids, Families and Communities (MKFC). Incorporating the original drawings of these children from low-income and/or vulnerable backgrounds, the book is a collaborative creation that depicts the team’s initial “map” and “tools” being reshaped by the children’s unique “worlds” and perspectives, reflecting on the co-experience of education where mentors and mentees can learn from one another.
NEAR ROCKWALL
By Pagkakaisa
24STJB03R
Dr Julius Bautista (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Roweena Yip (CP Advisor)
The Philippines
This towering structure is created by the IEx team, who applied the skills they learnt through their collaboration with Kawayan Collective —- a social enterprise providing affordable housing to Filipinos in Dauin by building with bamboo —- as well as Singaporean startup Mykilio, which manages Kawayan Collective’s bamboo waste. The fire in the heart of the structure symbolises the rebirth of waste into useful products, while the butterfly above represents the collective communities engaged. Both of these delicate figures are framed by a larger bamboo tower, a symbol of where the team’s journey began.
By with love, Bamboobon
24CCPV04R
A/P Peter Vail (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Carissa Foo (CP Advisor)
Thailand
Bamboobon is a social enterprise led by this IEx team, seeking to uplift rural communities in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand through education, economic empowerment and environmental sustainability. Working with ex-professor at Ubon Ratchathani University, Ajarn Sommai, the team launched the Bamboo Learning Centre in December 2024, teaching residents how to cultivate and create bamboo products. This interactive webpage spotlights the centre’s signature heart-shaped bamboo basket — how it materialised from harvest to hands, and finally, to home. Through hand-drawn illustrations, the hidden layers of skill, patience and time invested in handcrafting are revealed, reframing the value of products in terms of human labour, creativity and environmental impact, rather than merely monetary worth.
By Team Orthophants
24CCPV02R
A/P Peter Vail (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Samar Faruqi (CP Advisor)
Thailand
Elephating Giants is an interactive experience that invites the audience to navigate a complex entanglement of ropes around a metal frame, with a 3D-printed figure of an elephant suspended in the centre. Five sensor-activated videos showcase the IEx team’s experience working with the National Elephant Institute in Lampang, Thailand, to redesign an improved elephant treatment hoist and harness called the Elephator. This work is a life-sized metaphor for the importance of connection, from the physical system of the Elephator to the social ties between communities working to save elephants.
By Food Fighters
24ADKS02
Dr Kiven Strohm (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Tan Teck Heng (CP Advisor)
Singapore
Food for Thought is a card game that invites players to embody the roles of individuals facing different levels of food insecurity. What players can and cannot afford to eat is shaped by realistic factors such as income level, health conditions, and rising costs. Featuring original artwork by Jalan Besar residents in collaboration with the IEx team, this card game complicates seemingly simple decisions about food, drawing attention to the less visible trade-offs between cost, nutrition, and personal needs.
Play the card game: 3pm – 5pm, Every 20 min
By IEx Gibbons
24CCPV03R
A/P Peter Vail (IEx Supervisor)
Jessica Lee (CP Advisor)
Thailand
Guardians of the Gozuphua (“Gibbon”), a 10-minute documentary told across three chapters, draws attention to the Karen community in the Pong Sayaen village in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and their role as spiritual guardians of the forest. The expansion of corn cultivation threatens the local gibbons, a species the community believes once lived as humans. To protect the gibbons’ habitat, the IEx team partnered with village leaders and monks to designate parts of the forest as sacred through a Buddhist tree ordination ceremony. The documentary is complete with a musical accompaniment crafted by a local artist, ruminating on the sanctity of the forest.
By Nourish to Flourish
24CCNM02
Dr Nurhidayahti (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Samar Faruqi (CP Advisor)
Singapore
Cardboard is thin, brown and fragile — and often serves as the bed of rough sleepers. It is also the material that this experiential installation uses to transport the audience into the lived experiences of rough sleepers, suspending layers of dreams and thoughts on threads, each obscuring another. In their project, the team worked with Homeless Hearts of Singapore to alleviate food insecurity among this group of Singaporeans. The hanging fragments found in this work embody the barriers to finding a permanent home, and reveal the things that preoccupy the minds of rough sleepers and shape their dreams.
By SKYRICA
24ADKK02R
Dr Ng Keng Khoon (IEx Supervisor)
Dr Hannah Smith-Drelich (CP Advisor)
Malaysia
Inspired by strategy board games Monopoly and Catan, this original board game mirrors real-world challenges like market fluctuations and structural barriers, inviting players to navigate the same uncertainties that stateless Bajau Laut youths face in Semporna, Malaysia. Because statelessness restricts legal employment, the IEx team helped students aged 17–21 gain vital skills in financial literacy, marketing and leadership, through startup funding, English lessons and business workshops. The team’s goal was to provide these youths the tools and agency necessary for sustainable livelihoods.
Play the board game: 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
Duration: 30 min
By Sustainable Experiences
24ADCK02R
Dr Lee Chee Keng (IEx Supervisor and CP Advisor)
Thailand
This IEx team collaborated with the community in Khao Sam Muk, Thailand to transform discarded oyster shells into handcrafted pots and other new possibilities. In the same spirit of resourcefulness, the team has breathed new life into waste by repurposing it into the “oyster shell” found in the centre of this exhibition, projecting on it the journey of waste from sea to sculpture. Together with a documentary that honours the people who inspired the work, this installation tells a complete story in three parts: the oyster shell, the life within, and the people behind this endeavour.
By Giggles Gang
24ADKK01R
Dr Ng Keng Khoon (IEx Supervisor)
Bernice Wong (CP Advisor)
Malaysia
Persistent challenges faced by the Bajau Laut community in Semporna, Malaysia — such as period poverty, limited access to medicine, and inadequate water sanitation — lead to gaps in access to healthcare. This exhibition articulates the personal experiences of the community and their imagined futures of healthcare through woodcut printing, an art practice embedded within the community. The featured documentary highlights the lived realities of the youths who participated in a healthcare workshop on puberty, hygiene, and bodily awareness, organised by the IEx team.
Woodcut Printmaking: 12pm – 5pm
Duration: 5 – 10 min
