Pink Dot seals stories of queer love into time capsule for future generations

Pink Dot, Singapore’s most visible LGBTQ+ movement, has launched a multi-year campaign that celebrates the diverse expressions of queer love between partners, among friends, and within chosen families. Anchored by a new community time capsule initiative, the campaign invites LGBTQ+ Singaporeans and allies to contribute personal objects that tell stories of love, with the goal of preserving these memories for future generations.

Set to culminate at this year’s Pink Dot event on 28 June at Hong Lim Park, the time capsule project will showcase selected submissions before sealing them away until 2050.

“Despite the extraordinary challenges that LGBTQ+ people face while living in Singapore, it has never once stopped us from leading lives filled with love,” said Clement Tan, spokesperson for Pink Dot. “We want to show the world that queer relationships are just as real, worthy and deeply human.”

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This year’s campaign builds on Pink Dot’s ongoing work to defend LGBTQ+ rights and foster greater societal acceptance, but with a renewed focus on storytelling. It comes in response to what Pink Dot described as a recent resurgence of harmful rhetoric during the election season, where LGBTQ+ people were scapegoated and portrayed as threats to family values.

By centring love in all its forms, the campaign reframes public discourse and puts human stories at the forefront. “These aren’t just stories of love, but also of hope and resilience,” said Tan. “This time capsule is an act of love in itself. We want the community to come together and send a message of solidarity to the next generation.”

Members of the public can submit letters, photographs or everyday objects that symbolise a personal experience of love. The selected items will be on display at Pink Dot 17 before being sealed, with plans to reopen the capsule in 2050.

To bring the campaign to life, Pink Dot partnered with creative agency Friend and production house AMOK on a short video series. Each film spotlights a different narrative of queer connection told through personal objects from the phone cover used for Singapore’s first LGBTQ+ counselling hotline, to an outfit worn at Taiwan Pride by the late co-founder of trans shelter The T Project.

Featured voices in the series include artist and spoken word performer ArunDitha; comedian Bhaskaran and his mother M Suguna; activist June Chua of The T Project; Oogachaga’s Leow Yangfa; and queer couples Cayes Hong and Xervixia, and Wei Jean Wong and Zen Seah. Each story reflects the campaign’s deeper message: that love is worth remembering, sharing and protecting.

“Everyone deserves to love, and to be loved in return. We hope that when future LGBTQ+ Singaporeans unseal this time capsule, they connect with our stories and feel inspired. We want them to know that we are thinking of them, and that we are fighting hard for a future they deserve," said Tan.

Last year, Pink Dot focused on the ongoing marginalisation of LGBTQ+ Singaporeans in a post-377A repeal society, releasing a series of videos directed by Sally Lee that tackled growing up queer, navigating love and relationships, and ageing in Singapore. Despite the milestone repeal of Section 377A, the group highlighted how LGBTQ+ people continue to face harassment, lack of protection, and exclusion from full societal participation.

Pink Dot used that campaign to call on political leaders not to leave the community behind, even as they envision a more inclusive future for Singapore. This year’s campaign builds on that call with love as both a form of resistance and remembrance.

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