We crafted complete meals around a single grain of rice to illustrate just how precious each grain is in the eyes of a hungry person. Collaborating with several popular restaurants, we worked with their chefs to craft these single-grain meals out of actual ingredients, replicating some of Singapore’s most popular dishes. From actual dishes to replicas for display, and eventually images of the dishes used on placemats, postcards, posters and social media, they all came with a simple message: just as a single grain of rice is precious, so is the smallest donation.

The activation phase of the project consisted of creating the single-grain dishes themselves. We took actual, full-sized dishes, extracted one grain of rice, and then sliced everything else to scale to match that single grain. They were then plated and served in the manner the actual dishes would have been. In participating restaurants, these dishes were served to their clientele, followed by an explanation of the idea by a Red Cross volunteer. Reactions were recorded and turned into videos shared over social media. The next phase saw us craft these meals in the studio, shoot them, and then use them in key visuals for placemats, collectible postcards, posters and social media posts, to further propagate the message. Physical donation boxes were set up at participating restaurants and at point of sale accompanying our scale replicas and collateral. Online, all communications pointed to the Red Cross website’s donation link.

At the time of writing, the Red Cross has collected enough funds to enable it to distribute 91,155kg of rice, benefitting 25,900 individuals nationwide. Hard results aside, anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in awareness of the existence of marginalised (and largely invisible) Singaporeans in need of help, and the message is being spread online inspired by both the beauty, elegance and quirkiness of these single-grain meals and the real moral message behind them. Donations continue to pour in both via collection boxes in situ and online.