Project Categories: Installation

Made in response to the festival theme of ‘Rebirth’, this artwork invites reflection on the shifts and changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons learned, and what it means to transition to a post-pandemic life. The installation features two sets of texts on reflective panels, placed side by side in the green space, and is envisioned as a ‘memorial’ of this moment in time:

WE CAN NO LONGER BE STRANGERS AFTER THIS

WE ARE BOUND IN THIS DREAM TOGETHER

As a whole, the texts allude to how one’s experiences may be interconnected and shared with others; from the moments of separation and loss encountered, to the support and joy that have been extended. Further, the artwork is a poetic invitation to reflect critically on collective narratives of resilience, solidarity and transformation; and to contemplate what lies ahead – such as the uncertainties that persist, what communities would need to do, and how they might need each other.

What happens when a street disappears? What if its name is no longer uttered; no longer of use? What remains? What exactly is lost? How will I remember you is a text installation that invites viewers to reflect on these questions.

The installation presents 17 street names in Pasir Ris that have been expunged and removed from the street directory over the years. Like many other estates across the island, Pasir Ris has witnessed its share of re-roading and land transformation. Moving beyond the act of presenting these names to invoke nostalgia, or to impose a shared collective memory, this new work seeks to prompt the viewer to consider how we might construct and retain personal memories. How might we remember streets, places, people when the traces we rely on for remembering, such as their names, are themselves no longer uttered, no longer of use?

Conceptualised during Singapore’s 2020 ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown period, This Time reflects on our heightened sensitivities toward time, distances and proximities. The artwork features two sets of texts on both sides of the bridge near the Riverside Gallery.

THIS TIME APART / THIS DISTANCE TOGETHER
LONGING FOR THE SKY / REACHING FOR THE SEA

Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the texts speak to a time where we are held apart, yet share a sense of longing together. Looking beyond, the texts are a reminder of life’s uncertainties, desires, and hopes. As a site-responsive artwork, the texts work with the elements of the surrounding environment, such as the apartment blocks, the river, sky, and trees. When encountered together, they suggest a dynamic and perpetual connection to the rest of the city and beyond.

Set plainly within the confines of the ubiquitous bus shelter advertising display, this text work appears stealthily in three different iterations and locations along the #175 bus route; prompting reflection on notions of impermanence and change, and on the poetics of everyday public spaces. Considered with the elements found at each site, the texts may be read as an objective campaign statement that suggests encouragement and affirmation; an incantation of hope and wishful thinking; or as a reminder and warning of a volatile and ambiguous future.

Still Building speaks to the ideals of Singapore’s National Pledge, to the site (of the Padang, and of the former Supreme Court and City Hall which now houses the National Gallery) and to National Day itself. Its ‘prismatic’ form reminds us that the ongoing work towards justice and equality needs to include diverse voices and perspectives.

The work responds to Bumi Hangus (1987), a painting in the National Collection by artist Wong Hoy Cheong who in turn was inspired by W.S Rendra’s poem of the same title. We see the painting and the poem it references as a meditation on loss and sacrifice amidst the search for justice and belonging. Our work adapts Wong’s prismatic palette to reflect the facets and complexities of building a democratic society.

A two-part, text-based and site-specific installation that invites viewers to consider the notion of history as a series of layered stories that unfold and fold into one another perpetually. The two parts of the title prompt us to reflect on what we know (or what we think we know) of Singapore’s founding history, and to consider how stories in history are always purposefully framed with specific beginnings and ends. Who decides on where a story starts and ends? What more could we learn from other perspectives yet to be heard or explored? How do we begin to tell our own stories—of ourselves, of places, people, and things that surround us; and what would their endings be?

This work examines the idea of ‘staying’ and ‘going’ as two perspectives of a single decisive moment. Two walls, cladded in mirrors and placed face-to-face, are in conversation as well as confrontation with each other, uncovering various prismatic and layered readings into the nature of choice, attachment, separation, and loss. In relation to its site, that of the former National Library, the work calls for a reflective inquiry into how we transform our spaces, and the memories we entwine with these spaces.