National Museum-- Lost in the City

Singapore is a place we live in. A neighbourhood is where we may grow up in. But how well do we know these places and how well do we stand in these places? A city is inescapable from a person’s life, but is there any possibility a person can escape from a city? Lost in the city may not necessary happen in this transportation-convenient Singapore today, but may now instead be emotionally lost in this fast-paced Singapore.

The exhibition is co-held by 5 Singapore-based artists, namely Justin Lee, Genevieve Chua, Michael Lee, and Joo Choo Lin and Chun Kai Qun who play out their responses to the city as part of this year's Singapore Art Show, at the vast spaces of the National Museum's Rotunda, Glass Passage, Glass Atrium and The Atelier.




The first visual art started off with a collaboration between Choon Lin and Kai Qun, who are both concerned with the rapid pace of urban development, especially the adverse effects on the environment and the behaviour of its inhabitants. The animation shows the plight of creatures when their land is being developed, while the diorama, which is also used as a scene in the animation, is a wasteland. The creatures seem to represent us Singaporeans living in a construction-based environment. As Singapore is a relatively small country, everywhere and everyday we can see new buildings on the rise and neighbourhood reconstruction is happening everywhere. Construction is indeed a way to modernization and improving people physical well-beings (example life upgrade can benefit the residents in the long run). However, construction is a scary image that people fear in their life. Noise pollution and physical changes are found in statistics to be increasing stress in individual’s life. Construction has impact our life so much that we are losing our culture and traditions. Chinatown is been revamped until the external buildings’ design look like intact but the cultures and emotions evoked by the buildings are all gone.




The second visual art illustrates Justin Lee by featuring a small army of terracotta warriors, gentle ladies from olden Tang dynasty China, and auspicious cranes in a procession ceremony. The figurines are interestingly integrated with elements of contrasting commercialisation such as technology gadgets - headphones, laptops, and coca cola cans. Warriers listening to MP3 while marching, gentle ladies playing with laptop and even auspicious cranes play around with coke cans. Doesn’t it serve like an irony? Chinese soldiers during the dynasty periods are always depict as serious and order-controlling slaves of the emperors. However, Justin chooses to portray that with modernization, even the serious-looking soldiers will slacken with the fun that modernization brings for today’s individuals. Even the gentle ladies will also pick laptop and internet as their past-time, contrast to our perception of virtuous ladies being well-versed in qin (music instruments), qi (chess), shu (poetry), hua (paintings). Finally, with modernization, even the Chinese offerings to the auspicious cranes during the procession ceremony may revert to coca cola instead of the traditional offering items such as fruits and chicken.
It seems like modernization is influencing all over the world that even traditions and perceptions are evolving. Traditions like reading books are giving way to e-books. Interestingly, Justin chooses to show a contrast between the olden traditions and people and those of technology gadgets. It seems to indicate modernization go all the way out to even haunting the old traditions to give way. Even religion is on the decline. Is our traditions and culture giving way? Yes I believe so.






The third visual art presents a model-and-text installation of “National Columbarium of Singapore” created by Michael Lee Hong Hwe. The installation features 100 of lost Singapore architecture which includes models of demolished buildings as well as fictitious and unbuilt structures. The miniature buildings that we saw in HDB or other housing development exhibitions are always illustrate in real colours and inbuilt in realistic environment. However, the installations are all painted in white. It seems to trigger one’s memory and illustrates the 100 lost architectures living in another space. Most of the lost architectures are demolished before my birth so I don’t have many emotion-linked memories of them. However, this visual art indeed triggers my feeling towards the impact of urban development, memory, and naming. Previously before government intervention, Singapore-based company was allowed to use the word “Singapore” in the company naming. However, from the early 90s onwards, Singapore-based companies are not allowed to do so anymore. Isn’t Singapore urban development history interesting?



The fourth visual art presents a video of “Full Moon & Foxes” by Genevieve Chua. The video seems to illustrate a narrative of late adolescence and the period towards the end of innocence. When I enter the dark room, I was instantly struck by fear and alertness. I sit in the middle of the room. The screen before me starts to play. The 2 screens in front of me seem like the eyes of mine and my real side is viewing every action from behind my eye balls. Sometimes, I feel myself viewing a person, sometimes many people at one people. The people I saw triggers fear within me. They seem to be related to me in some sense, certainly they are not me. But indeed they seem to remind me of myself. The foxes moving in front of me all seem to be troubled and seem like their hearts are facing death. Everyone seems tired to move on, move on to the next stage of adolescence, which is maturity. Innocence is always the best bet in the society. For example, underage is the best bet for escaping jail sentence when commit a crime. Fear is normally the word used in today’s times to describe growing up, especially for girls. However, regardless girl or boy, growing up represents a sense of responsibility and burden.

National Museum-- Image of our Landscape

The image of our landscape, are images documented in the form of photographs, prints and even paintings by people who came to Singapore in the 19th century. They are the people holding different occupations, such as official surveyors, artists, administrators and even leisure travelers who stopped at Singapore in their journey around the world.

On the path of our exploration of Singapore through 19th Century, I felt like I was picturing the 19th century olden Singapore from far ashore to walking deeper and inside of the history and structure of Singapore. From the paintings and drawings of the travellers’ 1st impressions of Singapore, I can see that their drawing pattern is very similar. All of the travellers see Singapore as a good harbour with a number of English steamships and Tua Kow, moreover with a good view of the Forbidden Hill (aka Fort Canning Hill). There are a number of Paintings that presented a perspective taken from ships anchored at sea, a distance from the coast.

Through these exhibit pictures, we viewers can get to have an understanding of what are the modes of transports in the earler days. Twakow, a Chinese ship is a mode of transport that brought hundreds and thousands of Chinese coolies and immigrants from China to Singapore. The immigrants are all packed like sardines on the ship. There were even death counts results from such ill hygiene condition. This situation can’t be seen in today’s times anymore. However, it reminds me of the cases of packed foreign workers on the vans, the mean of transport to send them off and to work. Even though Singapore are said to be a first class country, our treatments to our foreign labour doesn’t seem to differ too much from the past. Similarly, our ill-treatments of maids are infamously around here.

From photographs and paintings, we can even get to interpret the “Raffles Town Plan” and how Singapore is shaped before and after the town allocation Before Raffles town allocation, Singapore is like a small village which lived a number of sultans and malay fish-villagers. Most of them stay in slums or kampongs. With Raffles development of Singapore being a good port base, boat quay became one of the key areas along the Singapore River in 1823 that held a lot of economic trading activities there. Now our Singapore River has been transformed. Our government has reversed everything to changing Boat quay and Clarke quay into pubs and restaurant hangouts, including clean-up of the river. Gone are the days.


Paintings taken from forbidden hill also illustrate the landscape of the past Singapore. From Forbidden Hill, we can even see the town structure in the Chinatown area and Little India area. I realize that from the English paintings, it is always depicted that the westerners are always the enjoyer (either having a picnic or view gazing) while the Chinese and Indian are always the servant character (helping the western carry luggage etc).

I love the art piece of the whole Singapore view by Percy Carpenter the most. It was acknowledged as the best art piece that illustrates the whole landscape of Singapore drawn from the Forbidden Hill. Through the paintings, I can even find the location of the current LAU PAT SAT on the painting (by the guidance of the tour volunteer) and even the location of Chinatown. Contrasting to the current Singapore outline and map, I can recognize that Singapore is no longer the same as before. There is a lot of reclaimed land, including those in Raffles place. In the past, the location of LAU PAT SAT is lying along the border of the sea. Hence now when I go to Raffles place or anywhere near or beside LAU PAT SAT, I will also ponder where am I standing? On a reclaimed land or the real Singapore land ground. The tour instructor even made a joke that it may be because Raffles place is on a reclaimed land, hence people working there are able to feel the slight impact from Indonesia earthquake.

And did I ever know that Singapore was once a plantation ground for cultivate vegetables pepper and gambit which are important articles of export. The Raffles town allocation has gone to the extent of cutting down the dense jungle to build the plantation. What they sacrifice were the best beauty nature of Singapore, in which Singapore with its valleys, plains, grand trees and undulating hills was indeed very beautiful in 1846. However, now all Singapore’s nature was cut down for the sake for modernization and housing development. Now that’s all left are just tourists and environmentists’ critiques of Singapore’s fake nature and diminishing culture. Singapore has no mountains and hills, maybe what we Singapore do acclaimed as our only hill is the Bukit Timah Hill and Fort Canning Park. Although Singapore is well-known as a greenery city with flowers and trees everywhere, it is saddening to know that most of them are relocated there. The Singapore orchid is even planted in charcoal to sustain its life and colour in the humid Singapore. However, what sacrifices again is the fragrance (nature) again.

Many paintings’ emphasis of Esplanade also illustrates Esplanade area during the 19th century as a popular meeting place for residents to interact and engage in recreational activities. The architecture and bungalows during the 19th century also creates sensational historical memories. The government house (aka angsana), national library and the national museum (where I was standing at when viewing the exhibition) were all the landmarks that made its stand on Singapore since the 19th century. What differs may be the external structure and designs add to it in today times.

“Desire Paths” Tour of Little India --- spell#7 performance

Little India is Singapore’s Indian heartland, yet another cultural heritage site in Singapore. It used to be a division where Indian immigrants would reside in olden days, but under Singapore government’s policy for racial harmony, the immigrant population (just like Chinese and other immigrants) was spatially segregated into different parts of the islands. However, that doesn’t seem to stop Little India been a buzzing hangout for our fellow Indians friends and foeigner workers from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Where is Little India? To get to this prominent part of Singapore tourist attraction, one can just grab a taxi or even conveniently by MRT north-east line which will lead u directly to Little India. The main 3 types of tourist attractions to explore Singapore’s multi-racial cultures are to visit Chinatown, Little India and also Kampong Glam. But truly speaking of the cultures and tradition preservation, only Little India seems to be the only settlement in Singapore that still avoids the government mass transformation (or should I take it as destruction instead? haha) But what really makes Little India unique is its beautiful street (no big heavy traffic, but instead more of human traffic walking along the roadside) and beautiful shops that sell erotic stuffs that seem extinct in other parts of Singapore.

Spell#7 performance allows us Singaporeans a chance to get to know this part of Singapore in a greater depth. Singapore is a fast pace country. Our walking pace is so fast that we may miss out significant details even without knowing it.

Through the tour, I realized that Little India area was developed around a former settlement for Indian convicts. Its location along the Serangoon River originally made it attractive for raising cattle, and trade in livestock was once prominent in the area. Eventually, other economic activity developed, and by the turn of the 20th century, the area began to look like an Indian ethnic neighbourhood.


Without Spell#7 tour, I may not even know:
 Where is the Tekka Market Centre?
 Fresh jasmine flowers string together for Indian religious purposes. The type of stringing flowers culture I think can only find in Little India market nowadays.
 Fortune told by psychic parrot. This kind of fortune telling can also only be found in Little India only already. The charge is 3 dollars per fortune told.
 Henna Tattoing ( I saw this stall along the way of spell#7 tour path)
 There is Chinese working in Little India too. (The 2 brothers who own the coffee shop at Upper Weld Road) I had always thought only Indian work in Little India. How ignorant am i.
 Beautiful shophouses that alike those structures in Chinatown, expect that Chinatown ones are very commercial now.
 Little India is full of stuffs, after I move out of another alley; there are even car servicing shops here. This just seems like a self-sufficient small town of its own.
 Famous Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
 There are 4 payphones behind the temple. That is a frequent place for those foreign workers to use their IDD call cards to call back to their respective countries.

From my first experience of walking around the streets, I can already feel the heavy religious background of Little India. That can be illustrated from their heavy jasmine flowers, Indian religious songs, fortune telling and even huge crowds gathering for temple worshipping. The temple and religious aspect seems to create an indescribable honor among the Indian community.


No doubt that Little India is a vibrant and colourful ethnic quarter that always seems to be bustling with people from all races who wish to savour Indian food and buy Indian stuffs. I can always find the best Indian food in Little India! There are clusters of old yet beautiful shophouses in Little India. Moreover, Little India never sleeps. I can shop in this very big Mustafa shopping centre that opens 24-hrs a day, 7-days a week! This shopping centre offers almost everything; from fresh vegetables, meats, other groceries to furniture, electronic products, apparels, stationery, car accessories, and even jewellery. This is a typical “mama” shop, that’s what the locals called it. Though the shop is small, i can find magazines, newspapers, drinks, snacks, cigarettes, medications, stationery, toys and many more (Who knows? Maybe 7-eleven is an imitated venture of these “mama” shops). Now there aren’t many mama shops left in Singapore, and most of them are found in those older neighborhoods (I stay in Bukit Batok which still have a number of these shops around. So lucky). However, as bigger chains of convenient shops like NTUC, 7-eleven operate in increasing area; I believe there might be days these “mama” shops may be cease to exist. So saddening.
P.S: (But why these grocery shops are called “mama” shop? From findings, I realize Mama = Uncle. So it’s actually called Uncle shop).

Another phenomenon we will see in Little India is that there are a number of Indian shops selling ethnic jewellery. Anyone passing by will be dazzled by all these ethnic gold jewellery elegantly displayed in the showcases. Little India is so full of such amazing culture and findings.

NUS Museum-- Ivan Poluni

The significant meaning of "I Poluni" means not only "Ivan Poluni", but also refers to "I taking on the tour with Poluni". The exhibition had gathered information and memories that Poluni had collected during all his years in Malaya and also Singapore from the 50's to the 90's. Now assuming the role of Ivan Poluni himself, i am now going to travel back to the times when he first stepped foot into Malaya and Singapore.

Before i start traveling, i get prepared my passport stamped and now step slowly towards the other space. It is an interesting fact that the room is vertical in depth and the photos and audio are placed in line after another. It seems to really give me the feeling of a whole of memories in line waiting for me to reveal.




Poluni seem to be doing a survey study on the tribal people. He felt that tribal societies are at the polar extreme from modernized communities. Poluni tried to illustrate the constrast of the wide variation in bio-social response between modernized world and the Tribal people. Therefore from a 3 photos series of Murul Tribes, we can see that Poluni did an interesting and irony contrast of the Murul tribe and the westernized fellows.



For the first 2 photos, it is evident that Murul tribal people guys wear only a cloth to cover their private parts, without nothing else (no shoes, no socks, no clothes) as accessories or protection. However for the 3rd photos, it is evident that the western guy is nude with only socks and shoes. Why is that so, this is a funny irony analysis of tribal social perception. Tribal people is conservative in their thinking and feel that only the most important part that they need to carry out their life journey serves the most meaning. Whereas, the other body parts such as feet, and body are just a surface body, we don need to hide them. In contrast, the westernized people feel that our feet is the one that helps us to walk on our journey, whereas the guy’s penis (or even women breasts') is just a sexual object. The difference is westernized treat sex (represented by penis) as casual and a love making chance whereas i feel tribal people treat sex(represented by penis) as their procreation terms.


I was wondering to myself whether their marriage also stands the procreation meaning. Or else in the photo of ‘Christian wedding of a Tambunan couple in Sabah’, why the couple doesn’t look real happy, blissful and in love as those marriages we encountered in modernized weddings. Or is it just their culture and Tribal characteristics never to reveal their real happiness to people.



I reach the crossroads where one lead on to Poluni’s medical research and another to his footage tour. I carried on the vertical footage tour first. Now poluni seem to encounter a chinese farmer family in Singapore Paya Lebar. There were 7 kids and one granny and the 2 parents. It seems like a typical happy family of 3 generations. There were at least 4 boys. Suddenly it pushs me to think of the "favor boy over girls" issue in the olden days and having many kids is common so that they can help out with the farming work.

Followed on are a lot of photos about who he met and what he encountered in Malaya. Finally I reach a chair that is placed in front of the plasma tv. It seems like all the previous photos that we passed by is just his random thoughts and memories about his times in Malaya and Singapore. The chair seems to indicate that it was times he lay back and played back his previous memories (but this time to the audience). I would love to listen to Poluni talked with visual effects about the olden times, however too bad that the speakers don’t seem to be working. Luckily for me, I would still make out the pictures in the tv and interpret myself the situations in the video. Children playing a spinning nut, Fishing game and even the ‘Jong’ sail sea game seem to be telling us ‘a picture tells a million words’ of the simple life in the past Malaya and what he had encountered. Caucasians and Malays are already living in Harmony during that time. The video lasted on for around 13 mins and I stand up to prepare myself to Poluni’s medical life.



In the section of Poluni’s medical life, the exhibition had really made me feel in the sudden world of Dr Poluni. Why is that so? With maps, patients’ photo (the infected eye & the family consultation) and the huge long showcase of documents, cameras and books, I feel like I was in an office. If I can touch the artifacts, I believe everything could seem more realistic. The huge map of photos on the wall seems to give me a great explosion of memories of everything Poluni encountered. The photos seem so far from me, yet so familiar of such we can saw in our grandparents’ precious photo album.

I entered into the small room and saw the video of old Poluni, relating to his olden days. However, no sound again. Too bad. The great picture of Tuas reclamation was impactful to me, since it is near where ntu is and is a common industrial area of the west region. I never seem to ponder how the previous Tuas look like, suddenly looking at the big vast land; I could only utter a “wah”


Stepping out of Poluni memories is like gaining a knowledge box of a city I never know. The voices from the recorder and images seem to linger in my head as I walk out of the museum.