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.