The Sufi and the Bearded Man
This series is a documentation of the Siti Maryam shrine, or keramat, that used to be located alongside the Kallang River, Singapore. Demolished and exhumed in early April 2010, it has materialized into an exhibition at the NUS Museum as an attempt at ethnographic preservation (through the objects), aestheticization, and storytelling of the otherwise silenced histories. These photographs were taken over a space of a year as myself and historian Teren Sevea moved in and out of the space that was ever-changing with every visit.
As it is with a lot of spaces in Singapore, they are constantly being reduced to roads or made way for redevelopment as soon as they are deemed 'unnecessary' by the authorities. In documenting the space visually before, during, and after the process of its erasure, this series has dealt with a variety of discussions in relation to Singapore in its relationships to spaces, heritage, history, memory, as well as more personal issues of narratives, oral histories, and 'home'.
My essay on photographing the space can be found here.
As it is with a lot of spaces in Singapore, they are constantly being reduced to roads or made way for redevelopment as soon as they are deemed 'unnecessary' by the authorities. In documenting the space visually before, during, and after the process of its erasure, this series has dealt with a variety of discussions in relation to Singapore in its relationships to spaces, heritage, history, memory, as well as more personal issues of narratives, oral histories, and 'home'.
My essay on photographing the space can be found here.
