"It is the things one takes for granted that disappear most irretrievably-
like the feel of small mosaic tiles beneath one’s small, bare feet."
- Cherian George, Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation

{ABOUT THIS PROJECT}

I was born and grew up in Singapore. In the winter of my junior year of high school I brought my camera with me on trips to Chinatown and Little India to photograph the mosques and Hindu temples at South Bridge Road, and Thian Hock Keng Temple, and convinced my dad to drive me to Kranji War Memorial (still maintained by the British Commonwealth and honoring the mainly British and Indian soldiers who died defending Singapore in WWII) and Makepeace Road. These were places I was either attached to, or felt were reminiscent of what Singapore had been like in the past, before we developed an obsession with renovation and reconstruction. Because in Singapore the average lifespan of any building is only a few years and because I don’t know if the places I remember as a child will continue to exist, I have to capture everything on film, to help me remember. The project began because there was a beautiful old building opposite my hairdresser in Club Street, that I noticed one day had been cordoned off with red tape and designated for either renovation or tearing down. Taking a photograph was the only option left for me.

In documenting these places I discovered a side of Singapore that I had never seen, or thought was lost a long time ago. It was there in rare glimpses, flashes through the view-finder: a sky-blue vespa reclining by the roadside, dried mushrooms in plastic baskets in the five-foot-way, the wreath of paper poppies someone had left beneath the wall of Indian soldiers' names, or the playground behind Makepeace Road where two boys swung back and forth on creaky swings in the dying evening light. - W.L