EFFORTS
The Illustrator
The Photographer
The Author
PEERING intently at his computer screen, Mr Lee Xin Li sketches out a flock of tiny birds that are quickly dwarfed by the pit that contains them.
“We called it the ‘Pigeon Hole’ because there’re lots of pigeons inside and nobody dared touch the droppings,” recalls Mr Lee, 25, of the concrete sandpit that was his playground.
In a moment, a child and a soldier perch on the Pigeon Hole’s edge, while a tin-roofed coffee shop appears behind them. The NUS Architecture student also remembers helping to pack takeaway boxes at the coffee shop, where his mother sold hor fun.
With reference to his childhood memories and recent photographs by shutterbugs who had sneaked into the place, Mr Lee took a day to complete his digital illustration of Neo Tiew Estate. The estate, vacated in 2002, is now a training area for the Singapore Armed Forces.
Mr Lee, whose illustrations of old places in their heyday are published on his blog Pok Pok and Away, is just one of a growing number of individuals who work on nostalgia projects that document disappearing places, trades and activities in Singapore.
Their projects come in the form of blogs, short films and independently published books that feature photographs, artwork and interviews.
Since last November, more than 1,200 individuals have pledged their nostalgia blogs to the Singapore Memory Project, a movement facilitated by the National Library Board (NLB) to document Singaporean memories.
More books about heritage and nostalgia are appearing on bookshelves, though they do not sell well, according to SelectBooks Director Seow Hwye Min, 44, whose company specialises in books on Southeast Asian history and heritage.
Reflecting this, the NLB online catalogue shows a year-on-year increase in the number of independently published books on heritage over the past five years.
Previously, the only heritage books available were those published or commissioned by government agencies like the National Heritage Board (NHB).
Now, grants like the NHB’s HI2P (Heritage Industry Incentive Programme) are helping interested individuals fund their nostalgia-related projects, said Mr Seow.
Besides government funding, more people are contributing to the heritage scene today due to fewer technological barriers, according to Assistant Professor Liew Kai Khiun, 40, of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
Documentation tools are becoming cheaper and more accessible with recent developments in technology and social media, said Prof Liew, who has done research on heritage advocacy in the digital age.
Indeed, along with an increase in nostalgia blogs, there have been more visitors to such blogs being directed in from social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, according to blog owners.
Moreover, the NTU Broadcast and Cinema Studies professor was unsurprised to see such a trend in Singapore, as there has been a rise in nostalgic documentation in other Asian countries as well.
“The past is an anchor for people of rapidly urbanising countries like China and Hong Kong,” said Prof Liew. “More people are talking about nostalgia, some of them expressing a certain dissatisfaction with the present — the inability to hold onto old things, practices and trades.”
Such sentiments were noted by author and photographer of Parting Glances, Mr Craig McTurk, 44, while working on his book about evolving spaces in Singapore.
“People like me see a lot of places disappearing, and their cameras are their only weapons, their only means to preserve history,” said the American educator and documentary director, who has lived in Singapore since 2001.
Likewise, increasing public awareness of “our fading heritage amidst Singapore’s rapid development” was why the owner of Remember Singapore started his blog in 2010.
The blog owner, who wishes to be known only as “RemSG” and claims to be a Singaporean in his thirties, said: “The emergence of more nostalgia blogs in recent years is good for the heritage community as it represents a bigger voice for heritage conservation.”
He cited the recent petitions to save Bukit Brown Cemetery and Old School, which appeared in the news over the last two years for facing planned demolition.
Still, others working on nostalgia projects believe that they do so for simpler and more personal reasons.
“It’s simply so that in future, when we tell our children about things that no longer exist, there are photos to show them what we’re talking about,” said Mr Bob Lee, 37, who has photographed elderly dwellers of one-room flats that are no longer being built.
“What is ordinary now will become extraordinary 50, 100 years down the road — they will become future memories,” said the former Lianhe Zaobao photojournalist.
There are other photographers of old architecture who do so not in the name of nostalgia or heritage, though.
Street photographer Daryl Moh, 24, said he photographs old buildings as he loves how they look, rather than for their heritage value. “I think it’s good to share such photos with others, but not to the point where nostalgic photography becomes a cliché, and loses its meaning,” he said.
But with the Singapore Memory Project asking more Singaporeans to contribute stories and photographs to the national databank — in lieu of the nation’s upcoming 50th birthday — it appears that the nostalgia movement is here to stay.
A Social Trend Story