In 2015, I returned to Singapore after a long absence to get to know the country better and understand the place and its people. Many Singaporeans feel disorientated in a landscape of ever-changing high rises. Since the country’s independence from Britain in 1963, the society has undergone mass development. Once a cluster of villages, the city has transformed into one of the world’s most advanced societies. Many kampongs (villages) have disappeared. There is an urgency to remember a slower pace of life, bound by community before it’s erased. Examining my 2015 footage, I felt they lacked sensations such as the dense, salty air, or the lingering sense of past actions and events. How does one experience the stories of a place? I longed for the familiarity of a space and in speaking with family members and residents, I was ignited by their desire to cherish and showcase the past as the future threatened to eliminate everything they knew and loved. I was inspired by one of the project’s featured residents, Carmen Low, who runs a few businesses in the city’s Chinatown. She transformed her childhood restaurant and community space into a vegan restaurant and trendy rooftop bar showcasing new music artists combining electronica with Chinese opera. Not only did she preserve beloved spaces and culture, she’s drawing in a new generation. Consequently, I wanted to honour these neighbourhoods beyond the typical filmic documentation methods and so, I turned to XR to see how we can remember the significance of places and personal histories in a new way.
