Time — Space — People
A visual dialogue exploring traces of time within architectural spaces or objects of significance in Singapore. An attempt to connect time, space and people, an experimental exploration into poetic expression of space within places, based upon spatial experience through photography, video and various mediums. In hopes that through the process, these places and objects can take on new meanings; and that the collective memory of our nation could extend beyond our generation.
This project comprises of 3 publications, each publication focusing on an aspect — time, space and people:
Space focus on poetic expressions through poems and photography based upon spatial experience.
People consists of background history and location of place.
Places featured are mostly famous architectural landmarks that are significant to Singapore’s history,
represents an era or a Golden period in Singapore.
Time features a collection of articles that record fragments of time.
An attempt to “capture” traces of time in space and objects, metaphorically.
Space — Experience of Space
Space — Poetic expressions
Each space mentioned in the book is accompanied by a poem which I wrote based on my experience and thoughts of the space; together with
a set of photographs that resonates with the mood described in the poem. Some images are stacked on top of each other, to be viewed as a set as they
featured details from various perspectives of the same area within the space. It can be a zoomed out overview of the space, followed by another image
that zoomed into a particular detail. This publication is limited to a monochromatic palette of black, white and shades of grey, to highlight the interaction of light and shadow in the space.
People — Events & Memories
People — Cover
Image of figure printed on translucent paper, pasted onto image of space, torn on the bottom edge.
The intentionally torn edges injects notion of “human“ quaities onto the cover. The overlapping of two image signifies subtle notion of transition from “space”, with added human values of where histories and identities comes into “place”.
People — History and Location maps
Historical background and Maps that illustrate the location of place, as well as indication of places that has moved from one location to another.
The respective locations of places are marked in blue on the scanned and edited old 1989 maps. For places like the National Library, which have moved from Stamford Road to Victoria Street, have been overlaid with a hand-traced version of the map, indicating the current location in Blue. The descriptions and background history of the place are printed on a smaller blue booklet, tucked in between the pages. The blue coloured marked location and the blue booklet, serves as a visual indication of the reference points for viewers.
*The old maps are retrieved from a copy of Singapore Street Directory printed in 1989.
Detail of hand traced map indicating old and current location. It is printed on blue paper instead of translucent paper as the maps are different for previous and current location.
Time — Traces of time lived
Time — Cover
Cover material mimics the archive book covers, found in reference library. They are usually classic case bound, with title foiled or embossed onto book covers. The archive books are usually collation of speeches, old newspaper clippings, introduction of government plans, etc. The Time book borrows the notion of a little “archive” book recording traces of time lived within spaces mentioned in this project. Cutout slit on the cover serves both as a visual extension from the slit on the page of the Space book, as well as a notion of light shinning into the pages, as viewer flips open the book.
Time — Section Divider
Each section divider has an area cut out of the image representing the space. The cut-out on the page allows light to diffuse through the translucent paper, into the space within the book. It serves the metaphor of (time) light shinning into the space. The translucent paper softens the light shinning through, mimicking the soft natural sunlight shinning through windows and doors.
Time — Timeline
A piece of black paper with a timeline that can be extended out of the page. The time-line marked significant events that took place within each place, mentioned in this project Inspired by the Ticker tape, the punched holes marked respective milestones / events, mimicking the trail of dots on black ticker tapes. Although it does not function in the same way as the ticker tape, however it tags on the similar notion of time — The trail of dots as metaphors of traces of time
Video projected onto installation space
Video Projection
Video & Photography: Cheryl Chong
Music: CODA by Dustin O'Halloran
Music: CODA by Dustin O'Halloran
This forms part of my Final Year Project, done in School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University. The videos are projected onto my installation booth space during the admshow 2015, which showcased works of graduating students. The actual piece consist of two overlapping videos, from two different projectors.
The main projection screens a video focused on mood of space, while the other smaller projection displays a series of photographs that emphasis on the aspect of place; emphasising on images of iconic structures of architectures or objects. At times, the smaller projection could project images that offer alternate views of the space, in relation to what is showing in the video on the bigger projection.
It shares a similiar visual expression of overlaying images as one of my SPACE publication. The Intention of the video projections is to tie in the overall experience of space with the publications, as the viewer flips through the pages.
