To Singapore with Love is a series of interviews with politically exiled activists, student leaders and communists who fled between 1960s-1980s to escape the prospect of detention without trial carried out by the British Colonial Government and later, by the Singapore Government.
To Singapore with love analyzes the effect time has on memory and (in part) nostalgia.
To Singapore,
With Love
The section on memories seek to explore “fictional truths” and how time and nostalgia may affect the way people romanticize periods and places of conflict.
Following the exploration of accountability and warfare, this led me to survivors of conflict and how people who have lived through this events might have a different point of view as compared to a stranger overseeing the events of their lives.
Straits Times
Paradis Sans Promesse
A piece of work features in “paradis sans promesse” calls for different people who have watched this film to review it from memory, looking at the different opinions and interpretations of the film and how the same narrative of memories and empathy echos with different people.
Written accounts of those who have watched to Singapore with love.
Three: “and I don’t know how many people, in our day and age and the environment in which we were raised, can truly have the conviction to dream, go off a cliff, remain at the bottom of that ravine forever and still fucking look out for Singapore on the news”
Two: “it struck me in the way he was singing praises about Singapore that his exile has in a sense made him idealize Singapore.”
One:”thus, I watched the film with a small amount of scepticism and rationalized a lot of the exiles’ longing for Singapore not necessarily as patriotism but a longing that stemmed not so much we love for a country but from not being allowed to live where they wanted to live, and being ripped from a community they believe in and helped to build.” “Finally, another sense I got from the film was the fear of being forgotten or blamed. Almost a sense of guilt.”
Trench Warfare, Imperial War Museum
POETICS OF WAR
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
-As You Like It, spoken by Jaques, William Shakespeare
Through the progression of war poetry, one can analyze how the thoughts and spirit of the people changed throughout history, examining how perceived realities are marred through hardship and violence, observing the development of memories.
“The Man He Killed” - Thomas Hardy
(Second Boer War, 1899-1902)
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
This poem juxtaposes acts of war with the idea of ordinary life, analyzing war as something irrational and through the lens of an ordinary man, pounders the motives of war that drives people to kill strangers they would have otherwise had ordinary daily interactions with.
There is eventually no justifiable conclusion as to why the soldier in this poem had to kill his enemy.
This poem is interesting because the poet has never actually personally been in a war and yet dramatizes interactions in a war with the intent of questioning the larger purpose of warfare and killing.
The Art of War
These pieces of work were exhibited in “The Age of Terror, Art Since 9/11” in the imperial war museum.
These works where artists explore the complexities of modern warfare on our perception of reality and fiction stood out to me as it shines a new light beyond the conventional way in which war is reported through facts and figures.
Another dynamic that many of these pieces explore is how war is fought through unmanned drones, removing the physical aspect of having to face your enemies. It blurs the distinction between fiction and reality where victims of war are merely images displayed through screens, dehumanizing them in a way warfare has never seen before.
Jim Ricks
Predator (carpet bombing), 2016
Inspired by Afghan War Rug depicting weapons, bullets and tanks.
References the high number of drone strikes the region experienced since the US campaign began in 2001.
Trevor Paglen
Untitled (Reaper Drone), 2012
Paglen’s photographs captures unmanned aircrafts with telephoto lens, exemplifying the elusive nature of drones.
Dexter dalwood
White Flag,2010
Six Days In Fallujah(unreleased video game glorifying controversial episode of war)
(White phosphorous used in the battle by US)
Omer Fast
Five Thousand Feet is the Best, 2011
This film reveals the psychological impact of engaging an enemy from thousands of miles away.
Examining documentary interviews and fictionalized reenactments. This film creates a multifaceted and unstable sense of reality.
“What’s the difference between you and someone who sits in an airplane?”