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The exercise references Kampong Gelam’s history through a 19th century piece of Malay literature entitled Sya’ir Kampung Gelam Terbakar, written by Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir (also known as Munshi Abdullah). In doing so, the work shifts the axis of Kampong Gelam’s importance away from the larger colonial imagination to that of local public memory instead - specifically, of a great fire that ravaged the district in 1847.

The work, monument-like, is a deliberation, a site of commemoration and the display of both the loss incurred by the fire, but also the seeming loss of the sites history, now buried under the sediment of the district’s transformation in recent years.

The vitrine will see changes in March and its last iteration in April 2020. However due to the restrictions impacted by the pandemic in 2020, the works intended outcome was interrupted and not realised.
We docked by the magenta line
durational installation with items, objects acquired and collected detritus from vicinity of Kampong Glam. Conceived with assistance from Azri Azman, Dhiya Muhammad, shif, Hazri, Spegepeng, Khairy, wan_zemmy, @budyoung and cenderawa$ey, 2019 - 2020