Installation: Inkjet Photographic Prints
80cm x 100cm
The Future Looks Back began with an urge to explore a transcript of a conversation between Lim Chin Siong and a British Commission interrogation officer during his second detention at Changi Gaol (Changi Prison today) in 1963. I had found this record during my university days in London while on a trip to the National Archives in Kew. As I read the transcript, I felt like I could hear Chin Siong speaking directly. It was also my first in-depth encounter with this important figure in Singapore’s history, one whom I did not know much about then.
The life of Lim Chin Siong, much like queer experiences and other stories that go against the foundational myths of Singapore, undergo a process of invisiblisation within our national memory. For many young Singaporeans who sit on the side of having already forgotten, they might never come across these deliberately hidden narratives in their lifetime unless they actively look for them.
While developing this project, I wondered: who or what remembers Lim Chin Siong?
I asked my Ahma if she knew who he was. She described him as “the guy who was in and out of prison”. Yet, when following up with another question, she was hesitant to go into further detail, changing the subject of the conversation. I noticed the tensing of her hands, the slowing of her breathing. In that moment, I realised her body is the vehicle that remembers Chin Siong. The self-portraits with my Ahma take on the function of being a secondary witness, passing down what we cannot say to each other.