Guided Tour of "Fragments of an Unknown Space" at DECK Open Ground

as part of the 9th Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF)

Date: 19th Oct 24 (Sat)

Time: 4.30pm—5.30pm

Venue: DECK Open Ground (120A Prinsep St, Singapore 187937)

Registration: $10 (General), $8 (Concession)

Guides: Robert Zhao Renhui [SG], Ge Xiaocong [SG], Lewis Choo [SG]

Facilitator: Gwen Lee [SG], Co-founder & Director of SIPF & DECK

Capacity: Limited to 30 pax

—

Advisory:

• This is an in-person guided tour is held outdoors and is a rain-or-shine experience.
• The tour will start at 4.30pm — we seek your help to be punctual and to arrive at the venue at least 10mins in advance to faciliate registration, so that the tour can start promptly.
• Participants are advised to come in a comfortable attire and footwear, and to bring an umbrella in case of incliment weather during the tour.
• In the event of unfavorable weather that renders the conduct of the tour impossible, SIPF may cancel the tour and will inform participants of alternative arrangements.

In early 2024, five artists—Robert, Chun Aik, Lewis, Arrvin, and Xiaocong—were invited to delve into the enigmatic history of 116 Prinsep Street, the land on which DECK once stood. This site, left vacant since 1983, holds what might be the last physical remnants of Singapore's squatter settlements—an old toilet, a medal, a comb, a toothbrush, a weathered shampoo package, along with stones, bricks, and tiles from before 1983.

DECK revived this space in 2014, but since 2022, the land has been abandoned once again. Now, it is home to a large crow, a few elusive cats, and nearly 50 species of weeds and plants, as nature quietly reclaims the area. However, with DECK soon to be rebuilt on this site, these vestiges of a forgotten past will be erased, lost to time once more.

The works in this exhibition do not seek to reconstruct history, nor do they create imagined landscapes. Instead, they concentrate on the loss of history and the current vagrants that now call this wasteland home—the weeds, the crow, the life that persists in the margins. These artworks engage with the gap in history, addressing the failure to connect with a past that is both elusive and fragmented. The absence of official records becomes an invitation to explore how we might see and understand this abandoned land as it is now, in its fleeting, transitory state.

These five artists approach the site as a living, breathing entity, documenting the ephemeral and the overlooked. Their art captures the void left by history, the remnants of a past that will soon be erased, and the silent witnesses to this erasure—the crow, the cats, the weeds. Through their work, they confront the disconnection from history, reflecting on what is lost when a past remains untethered and unremembered.

As you navigate this exhibition, you are invited to engage with the present reality of 116 Prinsep Street, to see the imagined possibilities of how we can view this abandoned land now. This is not just a story of what once was, but of what is here now, and what will soon be gone. If we do not record these stories, these lives, these moments, they will be forgotten—the crow, the weeds, the traces of human presence, all risking being lost to time unless someone remembers them.

Host or Publisher Singapore International Photography Festival