It’s been quite a journey, and it all started from this:
Why did we pick Port Cities again as our topic? I don’t remember much of it now, but I remember agreeing to the topic because I was watching this movie Pirates of the Caribbean – a pirate movie set in fictional Port Royal with European colonialism setting – the night before, and Singapore was briefly mentioned in the movie. That piqued my interest. And my naming sense.
We all know how Singapore history is often discussed as a port city built by the British out of a sleepy fishing village. But is it really? I mean, just look at the geography, it is smack in the middle of Melacca Strait, surely there should be more? There was, and its name was Temasek. So, two of the biggest port cities in the trade hotspot of SEA once stood here, one of them still does actually until today. Why should we be looking anywhere else for this topic?
After some more initial research and browsing around, we thus decided to cover not one, but two of them at the same time. It was around that timing that field trip to NUS museum rolled around the corner, too.
And at least two of us had the chance of actually seeing the object we’re going to present – the Chinese compass fragments and the Copper coins. We’d like to think it really helps, especially in making these :
Well.
In hindsight, for the digital media ideas, parts of it came from ACM too, in which there were those interactive panels displaying the context of their exhibitions. Context of the artefacts seems to be very important to ACM, because it really draws people to the story behind it. And we’d like to bring them into this project.
Not everything in our project has that clever sounding reasoning, though. I have to confess, that the other part of the reason also came from my own personal project for my other module – in which I attempted to bring an immersive experience of the ocean into various media.
And so we got this concept of digital multi-sensory experience in the exhibition. I’d like to think that Port Singapore is an exhibition that transcends time in more than a way; it connects a past with an even older past, and also current technology with history.
Overall, this entire semester has been fun. For one, it sated my compulsive tendency to browse random information to fill my journal with. It’s also kind of nostalgic, as I got to recall a lot of good chunks of information drilled into my head before from my past history lessons, be it from ADM, my JC days when I took South East Asian history and from even further back. As with those history modules, they worked to patch gaps of understanding of each others and raised new topics to ponder about.
I get a mixed feeling knowing this is probably the last history module I’m taking in a formal education setting. Knowing that (I think) I’ve managed to learn things from this module, topics that are quite close to home even, sure feels like a nice closure. History lessons have brought me through time and space, to situations and people I may or may not actually meet or interact with, and it’s helped me making sense of what happens in this world all the same. It’s only fitting that I close this long journey with the topics I can actually relate with.
And so, the ocean has been traversed and the ship is docking. It’s been quite a journey indeed. Not one without turbulence and ever changing weather, but well, that’s a journey for you.
Until then,
Aurelia.